Guarded welcome given to Powell speech
Israeli and Palestinian leaders were today said to be upbeat about US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Middle East policy address calling for a state of Palestine to live in peace next to Israel.
But each side emphasised different points - and each hoped the Americans would crack down on the other side.
Violence continued at a low ebb before and after Powell’s speech yesterday at the University of Louisville, Kentucky.
Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian and wounded another as they were planting a bomb along a West Bank road yesterday, the military said.
Palestinian security officials said the two were members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group and confirmed they were planting a bomb.
In the same area, Palestinian gunmen fired on an Israeli taxi in a drive-by shooting, wounding three people from a Jewish settlement.
Early Tuesday, Israeli tanks and a bulldozer entered the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, near the Egyptian border, and destroyed four buildings, witnesses and security officials said. One Palestinian was wounded.
The Israeli military was checking the report.
The fact that the two sides welcomed Powell’s speech while emphasising conflicting parts underlined the absence of clear formulas for solving intractable disagreements that have doomed previous peace efforts.
Powell said only that issues like the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees must be resolved in a way that is just and realistic, and both sides must compromise.
Powell said the Palestinians must recognise Israel as a Jewish state, taken by Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres to mean rejection of a key Palestinian demand that four million Palestinians - war refugees and two generations of descendants - be given the right to return to their original homes in Israel.
The Israelis say that would undermine the Jewish character of their state.
A Western diplomat confirmed that Peres’ interpretation was correct.
The Palestinians must stop violence, Powell said, describing their 14-month-long uprising as ‘‘mired in the quicksand of self-defeating violence and terror directed against Israel’’.
Praising the speech, prime minister Ariel Sharon said ‘‘the cessation of all terror, violence, and incitement is a precondition for any diplomatic progress’’, according to a statement from his office.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat complained that Powell ‘‘did not refer to the fact that we’ve made a lot of efforts’’ and ‘‘failed to speak ... of the need for the Israelis to stop assassinations’’ of Palestinian militants.
Powell said peacemaking must be based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which call on Israel to withdraw from territory won in the 1967 Middle East war.
