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U.S. Forces Middle East Cease-Fire
Wednesday September 19, 2001
By Ewen MacAskill, and Virginia Quirke in Jerusalem

The Guardian
President George Bush last night overcame a major hurdle to building an international coalition against terrorism when he forced the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to agree to a long-sought Middle East cease-fire.

He used America's enormous economic and political clout to bring Mr. Sharon in particular to heel, fearful that Israeli incursions into the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza during the past week would wreck his attempts to include Arab and other Muslim countries in the coalition.

As part of a total rethink of the Bush administration's foreign policy since the New York and Washington attacks, the president is taking a tougher line with Israel in an attempt to secure a speedy end to a conflict that feeds Arab hatred of the United States.

The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, after speaking to Mr. Arafat and Mr. Sharon, welcomed the cease-fire as "an encouraging development". "We see some promise this morning," he said.

Under the agreement, the Palestinians will call off their fighters and Israel will pull its tanks back from flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza.
(More: The Guardian News Source)

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