Attacks jolt Mideast peace plan

A fresh spate of violence punctured already faint hopes that the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers would soon follow Washington's road map to peace.

In historical terms, this is no surprise; new peace initiatives are routinely attacked by extremists on both sides. But knowing that doesn't make the challenge of developing trust and momentum for the road map any easier.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was due to arrive in Washington Monday, postponed his trip after a Palestinian suicide bomber stepped on a bus in a leafy Jerusalem neighborhood, blowing up himself and seven passengers, and wounding 20 others.

A second bomber nearby succeeded in killing only himself, while another suicide bomber on Saturday killed an Israeli couple in the Jewish settlement inside the city of Hebron.

The wave of attacks has come amid a Saturday night summit between Mr. Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the recently appointed Palestinian prime minister. It was the first meeting of Israeli and Palestinian leaders after more than two-and-a-half years of violence.

The swift toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and the appointment of Mr. Abbas were both viewed as possible breakthroughs on the hard path to Middle East peace.

But the changes do not seem to have melted positions or morphed political realities that have defined the conflict since the breakdown in peace talks three years ago this September.

Each side demands that the other take the first risky steps toward putting Bush's road map into play. Sharon says he will not sign on to the road map until he sees Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, use his new office to crack down on Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

But Abbas says that until Sharon accepts the road map - which calls on Israel to withdraw troops from Palestinian towns, dismantle settlement outposts, and allow the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 - there can be no concerted attempt to fight the Islamic fundamentalist movements.

The long-anticipated weekend summit between the prime ministers, so rare in part because Sharon has refused on principle to meet with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, was characterized as "productive" and "constructive" by officials leaving the late-night meeting.

But it was bookended by the two suicide bombings and came at the end of a week in which Israeli military offensives in the Gaza Strip killed eight Palestinians. Sunday, Israeli forces also shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian man in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, and wounded three in clashes with stone-throwers in the West Bank city of Nablus, Reuters reported.

The three-hour meeting between Sharon and Abu Mazen ought to portend good.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post last week, Sharon floated the possibility of brokering a compromise plan to turn over a new leaf: Israel would pull its troops out of the northern part of the Gaza Strip and declare a truce there, simultaneously giving security chief Mohammed Dahlan a chance to prove that the Palestinian Authority is able to rein in militants.

Page: 1 | 2