RAMALLAH: The US-led effort to arrange a ceasefire and restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians has slipped into an impasse, undermining hopes that last month’s Israeli offensive in the West Bank could be transformed into an opening for diplomacy.

The stall has developed as the Bush administration struggles to define a new, more active Middle East policy after months on the sidelines, interrupted periodically by narrow security initiatives quickly eclipsed by violence.

Absent of a clear US political position and strong intervention by US officials, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have persisted in butting heads with their own, seemingly irreconcilable ideas on how to proceed.

As both sides await news from the administration, and as Israeli forces regularly raid West Bank towns, suicide bombers have continued their attacks.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has so far held off on large-scale retribution, pulling back troops ready to attack the Gaza Strip after a bombing near Tel Aviv killed 15 Israelis on May 7. But Israeli and Palestinian analysts say Sharon is unlikely to contain his wrath much longer if bombing attempts continue at the same pace, or if a blast claims a large number of victims.

Sharon has set an end to the bombings and reform of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority as conditions for embracing a US diplomatic effort. But reform, he has said, does not mean just consolidating Palestinian security forces and cleaning up corruption; it means getting rid of Arafat or, at the least, shunting him into a symbolic role in which he would exercise no real power.

The Bush administration also has taken up the call for Palestinian reform, particularly of Arafat’s overlapping and ineffective security services. But officials in Washington have said Arafat is the elected Palestinian leader and must be dealt with as such, no matter what his drawbacks.

Even those Palestinians who regard Arafat as inept and unable to reform have rejected the idea that Israel — or the United States — should have any say in their leadership.

Abdul Jawad Saleh, an advocate for reform in the Palestinian Legislative Council who resigned as agriculture minister in 1998 to protest Arafat’s leadership style, said he would like to see Arafat replaced. “But,” he said, “I will not permit for one minute that Sharon and his kind try to get rid of Arafat. We will not collaborate with the Israelis to dethrone him.”

Arafat, bending to demands from abroad and responding to widespread dissatisfaction at home, announced last week that he is open to reforms, including general elections for the 88-member legislative council and his own presidency. Officials in his Palestinian Authority have begun drawing up plans for balloting sometime early next year.

But in a move that underscored the stalemate, Arafat immediately followed up by saying a vote could be held only when the Israeli military pulls back to positions it held before the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000. Other Palestinian officials noted that, practically speaking, a campaign would be impossible with candidates unable to move between towns because of Israeli barricades on all main roads.

Sharon’s government has declared that there is no way to lift the siege on Palestinian towns because Arafat’s government has proved unable or unwilling to stop attacks on Israeli civilians.

The Bush administration so far has focused its concern on the shattered Palestinian security services, promising to help rebuild them into a coherent force that can prevent attacks on Israeli civilians. Although the president initially said he would send CIA Director George J. Tenet to the region to get the process started, it now appears Tenet will meet with Israeli and Palestinian security officers in Washington.

Meanwhile, the United States has enlisted the help of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to try to pressure Arafat to use his political clout to halt the bombings.

A diplomatic source in Jerusalem said Tenet appears reluctant to launch a reform of the security services and renewal of Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation until the administration defines its overall approach. This would enable him to combine the security talks with a parallel political negotiation.

Arafat has responded to the US pressure by issuing several condemnations of suicide missions, saying they hurt the Palestinian cause.

The Saudis and other Arab governments also have made contacts with the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which operates independently of Arafat, and have urged it to end suicide bombings, according to a senior Palestinian security source. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another radical group, have asserted responsibility for most of the approximately 60 suicide bombings carried out during the current uprising.

One proposal under consideration, the security official said, is a pledge by Hamas to refrain from attacks on civilians in Israel itself — but not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — in exchange for an Israeli guarantee that Hamas leaders will be left unharmed. To ease the way for Hamas leaders to rein in their militants, the security official said, Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment would issue a statement saying the suicide attacks violate Islamic principles.—Dawn/The Washington Post News Service.