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Mideast Panel Resumes Probe Into Violence
JERUSALEM, March 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.S.-led fact-finding committee probing the deadly six-month tide of Israeli-Palestinian violence resumed its work Wednesday with Israel accusing the Palestinians of having planned the uprising.
The commission, headed by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, met for the first time with officials of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's two-week-old government and is due to meet later with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Sharon, meanwhile, is due to meet U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan at United Nations headquarters to discuss the situation, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush informed Sharon the new U.S. administration will not try to "force peace" on Israel and the Palestinians.
In its submission to the panel, Israel said the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, was planned rather than being a spontaneous response to Sharon's visit to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem in September while he was still opposition leader.
It said Arafat's Palestinian Authority "instigated, orchestrated and directed the violence."
In a report to the commission submitted Tuesday, Israel said Palestinian communications minister, Emad Falouji, said in a speech earlier this month that the uprising was planned and not a spontaneous outburst. Falouji responded by saying he was misquoted.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters after meeting the five-member panel that Israel, which is accused by Palestinians and human rights groups of using excessive force to quell the uprising, was only reacting to "terror".
"As I understood it, the purpose of the committee is not to find someone to be blamed but to look for ways how to save the situation from falling apart and being victimized by violence and terror," he said.
Peres also attacked a Palestinian request to the United Nations to send an international observer force to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying it would be incapable of dealing with Palestinian "terror."
Mitchell said the committee - which first visited the region in December after its creation at a summit in Egypt in September soon after the violence in the West Bank and Gaza began - had yet to reach any conclusions.
Other members of the committee joining Mitchell include former Turkish President Suleyman Demirel, U.S. Senator Warren Rudman, Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland and European Union foreign policy and security chief Javier Solana.
The former Israeli government of Ehud Barak had suspended its cooperation in January after a technical committee visited the al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, without advising the authorities.
The Palestinians blame Sharon's visit to the site, holy to both Jews and Muslims, for unleashing the unrest that has cost the lives of 440 people, most of them Palestinian.
In Washington, Bush stuck by his largely hands-off approach to the Middle East Tuesday, telling Sharon he "will not try to force peace" on Israel and the Palestinians.
"We'll do everything we can to help calm nerves, to encourage there to be dialogue," said the U.S. leader, who has broken with predecessor Bill Clinton's intensely personal approach to the region.
"I told him our nation will not try to force peace, that we'll facilitate peace and that we will work with those responsible for peace," he said.
But PLO number two Mahmoud Abbas, in interviews with the Palestinian media, accused the new administration of indifference and said the United States had failed in its role of mediator in the peace process.
Sharon, for his part, said security for Israeli citizens was his priority.
"Once we reach security, and it will be calm in the Middle East, I believe that we'll start our negotiations to reach a peace agreement."
Sharon later told reporters he had urged Bush not to invite Arafat because such a meeting "would be proof that terrorism pays."
Bush declined to say whether he would meet with the Palestinian leader.
A U.S. official said Bush urged Israel to "restore normal economic life" and ease pressures on Palestinians, thousands of whom cannot work since Israel closed its borders with the West Bank and Gaza when the violence flared.
The commission later visited the heavily guarded flashpoint Karni crossing, finding that electricity lines had been cut in the area, knocking out power to some Palestinian homes.
Heavy equipment in the area, including military tanks and bulldozers, surrounded the area.
Separately, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher assailed Israel's plan to build an additional 3,000 homes in a controversial Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem known to the Arabs as Jebel Abu Ghneim.
"We don't think that continued construction activity like this contributes to peace or stability," he told reporters Tuesday.
Some 200,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in defiance of international law.
Bush, who has pledged to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, emphasized that the city's status "will be ultimately determined by the interested parties."
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