Bush Urges Israel, Palestinians to Talk : Diplomacy: His renewed plea comes after both sides show more signs of intransigence on a Mideast peace conference.

President Bush on Thursday made another personal appeal to Israel and the Palestinians to set aside their differences and attend a U.S.-backed Middle East peace conference that he called an “unprecedented” opportunity for a lasting settlement.

The new exhortation, in which Bush vowed to “go the extra mile” for peace in the region, came after new indications of intransigence emerged on both sides of the issue and dampened hopes for an enduring breakthrough in the decades-old dispute.

With Palestinians demanding that their delegation include representatives from annexed East Jerusalem and Israel insisting that it must not, the public plea was reinforced by an intensive private effort on the part of U.S. officials to forge a structure acceptable to both parties.

“No one can impose a solution that the parties in the Middle East do not welcome and cannot live with,” the President cautioned in his remarks to a religious convention in suburban Washington.

But he vowed that “the differences must never stand in our way. We can and will be catalysts for peace.”

The forceful remarks appeared intended to stir a new momentum for a peace conference for which the ambitions of five days ago had begun to give way in the face of the new round of rancor and dispute.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, still considering his response to the Administration proposal, Wednesday reiterated hard-line positions that reflected no willingness to compromise with Palestinian or other Arab demands.

Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan have agreed to attend the conference, and Saudi Arabia has said that it will send an observer. But as Israel has pondered, Palestinian leaders have pressed their demand--rejected by Israel--that they be represented by a delegation that includes residents or former residents of East Jerusalem.

That dispute to some extent has shifted the focus from the question of a peace conference to the even more inflammatory question of Jerusalem, whose consolidation in 1967 through the Israeli annexation of the city’s eastern zone remains at the heart of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

In his remarks Thursday, Bush struck a careful balance, extending overtures to both sides. “We know that the Israelis are studying our proposal seriously,” he said. “We hope that they will respond favorably to this historic opportunity for peace and security.”

He added: “I know the Palestinians are closely examining their choices. Here, too, I would ask only that they do everything possible to take advantage of this unprecedented situation to attain their legitimate rights and at the same time further the cause of peace.”

As the President spoke, other officials reiterated the Administration’s hope that Israel might announce its agreement to a peace conference before next Tuesday, when Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev are to meet in Moscow for two days of talks.

The officials stressed that the date represents an aspiration and not a deadline, and Bush’s warning about the pitfalls of an imposed peace appeared to reflect a coolness toward any contemplated U.S.-Soviet effort to force the parties to the bargaining table.

Nevertheless, the continuing private discussions between U.S. envoys and Jordanian, Palestinian and other Arab leaders leave no doubt that under the President’s remarks lay a deep determination on the part of the Administration to take advantage of what officials believe is a historic opportunity.

Administration spokesmen declined Thursday to characterize the substance of those talks except to reiterate that they focus on the question of Palestinian representation. But other officials described the talks as intensive.