WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed recommendations aimed at ending the violence between Israel and the Palestinians today and appointed a diplomat in the region to shepherd a resumption of talks.
“Negotiations provide the only path to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace,” Powell said in backing findings of a commission led by former senator George Mitchell.
He said the Mitchell report may make possible the “framework and timeline” for getting the parties back to the table after eight months of spiraling violence.
Powell’s steps were a measured departure from the 4-month-old Bush administration’s reluctance to get directly involved in Middle East peacemaking before violence subsided.
He called for an immediate cease-fire, as proposed in the report.
“It is clear now more than ever that there can no military solution, no military solution to this conflict,” he said.
He appointed William Burns, designated to become assistant secretary of state for the Near East, to work with the Israelis and Palestinians to implement the report’s recommendations. Both sides in the conflict have praised the report while rejecting some of its findings.
Some members of Congress have been pressing Powell to appoint an envoy for the conflict.
The commission recommended a freeze on all construction activity in Jewish settlements as part of a process to rebuild confidence – coinciding with a long-held Arab demand.
At the same time, the report suggests Palestinian leaders had fallen short of making a full effort to end attacks on Israel.
“The commission’s report provides a constructive and positive attempt to break the cycle of violence,” Powell told a news conference.
“It is now time for both sides, with the help of the international community and the United States, to move forward,” he said.
“At the end of the day it is not something that the U.S. can impose … leaders need to look beyond the passion of the moment and take the action necessary to bring the cycle of violence to an end.”
Powell leaves Tuesday for Africa and Europe and said he had no current plans to meet anyone from the Middle East. Top U.S. officials have been resisting meeting Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat until he does more to stop violence from his side.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in contrast, came to the White House soon after President Bush took office.
“At the moment I don’t have any plans to see anybody from the region,” Powell said. “This can change.”
The United States has tried to be the host for security talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and brought the CIA back into the effort.
But the administration has not adopted the view of the Clinton administration and of many Arab leaders that negotiations should be conducted even while there is violence.
Israel, meanwhile, is insisting on a total halt to violence before considering new talks with the Palestinians. Sharon has said if negotiations are resumed he would offer interim accords, far less sweeping than the ones proposed by his predecessor, Ehud Barak, and rejected by Arafat as insufficient.
The Palestinians want any peace talks to resume where they broke down – with Israel offering them a state, virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza and control over east Jerusalem.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday the administration hopes the report “may provide some basis to begin to provide for reduction in violence and get some kind of confidence building measure started.”
In response to Israeli concerns about the report’s proposals, Cheney said the administration has “always said that both sides should avoid unilateral steps that, in effect, are provocative and undermine the negotiating process, and that’s been our feeling with respect to settlements.”
Over a bloody weekend, six Israelis and 16 Palestinians, including a suicide bomber who blew himself up outside an Israeli shopping center, have died.
In retaliation for that bombing, Israel struck back at the Palestinians with U.S.-made F-16 fighter planes, the first time in 34 years that warplanes took part in attacks against targets in Palestinian territory.
“A terrorist attack on Israelis, a bombing attack by Israelis against Palestinians. Innocent children on both sides being killed. This clearly goes beyond anything that can be justified by either side, I think,” Cheney said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“The developments in the last few days … obviously are very worrisome,” Cheney said. The chance of arranging talks, he said, is “pretty remote at this point.”
Cheney stopped short of urging Israel to halt using the F-16 fighters in attacks against Palestinians but appealed for an end to the escalating violence.
He would not say what the United States would do if the Israelis continue to use the F-16s. “It’s a very delicate situation,” he said, adding he was not trying “to evaluate the exact decisions” by Israeli defense forces.
Sharon said his country will do “what it takes” to protect its people.
