US President George W. Bush scolded Israel yesterday for a fatal helicopter attack on a senior Hamas leader that killed a bystander and a bodyguard a day after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said that he was committed to ending violence against Israel.
The strike came less than a week after Bush launched the "road map" toward Middle East peace he helped craft at a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
"The president is deeply troubled by the strike of helicopter gunships that reportedly killed at least two persons and wounded 20 others," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "The president is concerned that this strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian authorities to bring an end to terrorist attacks, and it does not contribute to the security of Israel."
Abbas denounced the helicopter strike as a "criminal and terrorist" Israeli attack, and asked the US to intervene.
Bush said after the summit in Aqaba, Jordan last week that he would seek to keep the parties on the path to peace if he saw them straying. The prepared statement issued from Fleischer's lectern seemed to be in keeping with that.
"What's important in this new environment is for Palestinians and Israelis to find ways to work together on the path to peace," Fleischer said. "This is going to require both the Palestinian Authority and Israel to find new ways to protect the road map so it can advance to face terrorism."
The White House has often tempered such warnings to Israel with by emphasizing that "Israel has a right to defend itself," and Fleischer repeated that language yesterday.
But, he added: "Israel has to act on that right in a manner that is consistent with larger objectives, and in this case the president views this as deeply troubling."
In the attack yesterday, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the most high-profile political leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas to be targeted by Israel in 32 months of fighting. Rantisi said he jumped out of his car when he heard the choppers overhead. He was injured and underwent surgery.
After the attack, Hamas threatened revenge "that will be like an earthquake."
Abbas accused Israel of trying to destroy the "road map" plan to get out of its commitments.
At the same time, Israeli troops dismantled 10 tiny, uninhabited settlement outposts in the West Bank overnight.
But the road map also says Israel must refrain from actions that undermine trust. It does not specifically rule out the targeted killings of Palestinian militants.
Israel said after its acceptance of the plan last month that it would from now on reserve the practice of targeted killings to "ticking bomb" scenarios, as a last means of preventing attacks on Israelis.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas had said on Monday that he was committed to ending violence against Israel, but stressed that he would use persuasion, not force, to deal with Palestinian militants.
In his first news conference since becoming prime minister over a month ago, Abbas, who is often shy with the news media, defended himself against widespread Palestinian criticism that he was too willing to address Israeli demands and did not get enough in return at a Middle East summit meeting last week in Aqaba, Jordan. US President George W. Bush and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, also took part.
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