European nations urge Israel, Palestinians to contain violence

By AUDREY WOODS
Associated Press Writer

LONDON – Alarmed at Israel's military retaliation for Palestinian terrorist attacks, European nations urged both sides Tuesday to contain the violence before it is too late.

Arab leaders called for international pressure to bring a stop to violence and retaliation, while Islamic militants urged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to "join the uprising."

The European Union said Arafat must "convincingly and relentlessly" pursue a crackdown against Islamic militants but warned Israel that airstrikes only weaken the Palestinian leader.

"Destabilizing the Palestinian Authority would not help stop the cycle of violence," an EU statement said Tuesday. "On the contrary, the Palestinian Authority should be helped to assume all of its responsibilities under the agreements it has signed."

Israeli warplanes struck Palestinian security targets and Arafat's offices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Monday and Tuesday, killing two people and injuring about 150. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Arafat was to blame for attacks by Islamic militants over the weekend, including suicide bombings in two cities, that killed 26 people.

Palestinian security force have since arrested about 130 members of the militant Islamic Jihad and Hamas groups. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Russia condemned the "inhuman terrorist acts" and urged Israel and Palestinian leaders to give up the hopeless "eye-for-an-eye logic, however justified it might seem at an emotional level."

Israel must show "self-control and not resort to actions that will make the Palestinian-Israel conflict irreversible," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit of Turkey said Israel's airstrikes were "unjust" and threatened to spark a conflict worse than the war in Afghanistan. Ecevit, who said he had spoken to Arafat and Sharon by telephone, urged the United States to take a stronger role.

The United States has not called for Israeli restraint in responding to the latest attacks. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sharon "is responding in a way that he believes is appropriate to defend his people and to defend his country."

But Powell, in Bucharest, Romania, for an anti-terrorism conference, said both sides needed to remember "sooner or later you have to find a way to move forward."

Britain expressed sympathy with Israel but said eventually negotiation must be the solution.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said suicide attacks in Israel over the weekend were "calculatedly set out to stop the renewed effort to revive the peace process."

"However long it takes, whether it is weeks, or months or years, at some point the dialogue is going to have to begin again," a Blair spokesman said.

While international leaders attempted to dampen outrage over the suicide attacks and the strikes on Arafat's headquarters, a Hamas leader in Syria, Khaled Mashaal, urged the Palestinian Authority "to get involved in the uprising," free jailed militants and halt the wave of arrests.

In the Middle East, Jordan called for a meeting of an Arab League committee formed to support the Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah Khatib said Jordan was trying to persuade the United States and European countries to act "to end the aggression of the Israeli occupation forces and to contain the explosive situation."

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Monday night after the first Israeli strikes and urged the international community to step in and quell the violence.

The two leaders condemned "all acts of violence and mutual retaliation that aim to blow up peace process efforts," Egyptian Information Minister Safwat el-Sherif said.

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