Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned from Washington after failing to secure the US sanctions against Mr Yasser Arafat but US support for his isolation of the Palestinian leader has driven a wedge between the United States and Europe.
Mr Arafat "is not and never will be a partner. He's out of play," Mr Sharon told Washington and called for an "alternative Palestinian leadership" in a statement repeated in an interview with the Israeli daily newspaper
Haaretz
.
In the meantime, the European Union is also being kept on the sidelines, with ideas raised by European foreign ministers for resolving the conflict being swiftly dismissed by Washington.
State Department spokesman Mr Richard Boucher said French proposals to break the Middle East peace stalemate, including new elections in the Palestinian territories to cement Mr Arafat's legitimacy and marginalise extremists "don't really move the situation forward."
"The steps that need to be taken now are steps by Chairman Arafat to stop the violence," Mr Boucher said, adding that Washington was sticking to the Mitchell and Tenet plans worked out last year.
While failing to convince Mr Bush to cut all ties with Chairman Arafat, the Israelis convinced him the Palestinian leader bore a huge responsibility for the smuggling of weapons from Iran aboard a ship which Israel intercepted last month.
Mr Sharon said, that unlike the Europeans, the Bush administration had not asked him to raise the siege on Mr Arafat, which the Palestinian leader says is preventing him from cracking down on militants.
The Israeli prime minister predicts that eventually the Palestinians will realise that Mr Arafat is incapable of ending attacks on Israel and with them the crippling Israeli economic blockade on the territories.
However the United States and Israel have agreed to set up a joint commission as the first step towards providing international aid to the Palestinian population, Israeli public radio reported yesterday.
The report said Sharon had submitted a long-term and a short-term plan to US officials.
One would lift the army blockade on areas where calm has been restored, while the second is a kind of "Marshall plan" spreading aid to the population of the occupied territories over several years, to be financed by the private sector worldwide, the radio added.
President Bush has also asked Congress to release $300 million for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. However, in an editorial today the mass circulation Yediot Aharonotnewspaper said: "in fact, the present US administration has no real interest in the Israeli-Palestinian question. What concerns it, is the effect of this question on its conflict with Iraq."
Yediotsaid Washington had never envisaged giving Sharon Arafat's head on a plate. "Bush's priority is to obtain support for the next phase (of his 'war on terror') when he will hit Iraq," it said.
According to Haaretz, the US administration has given Israel the nod to strike back at Iraq if President Saddam Hussein's regime attacks it during a possible US operation against Baghdad.
In addition, a joint US-Israeli defence group will be reactivated in March, the newspaper said.
Haaretz said last week that Israeli and US troops had practised anti-missile defence in anticipation of a possible Iraqi strike.
AFP