Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat urged the United States today to act to reverse the Israeli seizure of the PLO's Jerusalem headquarters, as a senior Israeli minister warned that Israel could cripple Palestinian infrastructure.
"We ask the United States and the European leadership to interfere immediately to protect the peace process and to stop the Israeli aggression," the Palestinian president's spokesman Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah told reporters in the West Bank town Ramallah.
He said Mr Arafat had written urgently to Mr Bush and other world leaders after Israeli police occupied Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization's main office in Arab East Jerusalem and a symbol of the Palestinian quest for statehood.
The bloodless, politically charged takeover early yesterday followed a suicide bombing by a Palestinian militant that killed 15 other people at a crowded pizza restaurant in the heart of Jewish West Jerusalem.
Israel's government, facing public pressure for robust retaliation for Thursday's bombing, has called the seizure of Orient House and other Palestinian offices in and around East Jerusalem a "measured" response to the attack.
Public Security Minister Mr Uzi Landau, however, was quoted today as saying it was not clear how much longer a policy based on what he called restraint could last.
Asked what policies without restraint might look like, Mr Landau told the German newspaper Die Welt: "The Palestinian Authority has depots, vehicles, office buildings. There are enough installations which we can start on in order to take revenge on them."
Mr Landau added: "The more Arafat urges terrorists to conduct attacks, the nearer draws the time that we will tolerate him no longer."
Mr Bush appeared to question whether either side had the desire to stem the bloodletting, in which more than 670 people have been killed, but said Mr Arafat could do more to stop the violence.
"Mr Arafat can do a better job," Mr Bush said yesterday. "I am deeply concerned that some of the more radical groups are beginning to affect his ability and obviously are provocative as heck toward the Israelis."
His remarks irked Palestinian officials, who have pushed for a more active role in tackling the Middle East crisis from Mr Bush's Republican administration.
Scattered violence continued today including outside Orient House, where Israeli police scuffled with protesters and pushed prominent Palestinian politician Ms Hanan Ashrawi away as she tried to approach the building.