DeLay Is to Carry Dissenting Message on a Mideast Tour

ASHINGTON, July 24 — Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, never tires of reminding people that he is just a former pest exterminator from Sugar Land, Tex. But beginning this weekend, he will travel to the world's most complex and troubled region, meet with prime ministers, speak to a foreign parliament and, by his presence, remind the Bush administration to pay heed to its right flank as it seeks to make peace.

As he travels next week through Israel, Jordan and Iraq, he will take with him a message of grave doubt that the Middle East is ready for a Palestinian state, as called for in the current peace plan, known as the road map, backed by the administration and Europe.

"I'm sure there are some in the administration who are smarter than me, but I can't imagine in the very near future that a Palestinian state could ever happen," he said in an interview today, as he prepared to leave for a weeklong official tour.

"I can't imagine this president supporting a state of terrorists, a sovereign state of terrorists," he said. "You'd have to change almost an entire generation's culture."

Instead, Mr. DeLay, one of the three most powerful Republicans in Congress, called on the administration to carry out a "Marshall plan" for Palestinian areas, with the United States paying to rebuild the economy there rather than giving aid to Palestinian leaders directly. He said he had been working hard to persuade the White House to support his plan, and intended to bring it up in separate meetings with Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers. He will also address the Israeli Parliament and meet with King Abdullah of Jordan.

During the last year or two, Mr. DeLay has emerged as a significant figure in Middle East policy, particularly since his ascension to the majority leader's post this session. He has often fought for more aid to Israel than the Bush administration has offered, and has in the past called the peace plan "a road map to destruction."

As an evangelical Christian, he is the most prominent member in Washington of the Christian Zionist movement, a formidable bloc of conservative Republicans whose support for Israel is based on biblical interpretations, sometimes putting them to the right of Israeli government. His persistent skepticism about Mr. Bush's peace initiative indicates that the president may yet have to wrestle with his right flank in pursuing a plan that ultimately calls for a Palestinian state.

Mr. DeLay praised the president today for forcefully refusing to negotiate with Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, whom he called a terrorist, and said he would not be critical of the road map. But he has clearly been taken aback by the pace of Israel's own progress toward negotiations with the Palestinians.

"You could have knocked me over," he said, when Mr. Sharon declared in May that the time had come to divide the land of Israel with the Palestinians, a position that Mr. DeLay has long abhorred with much of the same thunder that used to be Mr. Sharon's trademark.

Even now, he said, he thinks that the Palestinians must go much further in renouncing terrorism before a meaningful peace can be achieved.

"So far, I can't be critical, but I do have grave concerns," he said. "I have watched peace process after peace process after peace process, which is what happens when the process drives everything, not the peace. When they talk about a road map, I question whether this is a road map based on the president's speech, or a road map based on some State Department concept of another peace process."

He said the American military victory in Iraq, however, had given him some optimism that Palestinians would begin to move away from the use of violence as they began to appreciate the power of the United States.

"In the Arab world before 9/11, they thought the United States was a paper tiger," said Mr. DeLay, who will also make a brief visit to military commanders in Baghdad next week. "We had a president at the time whose retaliation at terrorism was throwing a few bombs in the desert. They laughed at that. And now they see this is real stuff and real power. And they respect power. If the experiment going on in Iraq comes off, it will have a huge, huge impact in the Arab world, showing people who want freedom and self-government and education that they can have it."

Congressional Democrats, hoping not to lose any of their traditional Jewish support to pro-Israel Republicans, are also planning an official visit to Israel. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip, will lead a delegation of 29 House Democrats to Israel next month, and he said he believed that he would carry a more upbeat view of the peace effort.

He said his group embraced a more optimistic view of the ability of those involved to "effect in the near term a solid peace that is kept between an emerging Palestinian state and a sovereign, secure state of Israel."

In general, Mr. Hoyer said, he shares Mr. DeLay's view that the United States must be absolutely committed to Israel's integrity and security, though he suggested that the Republican position was in part motivated by domestic politics.

Mr. DeLay, however, said politics had nothing to do with his position, predicting that Jews would never leave the Democratic Party in large numbers. Instead, he said, his passion for Israel is driven by his support for its democratic values and by his faith.

"I recognize that my faith came from that part of the world," he said. "And in my faith, fighting for right and wrong, and understanding good and evil, is pretty apparent and pretty straightforward."

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