Cheney launches effort to halt Middle East bloodbath
America’s vice president Dick Cheney was today visiting Israel to throw his weight behind a US peace plan, after another day of Middle East bloodshed.
Mr Cheney was beginning his Middle East visit by meeting with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, in an attempt to find a way to stem the tide of tit-for-tat Israeli-Palestinian violence which shows no sign of abating.
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a Jerusalem bus and a Palestinian gunman killed a teenage girl in a shooting rampage near Tel Aviv yesterday.
Visiting US envoy Anthony Zinni condemned the violence but still managed to arrange a meeting between security commanders yesterday as part of his attempts to arrange a Middle East ceasefire.
Israel sent tanks to the centre of Bethlehem, moving to within 200 yards of the Church of the Nativity, built on the spot where tradition holds that Jesus was born. One Palestinian militiaman was killed in an exchange of fire, and Israel later pulled back to its former positions near the edge of town.
The US peace plan, negotiated last May by CIA director George Tenet and endorsed by both sides, calls on the Palestinians to rein in militants and collect their weapons, but Arafat has been reluctant to do that at a time when Israel has been carrying out attacks against Palestinian targets, including Arafat’s own offices.
The US plan also says the Israelis must pull back their forces to where they were before the fighting began. That would involve the dismantling of many military checkpoints and roadblocks in Palestinian areas.
Despite yesterday’s confrontations Israel’s defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said he was optimistic that a ceasefire could be reached in the coming two days.
‘‘The declaration of a ceasefire can be achieved within 48 hours,’’ Ben-Eliezer said. ‘‘The problem is what will happen after a declaration of a ceasefire.’’
Shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Zinni is trying to bring about a truce amid the worst spate of bloodshed in the nearly 18 months of Middle East fighting.
Zinni has sounded optimistic during his four days in the region. There have been hints of progress and pledges to work towards a ceasefire but neither side has yet taken the decisive steps the other is demanding.
Zinni held talks for the third straight day with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his West Bank headquarters of Ramallah, and also conferred with Israeli president Moshe Katsav in nearby Jerusalem.
During the Katsav meeting, news broke of the shooting attack in Kfar Saba, just north of Tel Aviv, where a gunman opened fire with a pistol at a busy intersection just as schools nearby were about to finish for the day.
A 16-year-old girl was killed and six people were wounded before police shot dead the attacker.
The shooting was carried out by Amar Shakhshear, 25, an activist in the Fatah movement headed by Arafat, Fatah sources said in Shakhshear’s hometown of Nablus, in the West Bank. However, the sources said Shakhshear acted on his own.
A short time later, the suicide bomber set off his explosives near a bus in a Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem, killing himself and covering the bus and the street with his flesh and blood. The blast shattered the front windscreen, but only a few passengers were slightly wounded, authorities said.
The militant group Islamic Jihad took admitted responsibility for the bombing in a statement issued in Damascus, saying that it came in response to ‘‘the enemy’s continuing crimes against our unarmed Palestinian people’’.
Denouncing the attacks, Zinni issued a statement saying it was ‘‘critical that the Palestinian Authority take responsibility and act against terror’’.
‘‘Now is the time to get to a ceasefire,’’ Zinni added.
Israeli and Palestinian security commanders were meeting in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last night, senior Palestinian official Ahmed Qureia said. Qureia and Ben-Eliezer strongly suggested the meeting meant the sides have agreed to co-ordinate an Israeli pullout from the Palestinian areas in the near future.
A three-way security meeting headed by Zinni could take place as early as today if the Israeli troops withdrew first, Qureia said.
In its largest military operation in a generation, Israel has entered more than six Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the past two weeks in response to a wave of bombing and shooting attacks.
Israel has since pulled out of all the areas except Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, neighbouring West Bank towns just south of Jerusalem.
Before a Cabinet meeting, Sharon told reporters Israel would enter political negotiations with the Palestinians only after a ceasefire was in place.
Israel wants the Zinni mission to focus on halting Palestinian attacks, but the Palestinians have demanded that Israel withdraw from Palestinian areas before real negotiations on a ceasefire begin.
