Bombing Sends Sharon Home

President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon failed Tuesday to narrow their major differences over moving the Middle East toward peace, and the Israeli leader cut short his U.S. visit to return home following a new suicide bombing near Tel Aviv.

The attack occurred shortly after the prime minister entered the Oval Office for his meeting with Bush, who is trying to edge Israelis and Palestinians toward peace. But an angry Sharon indicated Tuesday night that his nation may launch further military action in response to the first suicide bombing in nearly four weeks.

“Our work is not done,” Sharon said at a hastily called news conference here. “The battle will continue until all those who believe that they can make gains through the use of terrorism will cease to exist.”

“Israel will not surrender to blackmail,” he said. “He who rises up to kill us, we will preempt him and kill him first.”

The bombing underscored not just the fragility of peace efforts in the Middle East but also how readily diplomatic momentum can be reversed.

Even though Bush and Sharon were unable to bridge gaps in U.S. and Israeli policy, their meeting created a positive tenor because Bush agreed to send CIA Director George J. Tenet back to the region to help rebuild a Palestinian security force.

Bush and Sharon agreed on the need to make the Palestinian Authority more democratic and less threatening. “We emphasized ... the need for reform in the Palestinian Authority, and I think that’s very important,” Sharon said as he and Bush chatted with reporters after their meeting.

For their part, Arab leaders have scheduled several meetings over the next five days in an effort to build momentum toward peace in the troubled region.

But as night fell, any suggestion of optimism was lost in Sharon’s angry response as he prepared to fly home.

Sharon did not mention Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat but said the bombing offered “proof of the true intentions of the person leading the Palestinian Authority.” He also termed the Palestinian administration a “terrorist and corrupt entity.”

And Sharon clearly moved to scuttle any new U.S. effort to pressure him into reviving the peace process. He said there was “no way to move forward on the political process” with the Palestinian Authority.

The prime minister said he had not consulted with Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney about what course Israel would follow after the latest attack, which left at least 15 Israelis and the bomber dead at a pool hall in the town of Rishon Le Zion.

The visit was Sharon’s fifth with the president since Bush took office. In December, the prime minister returned home abruptly from Washington after suicide attacks in Jerusalem and the port city of Haifa and a shooting in the Gaza Strip killed more than two dozen people, many of them teenagers, and injured nearly 200. Tuesday’s bombing was timed, suggested Geoffrey Kemp, a former Reagan administration Mideast specialist, to demonstrate to Sharon, Bush and Arafat that the terrorist campaign “is not in any way over.”

Kemp said it reinforced Sharon’s argument that security issues must be his top priority before joining longer-range political negotiations.

But Kemp said it also demonstrated “the need for a radical new political approach that is going to be acceptable to the Palestinians and Arabs as well as the Israelis.”

King Abdullah II of Jordan is in Washington to meet with Bush today, and the attack cast a pall on the monarch’s delegation. A senior official traveling with the king said the Jordanians were “deeply depressed” by the attack and its implications for peace efforts.

Throughout Tuesday, the White House had cautioned against expecting the Bush-Sharon meeting to produce a breakthrough. Rather, the meeting and other recent sessions Bush has had with Middle East leaders were presented as part of a lengthy and continuing process.

And the two leaders did not react immediately to the bombing; their brief joint news conference in the Oval Office came after they met for 70 minutes but before either had been given more than a cursory report on the attack.

Speaking to reporters with Sharon at his side, Bush renewed his call for Arab leaders to pressure the Palestinians to seek a peaceful solution to their differences with Israel.

The president, who spoke by telephone with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt before the meeting with Sharon, said: “If people truly want there to be peace, people have to assume their responsibilities for peace. And the Saudis must do that, and they’re willing to do that.”

He said he had made clear to the crown prince, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, “that he and the other leaders must work and must convince the Palestinian Authority that they have got to do everything in their power to lead toward a solution.”

“Our job is to convince the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians that these reforms are absolutely necessary,” Bush said. “And when I say people have got responsibilities, I’m not just saying the Israelis and the Palestinians have responsibilities. I’m saying these leaders.”

Bush and Sharon appeared amiable. The president referred to the prime minister as “my friend” and “Ariel,” and the prime minister smiled repeatedly. However, they did not mask the depth of the differences between their countries.

Bush referred to “Palestine,” a word that makes Sharon bristle. Sharon’s strategy calls for a series of interim steps toward an independent Palestinian state; Bush and many Arab leaders would like to accelerate efforts toward that goal.

The Israeli leader pressed his case with Bush, urging small steps that would lead to a security arrangement with the Palestinian Authority. This, one official said, would indefinitely delay creation of an independent state.

Sharon pointedly referred to a “regional” conference, rather than an international gathering envisioned by the White House. He prefers a meeting with Arab leaders, but not Arafat, that would focus on a limited agenda. Security would be at the top.

Despite his own disdain for Arafat, Bush has been trying to persuade Israel to accept the Palestinian leader as the elected representative of the Palestinian people. The U.S., the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, the so-called quartet now sponsoring the peace process, accept him as such.

Arab Talks in Cairo

Seen as Next Step

The next step appears to be a meeting Thursday in Cairo of foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Bahrain and the Palestinian Authority. They are planning to debate how the Arab world can generate progress and to prepare for a conference of the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria with Arafat in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik this weekend.

The United States is focused on repairing some of the damage inflicted by the Israelis on Palestinian territory and the workings of the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis launched their military operation following a wave of suicide bombings by Palestinians in March.

If conditions for Palestinians improve, U.S. officials hope, terrorism will wane.

Bush said a single Palestinian security force, rather than a collection of official agencies and militias, is necessary. He also stressed the need for a constitution, adherence to the rule of law, and improvements in health services and education.

“There are people in Israel who long for security and peace, people in the Palestinian world who long for security, peace and economic hope,” the president said.

A senior Bush administration official said that Sharon had spoken “quite effectively” during the meeting about the need to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

Asked whether Bush thought that Arafat was a viable leader, the official said: “We’re not going to choose leadership for the Palestinian people.”

The White House appeared to be at pains to signal publicly and privately that it had concerns for the treatment of Palestinians. It recently increased by $30 million its annual aid for Palestinians; the assistance now totals $110 million.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that Bush views corruption within the ranks of the Palestinian leadership as a problem it needs to confront, in part to ensure that humanitarian assistance provided by the United States and the United Nations reached those who needed it.

Bush’s increased involvement in Middle East diplomacy began in early April. Responding to the escalating violence, he declared that “enough is enough.” He dispatched Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the region and called for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

The talks Tuesday and Bush’s meeting with the Jordanian king today build on a series of conversations the president has had with Middle East power brokers in recent weeks.

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this report.