Administration officials also reject the European notion that U.S. pressure on Israel is the key to ending the conflict.
"Sometimes that may be necessary," Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in a recent interview with PBS's Charlie Rose. "But I'll tell you something about Israel, and I think you'd already know this, Mr. Rose, and that is that public pressure on Israel is not what's going to work. Private reasoning does."
 
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Armitage said that Israel's "presence in the occupied territories provides them some sort of buffer, and it's going to take a lot of development of confidence on the part of Israel before I think they fully remove themselves and live next door to . . . people with whom they've had such a difficult and rocky relationship. The first step, I think, is getting a leadership which reflects the aspirations of the Palestinian people."
During a meeting with senior European officials in the Netherlands this month, outgoing Secretary of State Colin L. Powell outlined a cautious approach in the coming year. He said it is necessary first to have a Palestinian election on Jan. 9, then a functioning Palestinian government and finally the closing of Israeli settlements in Gaza in late 2005.
"We can't rush it," Powell said.
Yet the European push appears to have had some effect. Since Bush's reelection, administration officials have tried to coordinate policy with European officials, holding regular meetings with what is informally known as "the Quintet" -- officials of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union (currently the Netherlands).
Unofficially, the administration, for the moment, also appears to have lowered the bar for the Palestinians. The road map plan calls for a dismantling of militant groups by the Palestinian Authority, but officials have indicated that a period of quiet -- some sort of cease-fire -- would be acceptable at first.
For their part, Europeans appear to have accepted that a coordinated withdrawal from Gaza is a necessary and acceptable first step by Israel. But once that is accomplished, they appear ready to step up their campaign that Bush must put pressure on Israel to quickly resolve its differences with the Palestinians on borders, settlements and control of Jerusalem.
But a senior administration official said the European gambit for greater U.S. pressure on Israel will fail. "Israel bashing is not the answer," he said. "The road to peace is not bashing a democratic state that has significant restraints in what it can do."
