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Israel Rejects Peace Offer
JERUSALEM, April 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected a proposal put forward by Egypt and Jordan aimed at halting the deadly tide of Israeli-Palestinian clashes and resuming peace talks, reported Israeli public radio.
The radio, quoting senior sources in Sharon's office, said Palestinians had transmitted to Israel the proposal, which focuses on stopping violence, resuming security cooperation, implementing a third Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank and renewing talks for a final status agreement.
But Sharon has rejected the plan, viewing it as an "attempt to drag Israel into negotiations under fire," the radio said.
It said that senior Israel officials insist that negotiations will not be resumed until quiet is restored and that in any case, Israel will only agree to negotiate an interim agreement and talks on a final agreement are not under consideration.
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sounded off to the new U.S. administration on issues including the Middle East conflict, as he prepared Sunday for talks with President George W. Bush.
"The United States cannot just take its hands off. It has to work to narrow the gap between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Mubarak said in an interview with Newsweek magazine.
The comments presaged difficult negotiations between the Egyptian leader, whose country was the first Arab nation to normalize relations with Israel and remains one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East, and Bush, who has displayed a reluctance to plunge headlong into regional politics.
Bush has repeatedly stated that his administration will not "force peace" in the region, signaling a departure from the aggressive pursuit of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians undertaken by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
"It requires two willing parties to come to the table to enact a peace treaty that will last," Bush said Thursday.
But in a Newsweek interview, Mubarak chose not to hide his unhappiness with the U.S. administration's new course.
"The new administration may not have a picture of what's going on," said Mubarak, describing the situation in the Middle East as "very, very tense."
The Egyptian president also criticized America's decision to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for deployment of U.N. observers in the West Bank and Gaza, news agencies reported.
"I sent the United States a message: 'Please don't veto now'," Mubarak said.
The Palestinian cabinet said Saturday it was "shocked" by the U.S. veto of a U.N. resolution that would have authorized international observers in the territories, calling it a go-ahead for Israeli "aggression."
"Through this veto the Israeli government saw a green light for its aggression against the Palestinian people," the cabinet said in a statement after a weekly meeting chaired by Arafat.
Meanwhile, tensions remained high in the Palestinian territories Sunday after one of the bloodiest weeks since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising, Intifada, began six months ago as Jewish settlers prepared to bury an Israeli child shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.
The killing Monday of 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass in Hebron triggered retaliatory attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian property. Her funeral could be a further source of friction in the divided West Bank town.
The Israeli press was awash with grim warnings of a further escalation after a stormy weekend that saw six Palestinians killed during confrontations with Israeli troops.
A 12-year-old Palestinian boy died Sunday from injuries he sustained two weeks ago from Israeli soldiers in the village of Deir Nizam north of here, a hospital official said.
His death brings to 464 the number of people killed since the start of a Palestinian uprising six months ago: 381 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs, 69 other Israelis and a German.
Meanwhile, Israeli police Chief Shlomo Aharonishki has warned of a likely intensification in "terrorism" following a spate of attacks and called for a separation between Israel and the Palestinians, media reports said Sunday.
"The potential for more terror attacks is very large, and prospects of preventing the attacks in a sweeping fashion are limited," he said.
"There's no way of giving a guarantee that terror strikes can be prevented over a long period. The moment the other side has heightened motivation, it becomes very hard to thwart attacks."
Israel, however, said Sunday it was allowing some 500 Palestinian businessmen into the Jewish state from the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of efforts to ease crushing Israeli economic sanctions against the Palestinians.
Yarden Vatikay, spokesman for the coordinator of Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories, said a total of 1,000 businessmen and traders were now allowed into Israel.
A punishing closure on the West Bank and Gaza imposed since the Palestinian uprising begun has prevented more than 100,000 Palestinians from working in Israel or traveling between the territories.
In other news, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres leaves Sunday for a brief European tour amid a fierce upsurge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Peres, regarded as the leading dove in the right-wing dominated Sharon government, is to visit Sweden, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, then France and Greece, the foreign ministry said.
It said Peres would discuss with EU representatives the current situation in the Middle East and efforts to reinitiate peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The European Union appealed Friday for both Israel and the Palestinians to show "maximum restraint."
Despite the recent surge in violence in the Middle East, hope for a lasting peace remains, said former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research organization.
"We should have been much tougher in insisting there should not have been one environment at the negotiating table and another environment on the street," Ross said.
"There should have been greater preparation of the Palestinian public for peace on the one hand and, I think, on the other hand, the Israelis should have looked for ways to minimize the kinds of steps that create a greater sense of grievance on the Palestinian side."
Since the collapse of the peace talks last year, both sides "are being pretty much governed by a sense of anger, frustration and despair," Ross said.
Despite all the violence and rancor, peace is possible in the region, he said.
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