Middle East mediators tried to revive their stymied peace plan today after the twin setbacks of Israeli conservatives rejecting plans to pull out of Gaza and US assurances to Israel that angered the Palestinians.
Ministers from the "quartet" including the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations gathered in New York to discuss their "road map" peace plan, which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
US President George W. Bush enraged Palestinians last month when he said Israel could not be expected to give up all its West Bank settlements or accept the return of Palestinian refugees to what is now the Jewish state.
Mr Bush's stance, outlined in a letter to Mr Sharon, was widely seen by Palestinians as having bargained away two key issues - the right of return and the presence of Jewish settlements - that should have been theirs to negotiate with Israel.
Despite Mr Bush's assurances, Israel's right-wing Likud party on Sunday rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank, making peace seem even more elusive.
Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets in recent weeks and Israel's high-profile assassination of two leaders of the Hamas militant group have further undermined the peace process.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and European foreign policy chief Javier Solana met at the United Nations for their first "quartet" talks since September.
The Likud party's Sunday vote to reject a Gaza withdrawal left US officials scrambling to put a positive face on what by all accounts was a major setback to their peace efforts.
Some analysts have suggested Bush's assurances had cost him in the Arab world without achieving a Gaza withdrawal.
Mr Sharon consulted his ministers about the possibility of amending his withdrawal plan, with Israeli newspapers reporting he now envisaged closing only three of the 21 Gaza settlements and two of the 120 settlements in the West Bank.
Mr Annan has acknowledged that the road map was "in distress" and said he would encourage Israel and the Palestinians to stick to it. He also said he hoped to convince Israel to pull out of Gaza, as planned, and under UN coordination.