Both Israeli and Arab residents in the holy city Jerusalem seem to keep their hopes down after visiting U.S. President George W. Bush made his statements over a possibility of the Israeli-Palestinian peace.
As Bush was summarizing his visit to Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Thursday night, he told a press conference that a peace accord will require "painful political concessions" by both sides.
He, meanwhile, urged that the occupation of the Palestinian territories must be ended.
However, some 200 right-wing demonstrators at the same time gathered at the center of the capital for a protest prayer.
"The struggles for the other settlements will be ten-fold what there was in Amona. It is good to die for our country," said SOS Israel chairman Rabbi Shlomo Dovber Wolpo, reverberating the reputed last words of the Zionist activist Joseph Trumpeldor.
Wolpo referred to the settlers' strong resistance against the evacuation of the illegal outpost of Amona, situated in the central West Bank southern Samaria region. The Israeli government evacuated Amona eventually almost two years ago in February 2006.
The rally was organized by the SOS Israel under the banner of praying for a unified Jerusalem. Protestors read psalms and carried signs, several of which warned that President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were "bringing another Holocaust".
At the press conference, Bush called for the end of the "occupation" of Arab land by the Israeli military. Resolving the status of Jerusalem will be tough, but a peace agreement is within reach early next year by the end of his presidency, he said.
The U.S. president added that disputed territory must be mutually negotiated, referring to Israeli settlements built on disputed lands that Israel wants to keep when an independent Palestinian state is formed.
Nonetheless, President Bush's statements did not manage to create emotional reactions among the residents of Jerusalem who thought that a peace agreement is not within the capacity of both sides to be attained.
"I support all accords President Bush mentioned in his statement tonight. However, I am not so optimistic anymore," a student from Jerusalem Ido Abramson told Xinhua as he was passing by the activists' demonstration.
"Even though I think Jerusalem should be divided again and the state of Israel should be drawn back to the borders of 1967, I don't believe it will happen in practice because the people here don't want it enough to pay the price," Abramson added.
Yossi Dayan, a bus driver who was awaiting a group of Jewish students who are traveling the state of Israel, told Xinhua he would love to see that day when peace be reached.
"But that will never happen," he prophesied, "they (the Palestinians) don't really seek peace, they are not ready for a state and they don't have a leader to take them there," Dayan said.
"President Bush have already promised an agreement in 2002 and again in 2005," said Asher Bason, another bus driver, while joining the conversation.
"The things he said tonight are empty and meaningless. This is just his (President Bush's) attempt to go down in history as someone who ended the long lasting dispute here," said Bason, adding "And that is a lost cause."
Across the street Majhad, a Jerusalemite Arab resident from the northern neighborhood of Beit Hanina and a coffee shop worker, said he has given up hopes.
"I don't care what he (President Bush) says. Ultimately, I am the one to wait long hours in order to cross the checkpoint to the center of Jerusalem and I don't believe something will ever change," he said in despair.
Ramy Marciano, a regular customer in the coffee shop Majhad, said: "President Bush is throwing slogans in the air just a short while before his presidency is over. I wish all the things he said would come true but it doesn't seem likely."
Maricano, a leftist author who moved to Jerusalem ten years ago from the city of Hertzliya, explained further, "The Israelis and the Palestinians are too much alike, they enjoy the dispute in a masochistic way. True, the common people want the conflict to end but the people in power prefer to just talk about it."
A Bedouin police officer, who was eating with his Jewish colleague that immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union 14 years ago, said that a Palestinian state will not be formed in his lifetime.
"The Arab residents of East Jerusalem don't want to belong to a Palestinian state. As long as they are Israelis they have health and municipal services, they receive national insurance and they know they won't have all these services if they become citizens of a Palestinian state," the officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
"The people in power become corrupted, they say things and promise promises and design documents which are being thrown away to the nearest garbage can as soon as they leave the room. I think the Palestinians and the Israelis know that already and they stopped getting their hopes up. They just praying for some quiet," the officer added.
Ami Azulay, the owner of a kiosk on Jaffa Street who had seen many terror attacks and exploding suicide bombers predicted that a change in the current situation will not occur within the next 20 years.
"We don't have enough land to give some of it up and we are not as strong as we think we are," Azulay said.
"But our biggest problem is that we have so many internal issues and disputes to solve. Giving back the territories will strengthen the other side and will weaken us physically and mentally. Once they (the Palestinians) become stronger they will attack us when we will be in our lowest position," he expressed his worries.
"There were so many chances for us to attain peace in the area," said a client who entered Azulay's store to buy a packet of cigarettes and refused to disclose his name.
"It shouldn't be different this time just because President Bush arrived in Israel. Tomorrow he will be gone and we will have to deal the same old situation," he said, while going out to the streets that were loaded with policemen and women who were deployed to keep a relatively quiet while President Bush's visit was lasting.
<i>Source:Xinhua</i>
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