Palestinians reject U.S. appeal to resume talks

The U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership Tuesday rebuffed an appeal by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to resume peace talks with Israel, saying they would remain suspended until a truce took hold in the Gaza Strip.

“I call on the Israeli government to halt its aggression so the necessary atmosphere can be created to make the negotiations succeed,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said at a joint news conference with Rice at his West Bank compound in Ramallah.

Abbas, who broke off negotiations Sunday after a five-day Israeli assault on Gaza, also urged the Palestinian territory’s ruling Hamas movement to halt rocket fire into Israeli communities.

Rice, hoping for a quick revival of the talks, was disappointed by Abbas’ stance, but she held out hope for an accommodation with Israel.

“We do need the violence to calm down, and we very much need to have everyone focused on the process of bringing peace,” she said.

The Israeli offensive on Hamas rocket-launching operations in Gaza killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants. Israel withdrew its troops Monday, but the rocket fire has continued and Israeli officials have indicated that a bigger invasion of the territory is in the works.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops reentered Gaza in 10 armored vehicles and shot to death a commander of Islamic Jihad, the militant group said. The soldiers blew up the metal door of his home in Khan Yunis, also killing the 2-week-old daughter of a visiting militant with shrapnel and wounding the infant’s mother, a Palestinian medical worker said.

The peace talks, launched at a U.S.-sponsored conference in November, are aimed at President Bush’s goal of an agreement on Palestinian statehood by the end of his term.

Abbas’ retreat has highlighted a weakness in the strategy pursued by the Bush administration and Israel toward that goal: the difficulty of making peace with one Palestinian faction in the West Bank while making war against another in Gaza.

Israeli officials say Abbas understood from the start that Israel needed to protect itself from militants striking from Gaza as the negotiations proceeded. The Israelis argued that weakening Hamas militarily would bolster Abbas’ standing among Palestinians, strengthening his capacity to make deals necessary for a peace accord.

But periodic spasms of violence in Gaza since November have had the opposite effect.

A survey last month by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed the popularity of Abbas’ West Bank-based government declining among Palestinians for the first time since it was established in June after Hamas’ armed takeover of Gaza. The poll showed Hamas’ popularity, though still lower than that of Abbas’ secular Fatah faction, rising for the first time in two years.

U.S. and Israeli officials say Hamas, an Islamic group that advocates the Jewish state’s destruction, played on Abbas’ vulnerability by provoking the Israeli assault in an effort to derail the peace talks.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told foreign diplomats this week that Abbas’ decision to halt the talks “shows weakness” and demonstrates Hamas’ veto power over his actions.

Rice, standing at Abbas’ side, said Israel must have the right to defend itself, but she added that she would urge the Israelis to make “a very strong effort to spare innocent life” in Gaza.

Admonishing Abbas to reverse course, Rice said, “Negotiations are going to have to be able to withstand the efforts of rejectionists to upset them, to create chaos and violence, so that people react by deciding not to negotiate.”

“We look forward to the resumption of those negotiations as soon as possible,” she said.

Abbas remained firm, saying negotiations “are our strategic choice” but require calm to succeed.

Israel’s assault on Gaza, he said, was unjustified “under any pretext.”

Aides to Abbas said he is seeking a cease-fire commitment from Israel that could, with help from Egyptian mediators, persuade Hamas to follow suit.

“The most important thing now is to make sure Israel will not repeat its attacks on the Gaza Strip,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Rice met with Egyptian officials Tuesday before arriving for talks in Ramallah with Abbas and his aides. She dined with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.

Diplomats in the region say Egypt is working on a Gaza cease-fire proposal. But Rice and her Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, avoided the term “cease-fire” during a joint appearance in Cairo. American officials are concerned that a negotiated truce would boost the legitimacy of Hamas, which they view as a terrorist organization.

Israeli officials have given no indication that they plan to halt operations in Gaza. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that the recent incursion “is not a one-time event.”

Bush nonetheless said he was optimistic about getting the talks back on track.

“We expect these leaders to step up and make hard decisions,” he said after meeting Tuesday at the White House with King Abdullah II of Jordan. Olmert and Abbas, he said, “understand that this is now a key moment.”

He added: “This is a process that, you know, always has two steps forward and one step back. We just got to make sure that it’s only one step back.”

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boudreaux@latimes.com

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington and special correspondents Maher Abukhater in Ramallah and Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.