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Powell
encouraged his Arab counterparts to ‘come down hard on Hamas and
PIJ’
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WASHINGTON,
June 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell demanded Arab states Thursday, June 12, to crack down hard
on Palestinian resistance factions like Hamas, while Palestinian
officials say that Israel has declared war on all Palestinians.
"I've
been on the phone most of the morning talking to the leaders in the
region, to encourage them to come down hard on Hamas and Palestinian
Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the other terrorist organizations," Agence
France-Press (AFP) quoted Powell as saying.
"We
are encouraging the Palestinian leadership, we are encouraging the
Israeli leadership, to act with determination, to punch through this
wave of violence, ... so that we can continue moving forward on the
roadmap to peace."
He
told reporters it is "incumbent on every nation around the world to
speak out and put the hammer down on Hamas and the PIJ, and stop funding
them, stop allowing any resources to go to them."
Powell
also urged Cairo to pressure Hamas to stop attacks on Israel, the
Egyptian state news agency MENA reported.
In
a telephone call with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher, Powell
discussed "the deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian
territories and the need to put a halt to the cycle of violence,"
MENA said.
He
called on Maher "to intervene with Hamas for it to halt its
operations", MENA reported.
But
Maher warned that "Israel's violent measures will not achieve
security and the U.S. administration must intervene with the Israeli
government for it to halt its aggressions against Palestinian civilians
in Gaza."
Cairo
has been working to secure a truce by Palestinian resistance groups in
anti-Israeli attacks, and Wednesday, June 11, it sent
Egypt's intelligence chief,
General Omar Suleiman, on a mission to the Palestinian territories.
For
their part, Palestinian resistance groups said Tuesday, June 10, the
failed Israeli attempt
on the life of Hamas senior leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi was a "coup
de grace" in the heart of the U.S.-driven roadmap for Mideast peace.
Powell
said he had also spoken on the matter Thursday with Israeli Foreign
Minister Silvan Shalom, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher and
others, encouraging them to crack down on Hamas.
The
White House on Thursday also blamed resurgent Middle East violence
squarely on Hamas.
"The
issue is Hamas. The terrorists are Hamas...They are the enemies to
peace, in the president's judgment," AFP quoted spokesman Ari
Fleischer as telling reporters.
On
Tuesday, June 10, Fleischer himself warned Israel that its air strikes
targeting Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Al-Rantissi violated the roadmap and
imperiled progress along its charted course.
All
Palestinians Targeted
Palestinian
Information Minister Nabil Amr, for his part, said Thursday the latest
Israeli escalation is aimed at derailing the peace process, noting that
Israel had declared war on the Palestinians.
"Israel
has declared war on the Palestinians, which puts the peace process at
stake," Amr told Aljazeera.
"The
Palestinian Authority was about to hammer out a deal with Palestinian
factions, but the latest Israeli escalation torpedoed all peace
efforts," he added.
'Partners'
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"
Arab states need, right now, to say that Hamas and other
rejectionist organizations are not speaking for the Arab
world," Rice
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For
her part, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday
that the Palestinian Authority and Israel must work as partners to
thwart the cycle of violence erupting in occupied Jerusalem and Gaza and
vowed that "there is not going to be any pass for Palestinian
leadership in fighting terror," CNN reported.
"It
is important that the Israelis and Palestinians realize that they took a
different path than they've been on for a number of years," she
said.
"And
that step was to recognize each other as partners in building a
Palestinian state, in building a secure Israel and Palestine, and in
building a new kind of Middle East, and therefore, as partners, they
need to work together from their own resources to get the job
done."
"Do
it together," Rice advised Israel and the Palestinians who want to
end the bloodshed.
She
made her remarks at a meeting of Town Hall Los Angeles in a speech and
during a question-and-answer period. Her comments focused on the Middle
East and the war against terror, and she reiterated the opinions of
President Bush and his administration, the all-news network added.
"It
is absolutely the case that this president, this government, believe
that terror, wherever it is found, wherever it is practiced, has got to
be rooted out and destroyed, so there will be no pass," she said.
Palestinians
must speak out strongly against “terror” and "they are going to
have to do what they can" as they build their forces.
Rice
further urged Arab states to crack down on Hamas and other Palestinian
factions, noting that they "need, right now, to say that Hamas and
other rejectionist organizations, which have said that they intend to
destroy the road map, are not speaking for the Arab world."
And
Israel, she said, must "recognize consequences" from the way
it battles "terrorism."
Despite
the "tragic events" of recent days, Rice said, the Bush
administration sees a positive, new chapter in Middle East history, a
"real chance to build a future of peace, freedom and
opportunity."
Israel
triggered a vicious cycle of violence Tuesday with its failed attempted
assassination on Rantissi's life, torpedoing any glimpse of hope to
re-launch the dormant Mideast peace process.
The
Israeli government of Sharon continued its aggression Thursday with a
fresh air raid killing at least
seven Palestinians, including a Hamas cadre, his wife and one-year-old
daughter.
Quartet's
Efforts
In
another development, the international diplomatic quartet that drew up
the roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian peace will meet on June 22 in Jordan
in a bid to salvage the plan which has been badly damaged by a recent
spike in violence, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The
meeting in Amman, to take place on the sidelines of a special June 21-23
World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea, will assemble Powell U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and
representatives of the European Union, the officials said.
The
State Department formally announced the meeting as Powell and other top
aides to President George W. Bush scrambled to keep the roadmap from
collapsing, the officials added.
Meanwhile,
CNN reported Thursday that Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, and others on
Capitol Hill called for some type of peacekeeping forces, perhaps from
NATO, to be sent the Palestinian territories.
Israel
has consistently opposed any form of peacekeeping force, and
administration officials said the Pentagon did not like the idea of any
further deployments of U.S. troops at a time the military is already
stretched by deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
