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U.S. Again Blames Arafat for Mideast Violence, Muslims Angered
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States renewed criticism of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat Monday for violence in the occupied Palestinian territories, which cost the lives of a leading Palestinian politician and a Jewish occupation settler, news agencies reported.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said both Israel and the Palestinians were fully aware of what they needed to do to stop the escalating violence, which he said threatened "to overwhelm any chance of restoring calm" and bring both sides back to the peace table.
"Above all, the Palestinian Authority needs to take sustained and credible steps to preempt terror and arrest those responsible, as well as take steps to bring the violence under control," Boucher told reporters.
"At the same time, if the situation on the ground is to improve, then Israel must also take the economic and security steps that are necessary to alleviate the pressure, the hardship and the humiliations of the Palestinian population," he said.
Boucher added that Washington remained opposed to Israel's policy of targeting top Palestinian officials for death, such as Abu Ali Mustafa, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who was killed earlier Monday in a rocket strike in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"We remain opposed to targeted killings," he said.
"We think Israel needs to understand that targeting killings of Palestinians don't end the violence, but are only inflaming an already volatile situation and making it much harder to restore calm."
Although Boucher stopped short of condemning the murder outright, the language he used in reference to Israel was the strongest coming from a U.S. official in some time, particularly with the reference to Palestinian "humiliation."
Leaders from around the Arab world have heaped criticism on U.S. President George W. Bush who on Friday took Arafat to task for failing to give "100-percent effort" to end terror attacks while saying only that Israel needed to exercise "restraint on all fronts."
Bush's remark about restraint came after he was asked at a news conference what his reaction was to an Israeli army incursion into Palestinian controlled parts of the divided city of Hebron.
Israel's U.S.-made Apache helicopters went into action yet again late Sunday, blasting a Palestinian police station in the West Bank and undermining the prospect of truce talks.
The air raids, which injured eight Palestinian civilians, swiftly followed a major incursion into the Gaza Strip by Israeli tanks and troops where they razed several other police buildings, supposedly in retaliation for a Palestinian commando raid on an army outpost that killed three soldiers.
One Palestinian policeman was killed and three others were injured in the fierce battle to repel the tanks, which rolled two-kilometers (1.2 miles) into Palestinian-controlled territory.
Arafat toured the ruins of a police base in Rafah on Sunday, reiterating pleas to the international community to send observers despite Israeli and U.S. rejection.
"It is his [U.S. President, George W. Bush's] duty to send international observers with the briefest delay," Arafat was quoted as saying.
But, Bush turned a deaf ear to Arafat's pleas, merely saying on Friday that Arafat must do more to curb the violence before peace talks can resume.
Bush's comments sparked widespread condemnation from Palestinian officials, with Arab League representative Hanan Ashrawi accusing him of being a spokesman for hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
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