MADRID, Nov 16: Spain will sponsor a new Middle East peace initiative along with France and Italy, the prime minister said on Thursday, stressing that the international community cannot remain idle as violence rages between Israel and the Palestinians.Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced the initiative at a summit with President Jacques Chirac of France. ''Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene,'' Zapatero told a news conference.

''We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes,'' Mr Zapatero said.

A senior Israeli official rejected outright the European initiative.

“The common Spanish-French-Italian initiative does not exist. The announcement by (Spanish Prime Minister) Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is hasty,” said a foreign ministry official.

“Mr Zapatero's statements are different from those of French President Jacques Chirac,” the official noted, saying Israel was `appalled by such naivety’ from the Spanish premier.

“We will certainly see if he (Zapatero) manages to convince the Palestinians to stop rocket fire on Israel,” he said.

Referring to a prisoner swap, the official said the Egyptians had been working on such an initiative since June, when an Israeli soldier was snatched by Palestinian militants, and asked why Mr Zapatero did not come forward sooner.

On the concept of an international peace conference -- which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected during a visit to the United States this week -- the official dismissed the plan as `empty’.

“What does he want? An international cocktail party in a beautiful Madrid mansion? Does he have concrete ideas to make progress on the fundamental questions?” he asked.

There are hopes in Europe for a greater voice in world affairs, particularly after mid-term U.S. elections in which voters punished President George Bush and gave control of Congress to the Democrats.

Many on this side of the Atlantic hope the results will usher in a more humble U.S. foreign policy, in which Washington seeks the advice and input of its European allies, rather than dictating policy to them.

Zapatero cited the Israeli shell blast that killed 19 people last week in a Palestinian village and the death this week of an Israeli woman in a Palestinian rocket attack.

The violence, he said, `has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community’.

The peace plan will be presented to an EU summit next month, Mr Zapatero said, adding he hopes to win the backing of Britain and Germany as well.

He said it had five components: an immediate ceasefire, formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians that can gain international recognition, an exchange of prisoners _ including the Israeli soldiers whose kidnapping sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer _ talks between Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian president and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a ceasefire.

Eventually, a major international conference on Middle East peace should be held, he added, but did not specify if such a meeting should take place in Spain. Spain hosted a landmark peace conference in 1991 that laid the groundwork for the Oslo accords, which in turn led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

Middle East peace, Mr Zapatero said, `'is one of the factors that can contribute most to cornering fanaticism and terrorism’.

Europe's efforts to help broker a peace deal have hit some speed bumps recently, and the continent could face problems this time as well. Many in Israel view European leaders as pro-Palestinian and are wary of their motives.

Last month, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, a leading European voice on the Middle East, said that the ''road map'' plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians was fatally stalled and that Europe should take the initiative to come up with a new plan.

Israeli and Palestinian officials were quick to reject his comments as overly pessimistic. Both sides insisted that the road map was not dead, just in serious need of a mechanism for implementation.

The U.S.-backed road map, devised in 2003, called for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, but it never got off the ground because neither side lived up to even their initial commitments under the blueprint.—AFP