WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Families of U.S. officials in a Jerusalem consulate may get authorization to leave, in light of several days of suicide bomb attacks in Israel, the State Department said.
No final decision has been made, however, a senior State Department official told United Press International.
With an increased number of violent incidents against Israelis, State Department officials said Monday that they were likely to issue a new travel warning advising Americans against travel to Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The warning would replace a Dec. 7 advisory.
The move comes as U.S. and Israeli officials wrangle over getting a deadline for Israeli troops to pull out from Palestinian towns they have re-occupied in the last four days.
"We are talking to the Israelis and underscoring that we want them to bring the operation to a conclusion and seeking an understanding of how long we expect them to be there," one U.S. official familiar with the discussions told United Press International on Monday.
Publicly, the Bush administration appeared to be giving mixed messages. At the State Department, deputy spokesman Phil Reeker said, "We want to see an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of Israeli forces. These are the critical steps, and they should be undertaken now."
But at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attacks, to Israel's response to Palestinians now, after taking a question about the possible military effectiveness of an Israeli siege.
"When the United States is hit by terrorist attacks, you have a choice," Rumsfeld said. "You can say, 'Gee, that's too bad,' or you can go try to find the terrorists and do something about it. And it seems to me that in our case, which I know a good deal more about than I do that case, it seems to me it's a pretty clear answer."
One official at the Israeli Embassy in Washington told UPI Monday, "We have told the Americans this is a limited operation. We have no intention to re-occupy."
Reeker and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer repeated U.S. calls for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to condemn recent suicide bombings in Arabic and to take steps to implement a cease-fire arrangement broached last June by CIA Director George Tenet.
But an Arafat adviser in Washington, Ed Abington, said Arafat is in no mood to comply.
"Palestinians tell me asking him to do this, to accept Tenet and accept these demands while he is confined in an Israeli 'Camp X-ray,' is impossible. He won't do it," Abington said. "In essence, that is surrender, and this will be seen by Palestinians as surrender." Camp X-ray is the name of the detention center where Taliban and al Qaida prisoners are being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Despite a U.N. resolution calling on the Israelis to pull back their troops from Palestinian territory, Abington said the Palestinian Authority's perception is that the United States has tilted in Israel's favor. "There is mounting anger from the Palestinians that the U.S. has endorsed the Israeli position."
