US lines up behind Sharon
In a break from past practice, no senior US official publicly called for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to exercise restraint in reacting to the bombings. Nor was there any criticism of Israeli missile attacks Monday on Arafat's compound in Gaza and jet fighter strikes against the main police station in Jenin, on the West Bank.
''The President's point of view is Israel is a sovereign power," White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said Monday. ''Israel has a right to defend itself".
Sharon ordered the attacks shortly before declaring ''war on terrorism'' in a televised address and accusing Arafat of choosing ''a strategy of terror''.
Sharon had just returned from the White House, where a meeting with Bush Sunday had been cut short by the suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Hamas took credit for the bombings, which it said were carried out in retaliation for the assassination last month of a senior Hamas military leader, Abu Hunud, and two of his associates.
Israeli media reports warned last week that Hunud's killing - part of an Israeli policy of targetted assassinations against suspected organisers of attacks against Israeli citizens - effectively would end a tacit accord between Arafat and Hamas to stop suicide bombings while Washington was trying to resume peace talks between the two sides.
One Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom, noted the media reports as well as the killing of five small Palestinian children by an explosive booby trap apparently laid by the Israeli army in a Gaza refugee camp last week. It said the violence of the bombings appeared to have caused ''a sort of collective amnesia'' among those forces calling for major retaliation.
Arafat attacked
The weekend's attacks came at a critical moment in US peace efforts. Secretary of State Colin Powell had just sent a senior negotiator, retired Gen Anthony Zinni, to the region with orders to keep talking with the Israelis and Palestinians until they reached agreement on a cease-fire that would allow peace negotiations to resume.
Zinni, who was told to ''go home'' by a crowd of Israelis gathered at the scene of the suicide bombing in Jerusalem Sunday, denounced the attack as '' the deepest evil one can imagine''.
The US administration appears to share Sharon's view that Arafat is responsible for terrorism against Israel committed by the two Islamist groups, and that the war against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda should be extended to Palestinian and Lebanese groups.
''The only way to defend against terrorists is to go after the terrorists,'' Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on a Sunday television interview programme in which he launched a harsh attack on Arafat. He noted the Palestinian leader's past involvement in ''terrorist activities'' and his failure to "ever (deliver) anything for the Palestinian people throughout history".
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has spoken most sympathetically about Arafat's situation and Palestinian aspirations, said the latest attacks had brought the Palestinian Authority chief to a ''moment of truth".
''This cannot be just a 'round up some suspects, and that will be the end of it','' Powell said of what Arafat now must do to restore confidence in his leadership. ''You've got to go beyond that. You've got to go after the organisations that are conducting these kinds of terror.''
State of emergency
Behind Powell's statement lies increasing concern, particularly among analysts in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), that Arafat may lack the popular support he needs to crack down hard against Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
The two groups' popularity has risen steadily during the current uprising and is believed to be at least as strong as the Palestinian Authority's and Arafat's own Fatah movement, according to a series of polls released over the past year and the result of recent elections at a Palestinian university.
Last month, the arrest by the Palestinian Authority's police of a prominent West Bank militant set off two days of unrest. Rumsfeld suggested that Arafat might not have the authority to act decisively, even if he had the will to do so. ''I don't know that he has good control over the Palestinian situation,'' said the Pentagon chief.
Arafat declared a state of emergency Sunday, while his security forces arrested more than 100 suspected militants. Although no protests have been visible so far, one administration official here described Arafat's situation as ''between a rock and hard place.''
''Sharon and we expect him to do much more,'' the official said. ''But even this much risks major unrest and possibly violence against the Palestinian Authority itself.''
''Arafat has always preferred co-opting his opponents rather than fighting them,'' according to a Congressional aide. ''But the administration is now saying he has to fight. If he doesn't, then Sharon's argument that Arafat is effectively a terrorist because he lets it take place will prevail.''
Right-wingers' call
This has long been the view of a number of senior aides around Rumsfeld whose comfort in talking publicly about US Middle East policy underlines the degree to which his position within the administration - and particularly vis-:-vis Powell - has been strengthened since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Among Rumsfeld's his top advisers are chairperson of the Defence Policy Board Richard Perle and his Undersecretary for Policy, Douglas Feith, both of whom have worked closely with former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Like Sharon, Netanyahu is from Israel's Likud Party and has opposed the Oslo peace process.
In the wake of the Sept 11 attacks, Perle and 37 other prominent right-wingers signed a letter to Bush calling for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ouster, US attacks on Syria and Iran if they did not cut their ties to Hizbollah in Lebanon, and the cutting of all US aid to the Palestinian Authority until it '' imprison(ed) those planning terrorist attacks against Israel''.
