Picking Up The Mideast Peace Pace

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Thursday that his Palestinian Authority would set within the next few days the date for new presidential and legislative elections

"The municipal elections will be held as soon as possible and legislative and presidential elections will be held in either December or January," Arafat said in an address to his new cabinet.

"In the next few days we will issue an official order to set the date for these elections," he said at the start of the cabinet session, held at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Arafat has pledged to consolidate at least nine Palestinian security services and to hold new elections by early 2003 as part of the reforms called for by Palestinian lawmakers, the United States and Israel.

His new pared-down cabinet of 21 ministers is an interim government until new elections are held.

Meanwhile, President Bush exchanged ideas on the Middle East with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the White House, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

The White House described the meeting as "warm." It was the latest in a string of consultative sessions with key Mideast leaders as President Bush considers the next steps the U.S. will take to move forward the peace process.

The Saudi foreign minister said he liked what he heard.

"I think we're commonly working together on the road for peace," Prince Saud told reporters.

Among the options under consideration by the administration is the establishment of a provisional Palestinian state, - in the hope it would end the violence and lead to a peace deal with Israel.

Israeli troops ended a three-day incursion into Ramallah late Wednesday, and lifted the blockade of Arafat's headquarters, paving the way for the cabinet meeting. During the operation, soldiers arrested about 50 suspected Palestinian militants.

Palestinian police and security officers ran into Arafat's battered compound and celebrated the withdrawal, chanting slogans in support of the Palestinian leader, as Israeli tanks rolled away from the city-block-sized complex late Wednesday.

The army said it also uncovered a bomb laboratory and found two car bombs ready for use during the Ramallah raid.

At the same time, a new poll shows that a majority of Palestinians, 51 percent, believe their uprising has two goals: a Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel.

Early Thursday, Israeli forces raided a village near the West Bank city of Jenin, another of the nearly daily raids made into Palestinian areas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flew home from London before dawn, clearly buoyed by a White House meeting earlier in the week in which President Bush expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian suicide attacks.

Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath headed to Washington on Thursday for talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell and to present the Palestinian position ahead of an expected policy statement by President Bush on the Middle East that could come early next week.

"We call for immediate Israeli implementation of the Security Council resolutions, to lift the closure and to end all acts of aggression against our people and that any future political process be based on the Arab initiatives," Shaath said.

He was referring to U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for Israel to withdraw from territories occupied in the 1967 Middle East war — land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state. The Arab League adopted a proposal earlier this year promising Israel comprehensive peace with the Arab world in exchange for a complete withdrawal from all the territories occupied in 1967.

The Israelis said their objective in Ramallah this time was to prevent gunmen from taking refuge in the compound. During Israel's 34-day siege of Arafat's office that ended at the beginning of May, several hundred Palestinians were trapped inside with Arafat, including many armed men.

Last week, in response to a Palestinian suicide bombing that killed 17 Israelis, Israeli tanks and bulldozers broke through the outside wall and destroyed three buildings, including Palestinian intelligence headquarters.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he didn't know what the Bush administration meant by a provisional state, but said the important thing was to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli officials were unavailable for comment, with Sharon and top aides traveling.

Akiva Eldar, political analyst for the respected Israeli Haaretz daily, said the concept was similar to one considered in talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia — declaration of a Palestinian state first, and then negotiations over borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees. Eldar said Peres had raised the idea with U.S. National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Traveling to Canada for a meeting of foreign ministers, Powell said, "It isn't all that new and revolutionary a suggestion. It's been a pretty consistent element in all of the discussions about how to move forward in the Middle East."

Fifty-one percent of Palestinians surveyed believed the Palestinian goal of the conflict was to "liberate all of historic Palestine," a reference to all the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, including Israel. In December, 44 percent held that view, according to the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, a Palestinian think tank.

The survey also found a large majority of Palestinians still support the ongoing fighting, though the numbers have dropped somewhat, from 84 percent in March to 79 percent now.

Palestinian backing for suicide bombings was still strong, but also down slightly, from 74 percent in December to 68 percent today.

The survey, released Tuesday, questioned 1,170 Palestinians and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.