WASHINGTON'Jolted into action by the sharp upturn in Israeli-Palestinian violence and that conflict's intrusion on efforts to gain foreign support for the war against terrorism, the Bush administration rushed on several fronts Wednesday to demonstrate its renewed commitment to stopping the carnage in the Middle East.
As special envoy Anthony Zinni headed to the region on an emergency mission Wednesday night, Vice President Dick Cheney, who is traveling through the Arab world seeking support for a confrontation with Iraq, was forced to focus on the Middle East in response to Arab anger at what has become Israel's largest offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since they were occupied in 1967.
In a news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheik, Cheney said, \We plan to do everything we can to persuade both parties that it's time for violence to end and I'll reiterate that position in every single stop along the way.'""
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell, who spoke with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Arial Sharon Monday, later conferred by telephone with the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt, Germany, and Norway. U.S. diplomats in Israel spoke with both Arafat and Israeli officials.
Taken together, the flurry of activity signaled heightened U.S. engagement in Middle East diplomacy after months of inaction. However, President Bush and his advisers offered no new initiatives for ending the violence, even as they feared that the fighting threatened to overshadow their overarching policy goal of confronting terrorism across the globe.
""This is an issue that's consuming a lot of the time of my administration,"" Bush said at a White House news conference.
While occasionally chiding Israel for its excesses, the administration until recently appeared to consider the Middle East conflict a subset of the world terrorism crisis, with Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers to blame for provoking harsh Israeli responses. But Bush acknowledged Wednesday that ""while I understand the linkage for us"" between Palestinian-perpetrated terror against Israel and the global anti-terrorism war, U.S. policy in the Middle East had to ""stand on its own.""
""The need for us to be involved in the Middle East is to help save lives,"" Bush said. ""I certainly hope that [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon is concerned about the loss of innocent life. ... I certainly am.'""
Bush directly rebuked Sharon's government.
""Frankly, it's not helpful what the Israelis have recently done in order to create conditions for peace,"" he said. ""I understand someone trying to defend themselves and to fight terror. But the recent actions aren't helpful.""
Bush said Zinni's job ""is to go over there and work to get conditions such that we can get into Tenet,"" the ceasefire and security plan negotiated last summer by CIA Director George Tenet and approved by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Bush decided abruptly last week to send Zinni back to the region.
