MIDDLE EAST: Colin Powell's Middle East peace mission has been an ignominious failure, reports David Horovitz, in Jerusalem
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, is today winding up his Middle East peace mission in ignominious failure - with no sign of a ceasefire, Israeli troops still deep in Palestinian areas, and no new declared effort by the Palestinian Authority to try and prevent suicide bombings.
Having met the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, again yesterday, Mr Powell is to meet the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in Ramallah today for a second time, when he hopes to secure a "strong declaration" condemning suicide bombings, his aides said, and will then fly home via Cairo.
As they were when he arrived last Thursday night, however, Israeli troops are still deployed in and around most major West Bank cities, and Mr Sharon is insisting they will not leave two of those cities, Bethlehem and Ramallah, until "wanted men" hiding out there surrender.
Palestinian officials say they don't know why Mr Powell claims to be "making progress" and that, with the installations of the Palestinian Authority in ruins, there is no way they can enforce any kind of ceasefire anyway.
The Palestinian Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed-Rabbo, said yesterday that there could be no progress until the army pulled back. Israeli officials say that even if Mr Powell can secure some kind of declaration from Mr Arafat, it would "mean nothing" that the Palestinian leader has to tell his people to "abandon terrorism" and that, whatever the state of their installations, there are still tens of thousands of Palestinian security men who could act to thwart attacks if Mr Arafat gave the word.
In the absence of any alternative, Mr Powell has been trying to advance the idea of US forces being deployed to try and monitor a truce, and has given cautious backing to a proposal by Mr Sharon for an Arab-Israel peace conference, even intimating endorsement for the prime minister's opposition to the participation of Mr Arafat, blamed by Israel for inciting and financing suicide-bombings.
Syria and Lebanon yesterday rejected the conference idea, the Palestinian negotiator, Mr Saeb Erekat, has dismissed it as "a waste of time", Egypt's initial lukewarm response has now given way to an assertion that Mr Sharon is only suggesting it as a means to evade substantive negotiations with Mr Arafat, and European leaders say they will back it only if Israel first withdraws its forces from Palestinian areas and the Palestinian leadership takes action to thwart attacks on Israelis.
In a phone call on Monday, President Bush urged Mr Sharon to "consider the human dimensions and to improve human conditions throughout the West Bank", and to honour his commitment to pulling back the troops.
The Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, said soldiers would leave Nablus and Jenin by "the end of this week or early next week".
However, Mr Sharon reiterated that they would remain in Ramallah, until the alleged killers of the Israeli tourism minister, trapped with Mr Arafat, were handed over, and would maintain their two-week siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity until "wanted" Palestinians among the 200 people inside surrendered.
Two Palestinians have been allowed out of the church for medical treatment at an Israeli hospital prison ward - one suffering from epilepsy, the other with gunshot wounds to the stomach.
A local hospital chief, Dr Peter Kumri, said a dozen more people there need medical treatment. Israel has proposed that those inside should come out, that "terror suspects" would be arrested or deported, and all others would go free. The Palestinians have rejected the idea.
Citing warnings of further bombings, Israel placed several Arab areas in and around East Jerusalem under curfew yesterday. Palestinian officials said that troops killed a 12-year-old boy in a refugee camp outside Nablus.
The army reported that troops killed a Palestinian in Hebron who tried to stab a soldier. Troops also briefly re-entered the city of Tulkarm and made several arrests, including that of a Hamas activist who allegedly delivered the explosives used by the suicide-bomber who killed 28 Israelis in a Netanya hotel last month.
In Jerusalem, Israeli security officials were questioning Mr Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank Fatah leader who was arrested in Ramallah on Monday.
Mr Sharon says he intends to put Mr Barghouti on trial as the alleged commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has claimed responsibility for several recent suicide bombings. Mr Barghouti has denied this role, while publicly championing violent Palestinian "resistance to occupation". He has also been seen as a successor to Mr Arafat.
An Israeli commentator, Alex Fishman, asserted yesterday that, "If there is anyone who can directly implicate Arafat in acts of terrorism it is Marwan Barghouti - if he chooses to talk."
AFP reports from Beirut: The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic movement, Hamas, yesterday threatened to assassinate the Israeli Prime Minister, and other Israeli leaders in response to the arrest of Mr Barghouti.
"We tell Sharon and his government and the cadres of his army: you have opened the gates of hell for yourselves by your arrest of this national leader, and you have made yourselves legitimate targets to be killed and assassinated," Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.