By Munir K. Nasser
Chief Correspondent, Washington, DC
Albawaba.com
The State Department contested on Tuesday an accusation by Palestinian Legislative Council member Hanan Ashrawi charging that the US is “taking a complacent attitude towards Israel’s military aggression against Palestinians.” The accusation came in an interview Sunday with Albawaba.com.
In response to a request to comment on Ashrawi’s accusations, a State Department official said: “The United States government has been far from ‘complacent’ in our work to help end the violence.”
The official stressed that the issue “is not to apportion blame, but to help the parties end the violence and assume their critical efforts to achieve peace.”
The official also told Albwaba.com that Middle East Envoy Dennis Ross and his deputy Aaron Miller left Washington to Paris to join Secretary of State Albright in her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Barak and Palestinian President Arafat on Wednesday. He declined, however, to confirm whether the US would present the parties with bridging proposals at the Paris meeting.
“We will present those proposals if it seems it is appropriate and the parties have made enough progress and they would appear to react to our bridging proposals, then we would put them forward,” he said.
When asked to comment on the 12-year-old Palestinian boy killed by the Israeli troops in Gaza this week, the official said nothing is more tragic than the death of a child. “Anyone watching the film of the incident involving the 12-year-old in Gaza cannot help but be affected by it,” he noted. “We hope that special effort will be made to protect children from the violence and to prevent the repetition of this incident,”.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
