1. (U) Classified by Ambassador Marcelle M. Wahba
for reasons 1.5 (B) and (D).



2. (C) SUMMARY: UAE reaction to last week's summits in
Sharm El-Sheikh and Aqaba has been a mixture of
appreciation for the President's personal engagement,
skepticism about Sharon's ultimate commitment to a peaceful
solution and fear for Abu Mazen's political future and
physical safety. The press has criticized Hamas' decision
to continue the armed struggle and expressed fears over the
outbreak of a Palestinian civil war. END SUMMARY.



3. (C) MFA Minstate Hamdan bin Zayid telephoned the
Ambassador over the local weekend with his own assessment
of the Aqaba summit. While he felt that the statements
issued by the four leaders were encouraging, Hamdan remains
worried about actual implementation of the roadmap and the
many Israeli reservations. Hamdan reported that the
Emirati leadership believes Abu Mazen said all the right
things but fears that he will be further weakened in
Palestinian circles if he does not get some kind of
substantive response from the Israelis. (Comment: The 6/8
joint attacks on Israeli soldiers have no doubt further fed
fears of Abu Mazen's marginalization and inability to stem
future attacks. End Comment.)



4. (C) Former UAE Oil Minister Mana'a Saeed Al-Otaiba, in a
June 7 meeting with the Ambassador (other topics covered
septel), expressed his trepidation about Abu Mazen's
safety. Al-Otaiba, noting that Abu Mazen was a close
personal friend and that Abu Mazen's elder brother had been
his primary school teacher in Qatar in the late 1950s/early
1960s, recalled a recent private meeting with Abu Mazen in
Morocco. In Al-Otaiba's view, Abu Mazen was faced with a
very daunting task, governing a people who were difficult
to manage in the best of times, with limited resources and
absent the basic tools with which to maintain security.
Al-Otaiba was not surprised by Abu Mazen's decision not to
take back Palestinian territory until he could adequately
control the security situation. Shaykh Hamdan had raised
this point in an earlier conversation with the Ambassador
(reftel).



5. (U) The UAE press also took a pragmatic approach toward
the Aqaba and Sharm summits. The English daily Gulf Today
opined that "the spate of pledges by the participants of
the Aqaba summit should have raised waves of hope all
around the Red Sea had it been made under more realistic
circumstances. But neither Palestinian Prime Minister
Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would
swear on what they pledged in the presence of U.S.
President George W. Bush, now in the role of a peacemaker."
The paper's editorial went on to note that "it would be
naive to believe that Sharon would get the approval from
his extreme right wing colleagues for dismantling
settlements." The English daily Gulf News feared that "the
sudden announcement by Hamas to break off talks with the
Palestinian National Authority (PNA) could give rise to a
Palestinian civil war that will undermine the roadmap and
detract Palestinians from their goal of regaining their
national rights."

WAHBA