US upholds Israeli veto

In Washington, mum is the word, writes Hoda Tawfik from the US capital
Presidential adviser El-Baz with Secretary of State Powell outside the State Department photo:AP
As for the Palestinian demand for a cease-fire "monitoring mechanism," the Americans made this conditional on Israel's acceptance, which, needless to say, is not forthcoming.
"The violence has got to stop, the Palestinians need to do everything possible to bring that about, to pre-empt attacks by suicide bombers, to arrest those responsible for the violence," said State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker.
"These are essential actions. Without such efforts, of course, it will be impossible to move through with the implementation of the Mitchell committee's recommendations," he said.
El-Baz visited Washington at the head of a three-man delegation to inform the administration about the extent of the danger and potential for the situation to get out of control any moment. The delegation was dispatched by President Hosni Mubarak after he received telephone inquiries from the White House trying to determine what was really happening on the ground.
The mandate of the delegation was clear: to place a factual reading of the situation on the American table and push for greater US involvement.
Since his arrival at the White House, President George W Bush has taken a largely hands-off approach to the region, insisting that there is little he can do until the two sides decide on their own to halt violence and clashes.
But Cairo argued that the US policy of leaving the situation in the hands of the conflicting parties has failed, having led only to an increase in confrontations and bloodshed.
"The cycle violence is getting out of hand," said El-Baz as he pushed for deployment of international monitors on the ground in the Palestinian territories.
The Egyptians and Americans did not agree on this point. Washington made it clear that it would only assent to sending monitors to the occupied territories if both parties agreed, in other words, if Israel agreed. Israel refused and launched a campaign to discredit the group of international monitors already in Hebron, charging that they acted as a fifth column, helping Palestinians against settlers.
The American administration argued that "there is no way to put monitors on the ground if Israel refuses to let them in."
Ambassador Nabil Fahmi, who took part in the discussions with the Americans, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the US would support the introduction of monitors if violence stopped and the parties engaged in implementing the Mitchell recommendations.
Assessing the results of the exchanges between US officials and the Egyptian delegation, a US administration official told the Weekly
they felt the discussions were good.
"We did not feel like there was a big disagreement," he said. "Dr El- Baz encouraged a stronger US role. We also said it is up to the parties to take the steps that are necessary. On the monitoring issue, we felt that there was a little divergence of opinion, but agreed that nothing could be forced on the parties."
"You are not going to have a functional monitoring force or an effective use of monitors unless both sides agree to accept their presence," the administration official told the Weekly.
The conclusion reached is that "we are going to try to get the agreement of both sides in order to move forward with this," he said. "But we did affirm that now is not the time for action at the UN, that we should be pushing forward with the parties themselves, pushing directly to try to implement the Mitchell committee's recommendations."
The official said that the administration is seriously troubled by the continuing violence.
"We see that the Palestinians need to do everything possible to stop the violence, they have to track suicide-bombers. These are essential actions and, without these actions, you will not be able to move forward," he said.
In the same breath, the official added that the Washington had told the Israeli government that it should avoid actions that cause injury to innocent people. "These actions are tragic. We think that Israel has to exercise restraint and discipline over IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] on the ground to prevent tragedies," he said.
"We also believe that there should be an immediate halt to the practice of demolishing Palestinian homes and destruction of Palestinian property," the official told the Weekly. "Demolitions should be stopped immediately."
The question that remains unanswered is whether the US administration is ready to become more involved with both parties.
"You are not going to force either side into taking the actions that we want," he said. "So, what is imperative is to try to get them to see the utility of doing it themselves," he said.
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