Bush confers with Sharon as suicide bombings deal setback to fragile U.S. peace hopes

By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON – Denouncing suicide bombings in Israel as "horrific acts of murder," President Bush on Sunday conferred with Israel's prime minister amid fading U.S. hopes that Yasser Arafat can deliver on curbing terrorism.

What was to have been a pep talk to Ariel Sharon to get started on tentative peace moves was transformed suddenly into an hourlong emergency White House session that shifted the burden to Arafat to prove he can end Palestinian attacks.

Bush administration officials suggested the Palestinian leader may not have a sure grip on control of the Palestinian movement.

"He is not a particularly strong leader," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. "And I don't know that he has good control over the Palestinian situation."

Israeli officials said Sharon's Cabinet would meet Monday and decide on a strong response to the bombings. Publicly, U.S. officials did not press Sharon to avoid a response, instead challenging Arafat to act decisively against Islamic militants.

"Chairman Arafat must do everything in his power to find those who murdered innocent Israelis and bring them to justice," Bush said upon returning from Camp David for the meeting.

The president also urged other Arab leaders in the area to take a more active role in bringing about stability and peace. "The advocates of peace in the Middle East must rise up and fight terror," Bush said.

However, Hassan Abdel Rahman, the Palestine Liberation Organization's chief representative in the United States, said the Palestinian Authority was trying its best to control violence.

"But in order for them to succeed they need reciprocal steps from Israel," Rahman said in an interview.

For instance, he said, Israel should stop its policy of assassinating Palestinian community leaders, lift its siege of the West Bank and Gaza and stop demolishing homes of Palestinians

"There has to be creation of a new environment in the territories that will be conducive and helpful to the Authority in its efforts to control these groups" carrying out attacks, he said.

Bush met with Sharon for an hour. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security assistant, sat in.

After the meeting, Sharon aide Dore Gold said Israel "will have to do what is necessary" to protect itself. The prime minister ignored reporters' questions as he left the White House and headed home.

A senior Israeli official, who briefed reporters in Hebrew on condition of anonymity, said Bush gave an in-depth review of the war in Afghanistan and that the two leaders discussed future possible developments in fighting terrorism.

There was not a single point of disagreement between Bush and Sharon, the official said.

"America understands that Israel will fight terror as it best understands how," the official said. The official said Israelis would try to devise a response "to strike a strong blow against terrorism while doing all possible to avoid war."

White House spokesman Sean McCormack said the focus was on Arafat and the Palestinian leadership to act against terrorist groups, "if he is to be a leader."

Suicide attacks in Jerusalem and the port city of Haifa, as well as a Gaza shooting, killed 26 people – many of them teen-agers – and injured nearly 200.

Powell telephoned Arafat after the attacks in Jerusalem on Saturday, then said he had told him "there can be no excuse for failure to take immediate and thorough action against the perpetrators of these vile acts."

Powell also said he had "made absolutely clear that these despicable and cowardly actions must be brought to an end through immediate, comprehensive and sustained action by the Palestinian Authority against both the individuals responsible and the infrastructure of those groups that support them."

He also telephoned German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in the first step of trying to rally European leaders behind the U.S. call for an end to Palestinian attacks.

Later, on CNN, Powell described the bombings as an attack on Arafat's authority as well as "a terrible attack against innocent Israelis."

The upsurge in violence began a week ago as a new American mediator, Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine Corps general, flew to the region to try to rebuild a wrecked cease-fire and set the stage for implementation of the peacemaking recommendations of a special commission headed by former Senate Democratic leader George Mitchell.

"It's never too late in the search for peace," Mitchell said Sunday on CNN. "It's easy to become discouraged and to throw up your hands and say, `Well, it's gone on for a long time and it will go on forever. I don't believe that."

Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, who head the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement: "The Middle East peace process is dead. It was buried by the murders of children" in Israel.

Debra DeLee, president of the Americans for Peace Now, said the bombings "were aimed straight at the heart of the Israeli people and the fragile peace process that the Bush administration is trying so hard to revive."

In a statement, she urged Sharon "to exercise Israel's right to self-defense in a manner that will not strengthen the hand of terrorists who seek to destroy any chance to implement a meaningful cease-fire and return to the negotiating table."

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