- Early on Friday morning, Colin Powell sat down to breakfast
with Ariel Sharon in the cavernous reception room at the Israeli prime
minister's Jerusalem residence.
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- As they surveyed the spread of freshly baked bread, olives,
salad, fruit and sardines - Sharon's favourite - the two former military
men chatted.
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- Then out of the blue, as Mr Powell tucked in, Mr Sharon
handed him a collection of gruesome photographs showing mangled Israeli
victims of recent suicide bomb attacks, as always blamed squarely on the
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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- "The Secretary of State could not finish his breakfast,"
said one Israeli official, with a hint of satisfaction.
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- An hour later, Mr Powell was sitting around another table
in the residence with a group of ministers representing the parties in
Israel's broad-based coalition government, gathered to present a united
and formidable front for the visitor.
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- Effi Eitam, a controversial "hawk", who had
only been a member of the cabinet for a few days, turned to Mr Powell and
said forcefully: "You have had seven months in Afghanistan and you
have not finished your work. We only want eight weeks for our military
operation, so why not let us finish the job?"
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- David Levy, the rough-edged former foreign minister,
was also in combative mood.
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- "Sometimes we hear from people in the States that
the Israeli prime minister is divided from his people, but I can tell you
he was elected by the majority of Israelis and now we are all behind him.
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- "The world tells us that Arafat was elected by the
Palestinian people and because of that we do not have the right to fight
against his terror. Let me remind you that Saddam Hussein was also elected.
Does that mean that you cannot fight against Saddam?"
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- As the Israelis gave full vent to their anger, Mr Powell
sat back and listened, like a dazed man who has strayed into a minefield.
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- Later, as he emerged into the bright sunshine for a press
conference, a chastened Mr Powell had dropped the confrontational tone
adopted by Washington in previous days, which had seen President Bush demanding
an "immediate withdrawal" of the Israeli army from Jenin and
other West Bank Palestinian towns.
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- Instead, Mr Powell emphasised his close "personal
friendship" with Mr Sharon as the Israeli leader glowed with satisfaction
beside him. When the nervous Hebrew translator inadvertently referred to
the "United States of Israel", there were knowing smiles all
round.
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- The world had been expecting Mr Powell to wield the big
stick against Israel, but the Gulf War commander was forced to admit that
he had received no "specific answer" on the timing for a military
withdrawal from Mr Sharon - if indeed he had even asked for one.
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- As he proceeded with his schedule, the news networks
were buzzing with calls from Palestinian and Arab leaders urging him to
visit Jenin, where reports had been swelling about a "massacre"
inside the area sealed off from the outside world by the Israeli army.
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- Instead, the entourage moved on to a Jerusalem hotel
for a meeting with Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's grizzled Defence Minister.
Then it was on to a nearby helipad for a flight to the base of the Israeli
army's Northern Command in Safed, near the Lebanese border.
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- As he was leaving, the mobile phones belonging to Mr
Ben-Eliezer's aides began shrilling. Nidal Daraghmeh, a young woman from
Jenin, had just detonated an explosives belt around her waist at the entrance
to a crowded market.
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- The defence minister turned to Mr Powell: "You see,
this is the reception the Palestinians give you."
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- Instead of flying directly north, Mr Powell's Black Hawk
helicopter headed west, swooping over Jaffa Street and circling for some
minutes over the site of the latest bombing. Wailing ambulances and scrambling
emergency workers were clearly visible below.
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- The solemn party then proceeded, skirting around the
ruined refugee camp in Jenin, en route for the northern border. On the
ground, Hizbollah guerrillas obliged the visitors with a mortar barrage
at Israeli positions.
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- Mr Powell's visit was in a spin and he appeared sombre
as he reflected on his "sobering briefing" from the Israeli Northern
Command.
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- It had come at the end of a sobering week, in which he
had been exposed to the full force of the Middle East maelstrom.
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- At his first stop, the young king of Morocco had impudently
asked why he was visiting his country when he should be in Jerusalem, suggesting
that the Americans were buying time for Israel's military operations.
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- At his next stop, angry Egyptians had told him that Mr
Arafat was the "only address" for the Palestinians and a meeting
with the Palestinian leader was imperative. It was the same message from
the Europeans and the United Nations.
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- At the beginning of his mission, the Americans had been
undecided as to whether Mr Powell would meet the Palestinian leader; within
a couple of days, as the Arab streets boiled with rage, it had been confirmed
that he would.
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- The Israelis had reluctantly even agreed to allow food
to be delivered into Mr Arafat's compound, restored the electricity supply
and promised to pull back the tanks, at least temporarily.
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- A US official explained: "Mr Powell refuses to be
seen walking into Arafat's compound under the barrels of Israeli tanks."
All the while, Mr Sharon was protesting that the decision to go ahead with
the meeting was a huge "mistake".
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- Many Israeli officials had predicted another suicide
bombing. Barely a day into the Powell visit, their fears were confirmed.
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- It was instantly obvious that the meeting arranged between
Mr Powell and Mr Arafat for Saturday could not go ahead, and that the Palestinian
leader would have to condemn the bombing if it were to happen at all.
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- A State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, did not
mince his words: "It is important that Chairman Arafat not miss this
opportunity to take a clear stand against violence that harms the Palestinian
cause," he said.
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- The message from American officials was that Mr Arafat
had 24 hours to decide how he would respond to the suicide bombing.
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- Senior Palestinian officials had been saying all week
that the meeting with Mr Powell was hugely important to Mr Arafat, isolated
and besieged in his ruined compound.
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- But with the intensity of Palestinian fury reaching unprecedented
levels, officials were suggesting it would be difficult to denounce unequivocally
an act of rage against the Israelis that had already been welcomed by many
of his followers.
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- Nabil Abu Rudaineh, Mr Arafat's senior adviser, accused
the Americans of trying to impose a one-sided ceasefire, skewed in Israel's
favour, and said scathingly: "The Americans want the Palestinians
to declare a condemnation of the [suicide] operation and describe it as
a terror act which would give the Israeli massacres in Jenin and Nablus
legitimacy."
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- Arafat, however, has publicly distanced himself from
terrorism before and was prepared to do so again. By the end of yesterday,
the Americans' hopes that Mr Arafat would give them just enough leeway
to announce a rescheduled meeting had been fulfilled.
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- If the two men were not talking face to face today, Mr
Powell's mission would have been seen as a failure, perhaps with disastrous
consequences.
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- The Israeli media had already written of Mr Powell's
visit as "Zinni 2", a reference to General Anthony Zinni, the
US special envoy for the Middle East who has achieved little on his three
missions to the Middle East since December.
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- The Palestinians, meanwhile, had given warning that if
the Americans ignored their position and allowed the Israelis to continue
with their campaign on the West Bank, there would be even greater bloodshed.
For his part, Mr Powell was confronting the prospect of a severe loss of
face.
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- The Americans scrambled to fill the void left by the
scrapped Arafat meeting. Mr Powell's aides did their best to present his
decision to meet international aid workers as a forceful intervention.
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- On Friday, Mr Powell had completely sidestepped the disaster
unfolding in Jenin, Bethlehem and other Palestinian towns. Now, apparently,
it was uppermost in his mind.
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- To the bewilderment of journalists travelling with him,
it was announced that he was going to meet Red Cross officials and local
religious leaders, even though it was not immediately clear who, when or
where. "There has been too much suffering on both sides," his
official spokesman intoned.
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- For all the State Department's face-saving, however,
Mr Powell had looked strained and despondent at a hastily arranged meeting
with all the Christian patriarchs in Jerusalem yesterday morning in the
residence of the American consul general, refusing to comment even to the
travelling State Department media corps.
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- As burly security men escorted his immense black armoured
Cadillac into the garden of the residence, it emerged that, besides meeting
aid organisation workers an hour later, he had no further plans for the
day.
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- "At this moment we are examining what we are going
to do," Mr Powell said, leaving all interested parties still not much
wiser.
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- Today, however, Mr Powell has a firm date in the diary
with Mr Arafat, rescuing his mission from complete failure. That the meeting
will lead to lasting progress in the peace process looks unlikely.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2002.
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- http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh
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