BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) — French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday spoke out strongly in favour of a Palestinian state after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.
"The security of Israel is non-negotiable for France, but the creation of a viable, democratic, modern state for the Palestinians is a priority for France," he said at a news conference with Abbas in the Biblical town.
Later, preparing to head home from Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv, his departure ceremony was disrupted by a security scare. A shot rang out when a member of the Israeli guard of honour killed himself in what police said was a suicide.
Bodyguards rushed Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to their plane.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres were taken to their armoured cars, but later boarded the plane to bid farewell to the Sarkozys.
Sarkozy, who spent three days in Israel and the occupied West Bank, pledged in Bethlehem to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state.
"We will use the same strength, the same commitment we used in ensuring Israel's security," said Sarkozy, who on Monday had addressed the Israeli parliament.
He reiterated his call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank, widely seen as a major hurdle to already slowly moving peace talks.
Israel in recent months announced the construction of hundreds of new settler homes in the West Bank, infuriating Palestinians and drawing sharp criticism from the international community.
"I told our Israeli friends the injustice done to the Jewish people can't be resolved by creating conditions of injustice for the Palestinian people," Sarkozy said.
The French leader, who urged Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, said "it was a pleasure to come here to Bethlehem to see what the checkpoints were like, the wall, the misunderstandings on either side. This must stop."
Israel has set up hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints and erected a barrier separating itself from the West Bank, which often protrudes well inside the Palestinian territory.
It claims the measures are vital to its security, but the World Bank says they are a major obstacle to Palestinian economic growth.
Sarkozy also had sharp criticism for Hamas, the Islamist movement that seized power in the Gaza Strip last June and launched almost daily rocket attacks on Israel until a truce went into effect on June 19.
"Violence cannot solve the problems. Hamas is very wrong to have acted the way it did. You do not create peace through terrorism."
As he spoke, another Palestinian faction, Islamic Jihad, claimed it had fired two rockets that slammed into southern Israel without causing any casualties.
The attack from Gaza came after Israeli forces killed a senior Islamic Jihad fighter and another man in the occupied West Bank, which is not part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Abbas, who has had no control over Gaza since Hamas ousted his forces last year, praised Sarkozy, saying: "Your positions, your initiatives are those of a friend. You are a friend, you have the interests of this region at heart."
On Monday, Sarkozy had told Israeli MPs that a lasting peace would entail a future Palestinian state and Israel sharing Jerusalem as their capital.
"There can be no peace without recognising Jerusalem as the capital of two states and the guarantee of freedom of access to the holy places for all religions," he said.
Israel occupied Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it -- a move unrecognised by the international community.
It has since insisted it regards the whole city as its "eternal, indivisible" capital.
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