US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Israel late Thursday on the mission of forging peace between two sides that appeared further apart than ever.
Israel has vowed to press on with a military offensive in the West Bank, despite an international outcry, while Palestinian officials refuse to agree to a cease-fire until troops withdraw from Palestinian towns and villages.
Powell was greeted in Tel Aviv by retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, US President Bush's envoy to the region, who immediately briefed him on what he could expect.
At a news conference in Madrid, Spain, before he flew to Israel, Powell insisted that he was optimistic. "I don't like wallowing with pessimists. It is necessary for me to go," he said.
"I am proud to be going ... to get us on a positive track. It is what I should be doing. It is what secretaries of state do."
Nevertheless, he will confront an Israeli leadership that appears united in its resolve to continue its offensive in the West Bank aimed at stamping out Palestinian militant groups.
Even Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, viewed as a dove within the Israeli Cabinet, said Thursday that the military action would continue for two to three more weeks.
"In the month of March, we lost the lives of more than 126 persons," he said on NBC's "Today" show. "We did not have any other alternative."
Before Powell arrived, Israel pulled out of two dozen small towns and villages in the West Bank, but took over other Palestinian areas.
Palestinian officials said the redeployment was a sham. Instead, the Palestinian Authority issued a statement calling on the international community "to dispatch international monitors and to stop these Nazi massacres against our people."
In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that while Israel was withdrawing some troops, neither side had yet met conditions outlined by President Bush to end hostilities.
"The president calls on all the parties to keep working to get them done," Fleischer said.
POWELL'S MESSAGE
Powell challenged the idea that strong Israeli military action on the West Bank could enhance security from terror. Mirroring an argument pressed by Arab leaders, he depicted the Palestinians as angry and frustrated.
"There will still be people who are willing to resort to violence and terror, people who are willing to use suicide bombs and other kinds of bombs," Powell said in Madrid.
The prescription he will offer Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will include statehood for the Palestinians on land held by Israel and US financial assistance to rehabilitate the West Bank from damage Israeli forces have caused in their drive against terrorists.
On the way to Israel, Powell stopped in Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II, who has pressed the Bush administration to persuade Israel to pull back. Jordan has a majority Palestinian population; anti-US and anti-Israel demonstrations are planned there Friday.
Powell spoke to Sharon early Thursday from Madrid. "He was very anxious to meet with me so we can talk about next steps," Powell said.
Sharon told Powell that Israeli forces were withdrawing from two towns and 22 villages. But in Jerusalem, Sharon said he would keep Israeli troops in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus until the terrorists were vanquished.
GUARDED RESPONSE
The White House, which had earlier declined to criticize Israel's pace of withdrawal, was a little more guarded Thursday. "Here is where we are: Israel has continued the withdrawal that began that the president called for, in some areas. There are additional incursions in other areas," Fleischer said.
Fleischer also noted that Bush had urged Arafat to make public statements denouncing suicide bombing and to renounce violence as a political instrument.
"There's no shortage of people who are following the president's lead on speaking out around the world. What still remains to happen is the three parties on the ground to take the actions he's called for," Fleischer said, referring to Arafat and his Palestinian Authority, the Arab states and Israel.
Earlier, Powell met with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to plot the talks Bush will hold in Russia beginning on May 23 with President Vladimir Putin.
TOUGH TALKS
Israel and the United States appeared at odds over two key issues as Powell arrived in Tel Aviv - the speed of the Israeli pullback and the role of Arafat, who has been confined to a few rooms in his West Bank headquarters for the past two weeks.
Sharon has branded Arafat a terrorist and has suggested that he would have no more dealings with him. Powell, however, said Wednesday that Arafat "is the partner that Israel will have to deal with."
Powell was to meet Saturday with Arafat at the besieged compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Sharon said this week that he would consider such a meeting a "tragic mistake," but Alon Pinkas, the Israeli consul in New York, was more optimistic.
Pinkas said that Powell's mission had a good chance of success. Powell could broker a cease-fire, Pinkas said, or he could conclude that Arafat was "incompetent and inept," leading Washington to abandon him. Either conclusion would suit Sharon just fine, Pinkas said.
"Everyone is going to find that with Yasser Arafat there is absolutely no way to do business," Pinkas said. "... This man is not a reliable interlocutor."
HEBRON FATALITY
Israeli troops and tanks rolled into West Bank towns March 29 in a massive offensive triggered by Palestinian suicide bombings that have terrorized Israel. The fighting has slowed the pace of such attacks but not halted them. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber from the Islamic militant group Hamas blew himself up on a bus near the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, killing himself and eight passengers. Hamas identified the bomber as a 22-year-old resident of the Jenin refugee camp.
Thursday, a Palestinian man was killed when explosives he was carrying went off prematurely near a taxi stand in the West Bank town of Hebron. Several bystanders were injured.
The Israeli military said Thursday that it had arrested more than 4,000 Palestinians in its two-week offensive in the West Bank, nearly double the figure it announced two days earlier.
Of those taken into custody, 121 were on Israel's wanted list, the military said. Sharon had said earlier this week that those detained included "several hundred" wanted men.
In the Jenin refugee camp, meanwhile, about three dozen gunmen, including two militia leaders, surrendered Thursday to Israeli soldiers.
BETHLEHEM SHOOTING
In other developments Thursday, a senior Israeli military official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity that an Armenian monk seriously wounded in the besieged Church of the Nativity compound in Bethlehem was apparently shot by an Israeli soldier.
The army initially said the monk was shot by one of more than 200 armed Palestinians holed up in the church as troops were delivering supplies to members of the clergy in the compound.
Since April 2, Israel forces have been surrounding the ancient basilica, one of Christianity's holiest shrines, built over Jesus' traditional birthplace.
The Rev. Amjad Sabarra, a priest inside the church, said on "Hardball" that the Palestinians were not in control of the church but that the situation was critical. The church was without water or electricity, and the priests and monks had too little food to feed even themselves, much less the Palestinians.
"One mistake from each of the two parties - it will be a massacre," Sabarra warned.
(China Daily April 12, 2002)
