Bush launches Middle East peace drive in Israel

By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Israel on Wednesday aiming to boost efforts to achieve a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians before he leaves office in a year.

Bush will be making his first presidential visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank to try to keep up the momentum of negotiations between the parties created at a peace conference in the U.S. town of Annapolis in November.

The chances of completing a deal on establishing a Palestinian state before he leaves office in January 2009 appear slim, and no breakthroughs are expected during the three days of talks he will have with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

On Wednesday, Bush will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and on Thursday he will focus largely on the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem and will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Olmert and Abbas agreed on Tuesday to begin peace talks on the thorniest issues despite major differences over Jewish settlement construction near Jerusalem.

They authorised negotiations on all final-status issues, from setting statehood borders to deciding the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

Neither side gave a starting date for the talks, but Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said they would begin "immediately".

The first final-status talks in seven years were supposed to get under way soon after the Annapolis conference, but the Palestinians demanded Israel first commit itself to ceasing all settlement activity.