To Israeli hard-liners, Sharon's moves last week were necessary responses to a Palestinian terrorist threat that has grown in scope and audacity—and were no more ruthless than Washington's war against al-Qaeda. Israeli leaders wonder how Washington expects them to do business with Arafat, who only two years ago rejected a Clinton-brokered deal that would have given Palestinians 90% of the occupied territories, and instead launched the latest intifadeh. Both Arabs and Israelis suspected Bush of expediency: the President didn't pay much attention to their war until it impinged on his war.

But with so much daily bloodshed, the conflict's victims are less interested in questioning American motives than in seeing the killing stop. Zinni, a retired four-star Marine general who once commanded U.S. troops in the Middle East, arrived in Jerusalem Thursday to get both sides to act on the so-called Tenet plan, named for CIA chief George Tenet, who negotiated it last June. The plan sets out steps meant to lead the two sides to a cease-fire. Diplomatic sources told Time that Zinni is proposing to put CIA monitors in Palestinian Authority jails and offices on a full-time basis and provide both sides with technical surveillance devices to ensure compliance with the cease-fire requirements in the Tenet plan. A cease-fire would give war-weary Israelis and Palestinians some breathing space, but a lasting political settlement isn't in sight.

The U.S. hasn't yet thrown its weight behind the most ballyhooed recent peace initiative—Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's offer of normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from all land seized in the 1967 war. Some version of the proposal will almost certainly be endorsed at next week's Arab summit in Beirut, but squabbling between Syria and the Saudis over the language of the plan could dilute it. While Abdullah says he is offering "full normalization"—meaning official trade, political and cultural relations between nations—Syrian officials want to change the language to "complete peace," a far less generous phrase that would remain unpalatable to Israel. Though Bush expressed tentative agreement with the Abdullah plan when it was unveiled last month, his Administration hasn't offered formal support for it. Said a senior White House aide: "I've never been sure if the Crown Prince intended this to go as far as it has."

Even so, Arab diplomats say the plan has already had an impact, simply by encouraging the U.S. to rejoin the search for peace. But not all the fighters are ready to lay down their guns. In Gaza a remote-controlled bomb packed with C-4 explosive blew up an Israeli Merkava tank, killing three soldiers. Also last week Israel's Shin Bet security service foiled three separate bombing plots set to coincide with Zinni's arrival. In one incident near the Jewish settlement of Rimonin, Israeli forces blew up a car carrying an alleged suicide bomber on his way to Jerusalem.

The Israeli army's push into the West Bank and Gaza was massive but brief; by Saturday Sharon had withdrawn his forces from most of the West Bank. But few terrorist leaders appear to have been caught or killed. In Ramallah and Tulkarem, Israeli soldiers arrested 100 Palestinians who were on their wanted list but not the main militants, who apparently fled as soon as they heard the tanks outside their refugee camps. An Israeli raid on the sprawling camp in Jabalya turned up at least 10 workshops manufacturing Kassam II rockets, which Hamas has used against Israeli soldiers and civilians. Gunmen in Palestinian-held Bethlehem have taken to hiding by day in Manger Square, across from the Church of the Nativity, which sits on the place where Jesus was born, before venturing out to attack Israeli troops by night. The gunmen know it is the one place Israel wouldn't dare send its tanks, for fear of angering the world's Christians. The enemy's determination has dispirited Israeli troops. "We can conquer the whole West Bank with no problem," says an Israeli officer. "The question is, what do we do then?"

Whether Bush fully commits his office's prestige to helping the two sides end the suffering depends on how the President resolves deep divisions within his Administration. Moderates, led by Powell, have long pushed Bush to wade in deeper, arguing that inaction in the face of spiraling violence jeopardizes American credibility in the region. Bush's willingness to criticize Sharon and his decision to send Zinni back to the region emboldened the moderates, who last week scored a victory by securing White House support for a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state, the first time the U.S. has voted for such a resolution. But Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have long opposed deep U.S. engagement in the peace process. As Time reported in February, Cheney and Rumsfeld argued during a meeting of the President's national-security team in early January that the U.S. should sever ties to Arafat. Though Bush rejected that proposal, insiders say Cheney is still the key White House voice on the Middle East. Whether last week's shifts harden into a long-term commitment hangs on how the Vice President responds to the reception he received on his trip. "He's getting an earful," a U.S. official told Time, "but how that will affect his thinking only he and the President will know."

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