Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to walk away from his first visit to the United States without getting the Bush administration to put its heft behind Olmert's sweeping West Bank pullback plan.
U.S. and Israeli officials played down any expectation Monday that Olmert's meeting Tuesday with President Bush would yield dramatic results.
'I don't expect anything formal, but the two of them obviously are going to be talking about ways to keep moving forward' with the peace process, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said the emergence of a Hamas-led Palestinian government had complicated matters with its steadfast refusal to oppose terror.
'We must all examine different options to break the stalemate,' he said, shortly before Olmert met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser.
Before Israel's March 28 elections, Olmert said he would separate Israel from the Palestinians by setting the country's final borders with the West Bank.
If the Palestinians' new Hamas leaders should continue to refuse to renounce violence and their call for Israel's destruction, Israel would act unilaterally, as it did during the summer when it quit the Gaza Strip, he said.
He also pledged to seek international support for his plan.
A diplomatic official in Washington said Monday the administration is sending two of its top Middle East envoys, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council, to the region soon to gather information about Olmert's plans.
Neither a moderation of Hamas' stand nor international support for Olmert's ideas have been forthcoming.
The United States, occupied with Iraq and trying to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, has reacted tepidly to the plan.
Bush faces divisions at home as well. The House began work Monday on sweeping sanctions, opposed by the president but supported by many lawmakers, against the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, including a sharp reduction in humanitarian aid.
'We want to make sure that the U.S. taxpayer will not supply one penny of aid for which the Hamas government can claim any credit,' said Rep. Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., a sponsor of the bill, which also restricts aid to non-governmental groups working in the West Bank and Gaza and denies visas to members of the Palestinian Authority.
'It would restrict relations with and support for many groups and institutions that have nothing to do with terror or rejectionism,' said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (news, bio, voting record), D-Ore., who led opposition to the proposal. A vote was expected on Tuesday.
European and Arab allies also oppose Olmert's plan to act unilaterally if Hamas does not change its ways, and Bush may be reluctant to take them on.
Unilateral Israeli action is also anathema to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
What the United States is expected to do is to press Olmert to at least go through the motions of trying to broker a peace deal — not with Hamas, which Washington regards as a terrorist organization, but with Abbas of the rival Fatah party.
That Olmert does not really want to do.
He sees the Palestinian Authority as a single piece, and does not think distinctions should be made between the Hamas government and the Palestinian president, who was elected separately last year.
He also questions Abbas' ability to deliver such a complicated agreement when he cannot even halt confrontations between his loyalists and Hamas gunmen, including recent attempts to assassinate two of his top security chiefs.
'Abbas doesn't have even the power to take charge of his own government,' Olmert told CNN on Sunday, ahead of his visit to Washington. 'So how can he represent that government in the most crucial, complex and sensitive negotiations, about which there are so many divisions within the Palestinian community?'
A senior Israeli government official told The Associated Press that Israel would 'be willing to go bilateral' if Abbas would start fulfilling pledges he made before the election.
'He said after the election he would dismantle the terrorist organizations,' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Abbas would not have to complete the disarmament before talks could begin, but he must at least have started, the official said.
In a bow to the United States, Israel held its first high-level talks with Abbas since the Palestinian elections at an international conference in Egypt. At that meeting on Sunday, Abbas appealed to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to restore regular contacts between the two sides.
The official who spoke with the AP said Olmert would meet with the Palestinian president after meeting first with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan, both of whom have cautioned against Israeli attempts to set final borders with the West Bank.
AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report