(Adds White House comment, paragraph 8) By Matt Spetalnick and Wafa Amr WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush hosts Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House on Thursday to try to bolster him and shore up a fragile U.S.-backed peace effort with Israel. With 10 months left in office, Bush will hold talks with Abbas in the face of deep skepticism over the chances for securing a Middle East peace deal before the U.S. president finishes his term early next year. Abbas, weakened by Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, was expected to seek stepped-up U.S. pressure on Israel. Bush will visit the Jewish state in mid-May to join in celebrations of its 60th anniversary. Negotiations between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have yielded little progress since a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November, where they pledged to try to reach a peace agreement by the end of 2008. The administration now appears to be picking up the pace of Middle East diplomacy again after Bush failed to achieve a breakthrough on his visit to the region in January. In White House talks on Wednesday, aides to Jordan's King Abdullah said the monarch pressed for a timetable for negotiations on Palestinian statehood, something Bush has been reluctant to impose. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to the region before Bush, who is looking to shape a foreign policy legacy that encompasses more than the unpopular war in Iraq. "The Palestinians and the Israelis have made halting progress," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "Part of wanting to meet in advance of his trip is to hear directly from the leaders so that we can help find where the United States can push on the right points in order to get them ... to reinvigorate their communication with one another." But Bush will likely have a hard time squeezing serious concessions from either side as world leaders look increasingly to whomever will succeed him in January 2009. 'WIDE GAPS' Speaking to Washington's Arab community on Wednesday, Abbas said he is committed to a peace deal by year-end but that wide gaps remain. He urged Israel to halt settlement activities, citing that as the chief obstacle to peace. Israel, which says the biggest problem is Abbas' failure to rein in militants, insists it has the right to build in major Jewish settlements it intends to keep under any future peace treaty. Since Annapolis, the climate has been soured by Israeli settlement expansion plans in the occupied West Bank and violence in and around Gaza, where Hamas cross-border rocket fire has drawn a tough Israeli military response. Critics had accused Bush, who disdained predecessor Bill Clinton's failed hands-on peace effort at the end of his presidency, of neglecting the Middle East conflict and they say he still has not deployed Washington's full diplomatic weight. Also uncertain is whether Abbas and Olmert, who heads a shaky ruling coalition, have enough clout to close a deal. Bush wants to boost Abbas, a moderate who governs only in the West Bank since Hamas seized control of Gaza. Insisting Bush's strategy of isolating Hamas was counterproductive, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met the group's leaders in Egypt and Syria last week. The Bush administration opposed Carter's contacts with Hamas, viewed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. The group's charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Hoping to show Palestinians the fruits of peacemaking, Abbas wants U.S. pressure on Israel to reach a framework agreement outlining the path to a two-state solution. For his part, Olmert has made clear he prefers a vaguer list of "understandings" with the Palestinians. (Editing by Doina Chiacu)
An Israeli tank rolls into Israel near the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip, after operating in the Gaza Strip April 24, 2008. An Israeli air strike killed ...
