Jordan's King Abdullah urged the United States on Saturday to push Israel and the Palestinians to implement the "road map" peace plan, saying the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had created an opportunity. "Palestinians have lost a leader who kept their hope of independence alive for more than half a century," he wrote in a commentary for the International Herald Tribune. "Now, an opportunity exists to honour the best of that legacy, in a new drive for progress and peace." For Washington, this meant "leading the peace process and insisting that both sides engage in genuine dialogue and live up to their commitments spelled out in the road map -- one that President George W. Bush has said could lead to the creation of a Palestinian state next year." It expected the Palestinian authorities to introduce democratic reforms and clamp down on attacks on Israelis, and Israel to freeze settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and withdraw progressively from areas it has occupied since the start of a Palestinian uprising in 2000. Abdullah said the Palestinians could exploit the opportunity by "delivering on the reforms that statehood involves: competent governance, investments in public welfare, fighting corruption, tougher security against terrorism and a real partnership at the peace tables". Israel, he said, could pursue its plan to withdraw Jewish settlements from Gaza and also "take other confidence-building measures that will refute the charge that its recent policies are intended to sideline the peace process and further divide people".
