Ironduke

Middle East sides appeal to US

The Palestinians and Israelis have both appealed to America after a week of bloodshed engulfed the US-backed roadmap peace plan.
A Palestinian Authority (PA) official called on Washington to take a strong line in stopping Israeli "escalation" as moves began to secure a new, broader cease-fire.

An Israeli official called on the US to bring the message home to the PA that it had to keep Palestinian militant groups in check itself.

US chief peace monitor John Wolf met PA officials in the West Bank on Saturday as new tensions arose in the town of Nablus.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is to visit Arab capitals in September and he has hinted that an even more senior US official might arrive in coming weeks.

Mr Wolf went to Jericho to meet the PA's chief negotiator, Saeb Erakat, who made a strong protest at "assassinations of Palestinian leaders... by Israel", according to a Palestinian source quoted by AFP news agency.

However, the more immediate US response to this week's violence - in which a Hamas suicide bomber killed 20 people in Jerusalem and Israel killed Ismail Abu Shanab, a high-profile political leader of the group - has been to crack down further on Hamas.

It froze the assets of six top Hamas figures, including those of spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Truce bid

"The whole situation is dependent on the Americans," Nabil Abu Rudeina, a close aide of PA leader Yasser Arafat, told AFP on Saturday.

"They should come out with a serious and decisive position to put an end to the Israeli escalation and violations... The Americans need to intervene."

Another official, Cabinet Minister Abed Rabbo, said the PA could only tackle militants if the Israeli military ended operations.

PA Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath has gone to Ramallah in a bid to get a new truce to replace the seven-week unilateral cease-fire by militant groups which broke down this week.

"We want a hudna [pause] between the whole PA and Israel, that Israel commit itself to as much as we do," he told reporters.

He called on the US to send monitors to the region.

The BBC's Barbara Plett notes that Israel lowered the level of its operations during the earlier truce but still arrested scores of Palestinians and had killed more than 20 by the time of Tuesday's bomb attack in Jerusalem.

On Saturday, Israel troops clashed with stone-throwers in Nablus, reportedly injuring at least 16 people.

Most of them received light wounds from rubber bullets but three received bullet or shrapnel injuries, according to Palestinian doctors in the town, which has been under an Israeli curfew.

Israeli appeal

Dov Weissglas, the chief of staff of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, also called for US intervention - but to put pressure on the PA to disarm groups like Hamas.

At a meeting on Friday with US envoys and in a phone call with US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, he said the US should put more pressure on PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen.

Israeli officials are meeting an Egyptian envoy, Osama al-Baz, this weekend who is visiting on a mission to help rescue the cease-fire.

Mr Baz's initial talks with Mr Arafat on Friday reportedly made little progress, however.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3176055.stm

bigross86

Truce. Or at least until the next attack is done being planned...

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