Desperately seeking a path out of the intifada conflict, the US peace envoy, Mr Anthony Zinni, yesterday suggested a 48-hour period of calm. During that time the Palestinian Authority would continue arresting Islamic extremists and Israel would refrain from the "targeted killing" of such militants, as a preface to a more sustained ceasefire. The idea was raised at US-hosted talks between Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs, at which Mr Zinni also denied suggestions that he was about to abandon his mission.
Mr Zinni's new peace attempt came as the EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, held talks both with the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat. In the wake of the EU's strongly-worded call to Mr Arafat on Monday to dismantle the "Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist networks" and appeal for an end to the intifada, Mr Solana told the Palestinian leader last night "you have to comply with these challenges" - whatever the risks this posed to his rule.
The EU, which also urged Israel to end its "extrajudicial executions" and lift the blockade of West Bank cities, is now effectively echoing the US in demanding not merely that Mr Sharon and Mr Arafat resume a ceasefire, but that the Palestinian Authority smash Hamas and Islamic Jihad, responsible for a continuing series of suicide attacks inside Israel.
Mr Arafat, who also met Mr Zinni yesterday, insisted he is making a "100 per cent" effort to thwart the bombings. He complained that Israel's actions - including the botched attempt to kill an Islamic Jihad militant in Hebron on Monday, in which two Palestinian children were killed - were making his job impossible. Mr Arafat noted that the target of the attack, Mohammed Sidr, was not on the list of 33 "most wanted" men whom Israel and the US had named as key bombing orchestrators.
But Israel's Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, asserted that Mr Sidr, who was badly wounded in the Israeli strike, had been about to dispatch two suicide bombers. If Israeli intelligence could discover this, he indicated, Mr Arafat's security forces should have done so too.
