Mideast Officials Cling to Threads of Peace Effort

With words and actions more muted than usual, Israeli and Palestinian officials tried to contain the political fallout Wednesday from twin suicide attacks as an American envoy shuttled between the camps to try to shore up a floundering Mideast peace plan.

Despite the deaths of two Israelis in the back-to-back Palestinian suicide bombings Tuesday, the Israeli government refrained from launching major reprisals such as those that have followed previous, bloodier attacks. Soldiers tightened checkpoints around the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus, the hometown of the two teenage bombers who carried out the bombings, but they did not mount large offensives.

Palestinian officials were also relatively subdued. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas cut short a tour of Arab states to return to the West Bank city of Ramallah, while the Israeli army’s demolition of the family home of one of the suicide attackers did not spark the usual cries of protest.

For now, analysts said, neither side wants to take the responsibility -- or blame -- for declaring dead the U.S.-backed peace initiative known as the road map. Yet neither appears willing to make the necessary concessions to breathe new life into the plan, which calls for the Palestinians to disarm militant groups and Israel to withdraw its forces from parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met with Abbas and senior Israeli officials Wednesday to try to rescue the plan from the mutual recrimination that has brought progress to a halt.

Burns told Abbas in Amman, Jordan, that terrorist attacks like Tuesday’s, in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rosh Haayin and the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the West Bank, severely undercut the chances of achieving the Palestinian state envisioned in the peace plan. The bombings punctured a three-month cease-fire declared by Palestinian extremists, which had modestly buoyed the spirits and economies of Israel and parts of the West Bank since the end of June.

But Burns added that “both sides, Israelis as well as Palestinians, have obligations if we are going to move forward in the interests of both peoples.”

Israeli media reported that Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon were scheduled to meet this week. Abbas pulled out of talks set for last week.

But it was unclear what headway was expected other than, at most, a return to the status quo ante -- which was none too satisfactory to either side to begin with, analysts said.

Both sides have dug in their heels, with Sharon freezing transfer of control in the West Bank and accusing the Palestinians of allowing terrorist attacks to go on -- albeit less frequently -- while Abbas has accused Israel of continuing to round up Palestinians, expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank and offering little in return for the prevailing cease-fire, or hudna.

The truce’s limitations became clearer after Tuesday’s strikes. Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the latter of which is affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and statements from the groups indicated that they did not regard the cease-fire as an unconditional laying down of arms but rather a qualified truce that allowed for striking back if attacked.

Some security analysts say that before Tuesday, Hamas was the most disciplined of the militant groups in abiding by the cease-fire. Even though Israeli forces continued to arrest suspected Hamas activists -- two more were captured Tuesday night in Nablus after the suicide attacks -- the group did not retaliate with force.

But the deaths of four Palestinians in Nablus on Friday as Israel attempted to capture several Hamas members apparently crossed a threshold for violent reaction. Hamas vowed to avenge the deaths.

“Their reaction was just a matter of time,” said Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. “They were simply not able to respond violently as long as Israel was not using the same technique of violence and firepower. As soon as Israel resorted to that, then they felt that they had legitimacy.”

“It’s a hudna, but both sides allow themselves to violate it once in a while” when they feel it necessary, said Mordechai Kedar, a political analyst at Bar-Ilan University. “Both sides are acting and reacting.”

Now that, in their eyes, the bloody score sheet of Israeli and Palestinian deaths has been evened, radical groups are likely to return to upholding the cease-fire, analysts said.

Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s defense minister, blamed the bombings on Arafat, who continues to wield ultimate authority over and against his appointed prime minister, Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Arafat is behind the recent attacks, with his intention of torpedoing the peace process and undermining Abu Mazen’s leadership,” Mofaz said. “The Palestinians must fight terror, dismantle the terror infrastructure and confiscate illegal weapons if there is to be any progress.”

So far, the Palestinian Authority has hesitated to disarm groups such as Hamas for fear of triggering a civil war, preferring instead to encourage such groups to engage Israel politically, not militarily.

“As far as the PA is concerned, it wants political co-optation, not military confrontation,” Shikaki said.

Arafat remains cloistered in his half-demolished headquarters in Ramallah. His sister Yousra Abdel Raouf Kidwah died in Egypt on Wednesday, but Arafat is unlikely to attend her funeral in Gaza today, because he might not be allowed back into Ramallah by the Israeli government.