Powell’s Peace Mission Yields No Cease-Fire

JERUSALEM — In a serious setback to the Bush administration’s foreign policy, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell left the Middle East on Wednesday with little to show for his ambitious 10-day peace mission, quickly triggering angry rhetoric and fears of new bloodshed.

Powell failed most significantly to work out terms for a cease-fire to end nearly 19 months of violence, which has blown up into a region-wide crisis during the last three weeks of suicide bombings and Israel’s reoccupation of many areas in the West Bank.

He was also unable to win agreement on an international conference to launch a political process on a final settlement between Israel and the Arab world, a step that would be key to providing incentives to end the violence and prevent the spillover of bloodshed into the wider region.

“Secretary Powell leaves the situation much worse than when he came in,” senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said after Powell held his final talks with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

At a subsequent news conference, a tired and grim-faced Powell said he had “listened carefully” and “probed hard.” He claimed that he had gained broad support for a comprehensive strategy that embraces three components--political, security and humanitarian issues--to move forward.

But in the end, America’s top diplomat was unable to be a catalyst in dealing with the security and political disputes blocking the peace process. Failure to break the deadlock could in turn have a ripple effect on the Bush administration as it pursues a war on terrorism, the all-absorbing focus of President Bush’s foreign policy, analysts in the region warned.

Shortly before leaving Jerusalem, Powell called on Israelis and Palestinians to make strategic choices to break the deadlock.

“Both sides will have to compromise. Both sides will have to make difficult choices. And both sides may well have to shift from long-held positions,” he told the televised news conference.

In a reflection of the chicken-and-egg problem all the parties face, he added, “There can be no peace without security, but there can also be no security without peace.” At least 1,278 Palestinians and 452 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

The secretary said he was disappointed in Arafat, whom he pressed to stop equivocating on the violence and suicide attacks against Israel.

“We believed all along that he could have done more. . . . The world is looking for him to make a strategic choice and lead his people down the path of peace and reconciliation and let the international community help him,” Powell said.

“If he does not make that strategic choice, it becomes very difficult for the United States, or for anyone else, frankly, to play a role in achieving what the Palestinian people want, and that is peace and a state of their own,” Powell said.

Arafat must issue orders to his remaining security forces to arrest and prosecute extremists, dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and stop incitement, the secretary said.

Although Arafat issued a strong statement before his talks with Powell that condemned all terrorist attacks, including a suicide bombing Friday that killed six people and injured dozens, words are not enough, the secretary added.

Arafat might be “constrained” in his ability to move about or to communicate from his besieged headquarters in Ramallah, but the Palestinian leader still has “a powerful voice” and a leadership position from which to rein in extremists, Powell said.

The Palestinian Authority “must decide, as the rest of the world has decided, that terrorism must end,” Powell said. “Arafat must take that message to his people.”

To facilitate that process, the U.S. plans to resume contact soon with Palestinian security forces to evaluate their capabilities in the aftermath of massive Israeli detentions and destruction of police stations, computer databases, communications and vehicles. The U.S. goal is to restore cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli security forces, Powell said.

But Powell also had firm language for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Despite an “unshakable” U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, Powell called on the Jewish state to expedite its withdrawal from West Bank villages and towns and to “look beyond the destructive impact of the [Jewish] settlements and occupation, both of which must end.”

Israel should instead embrace “the promise” now offered by a recent Arab League proposal for a comprehensive and lasting peace, he said.

Although Sharon has provided a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal, Powell said he was eager to see the long-promised movement and had stressed the urgency of its completion in talks with the prime minister.

En route home, Powell briefed the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers in Cairo on his mission and told them that Israel’s defiance of U.S. and international pressure to withdraw from the West Bank was the plug that prevented movement on a cease-fire, according to a well-placed diplomat who asked to remain anonymous.

Powell understands that the “first order of business is withdrawal. That is the message he is going back with,” the diplomat said.

The Arabs are counting on Powell to persuade Bush to further pressure Sharon to withdraw completely and permanently. “This is a call the president has to make,” the source added.

Bush on Wednesday said Israel “must continue its withdrawals. . . . The time is now for all to make the choice for peace.”

But the pullout has been further complicated by Israel’s plans for search-and-arrest raids into areas from which it has withdrawn, as intelligence provides new leads. Israel also plans to build new buffer zones within the West Bank.

After his talks with Powell, a visibly angry Arafat charged that Israel’s raids signal its “continuing aggression” in violation of the international call for a withdrawal.

The diplomat warned that there will be no progress on other fronts until Israel pulls out its troops and tanks from all Palestinian areas. “Nothing can get done without it,” he said.

If Washington is unable to persuade Sharon, the Americans “can forget about all else” in terms of Arab cooperation in pressuring Arafat, attending a U.S.-orchestrated peace conference between Israel and the Arab world or aiding in the wider war on terrorism, he added.

Deadlock Over Siege at Bethlehem Church

What is getting in the way of a withdrawal is the deadlock over Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, the site that many Christians believe is Jesus’ birthplace, and over Arafat’s besieged Ramallah headquarters. Israel has indicated that it will pull out of other areas within a week or less.

But Israel charges that Palestinian militants responsible for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister, arms smuggling from Iran and other acts have taken refuge in the facilities--and that it will not lift the siege on either site until they are turned over.

The U.S. is working on a compromise deal on the gunmen in the church, which involves a choice of deportation or trial in Israel, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. But tensions increased overnight after a firefight that caused some damage at the church. Powell called the clash “troubling.”

The harder problem is at Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, where Arafat ally Fuad Shubaki and at least four men suspected by Israel of having a role in the October slaying of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi are holding out. Israelis have linked Shubaki to a scheme to ship Iranian arms to the Palestinian territories.

Ramallah Standoff Is ‘Most Difficult Problem’

The Ramallah standoff “has become the most difficult problem with respect to resolving this whole situation,” Powell acknowledged at his news conference.

Under U.S. pressure, Arafat agreed to keep the wanted men under house arrest at his headquarters, U.S. officials said. But Israel insists that they must be turned over before it will lift the siege on Arafat and his offices.

The U.S. is trying to work out some kind of creative solution, perhaps including having the men tried in a different venue. In the meantime, the Powell team is pressing Israel to allow Arafat more freedom.

“It would be useful for the chairman [Arafat] to have greater access, greater ability to communicate with the people that we want him to communicate with, in order to move down the right path and to exercise control over the security forces that are available to them,” Powell told reporters.

After his talks with Powell, Arafat assailed Israel for isolating him. “I have to ask the whole world, I have to ask his excellency President Bush, I have to ask the U.N., is this acceptable that I cannot go outside from this door?”

Israel countered that Arafat was responsible for any failure in Powell’s trip, because it had offered a timeline for withdrawal. “Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat has not reciprocated, has not offered a meaningful cease-fire. . . . Therefore, unfortunately, the cup is half-empty, and it’s half-empty because of Palestinian refusal,” Sharon advisor Dore Gold said.

The Bush administration tried to put a positive spin on the diplomatic rescue mission. Powell said he plans to discuss the idea of an international conference with Bush and U.S. allies after he returns to Washington.

And he announced that Norway will host an international donors conference later this month to raise new funds to reconstruct devastated West Bank towns and provide urgent humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.

Bush praised Powell on Wednesday for taking on “a difficult task. He returns home having made progress toward peace.”

“We’re confronting hatred that is centuries old, disputes that have lingered for decades, but I want you to know, I will continue to lead toward a vision of peace,” Bush said.

Powell said he will return to the region, as will other senior administration officials, to try to keep the peace effort alive.

But other U.S. officials were more sanguine about the results of Powell’s first effort. “There’s not nothing that came out of it,” said one U.S. diplomat involved in the effort. “But there’s not a lot.”