CRAWFORD, Texas — President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Saturday that Israel halt its escalating offensive in the West Bank and immediately withdraw its troops, but Israel's leader vowed to fight on for now.
"Israel should halt incursions in the Palestinian-controlled areas and begin to withdraw without delay from those cities it has recently occupied," Bush said during a news conference with Blair, who said he agreed entirely with Bush's views toward Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Afterward, with the three allies mired in an uncomfortable stalemate, Bush placed a 20-minute telephone call to Sharon that aides described as tense. Seeking to turn up the pressure on the Israeli, Bush expressed "deep concerns" for the attacks into Palestinian cities that intensified Saturday. He asked Sharon defuse the Middle East crisis and pull back his troops, U.S. officials said.
Sharon expressed sympathy with Bush's position, according to accounts issued by both countries, but did not promise to bow to U.S. demands. Indeed, a statement issued by Sharon's office seemed to justify continued attacks by saying Israel is operating in difficult conditions in the West Bank towns and villages where "there are a great deal of weapons, explosives and armed terrorists."
The statement did not say when the offensive would end, though Sharon pledged to expedite the operation.
Bush is not interested in promises of future action; he wants Israeli troops urgently pulled out, U.S. officials said.
A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the conversation as "pretty brutal" but said there was some hope in the fact that Sharon had not ruled out a quick withdrawal. The president hopes that by turning up pressure on Sharon, he will force the Israeli's hand — or give him political cover to back down.
The terse exchange of official statements followed shortly after the news conference in which Bush and Blair agreed the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
However, they said they have not settled on a way to deal with the Iraqi president.
"I can't imagine people not seeing the threat and not holding Saddam Hussein accountable for what he said he would do," Bush said of Saddam's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. "And we're going to do that."
Bush was answering critics, including European allies and even members of Blair's own Labor Party, who do not want the U.S. military to try to overthrow Saddam.
As storm clouds blew across Bush's secluded ranch, the leaders discussed grim news from the Middle East: Israeli assaults, aimed at Palestinian militants, spread deeper into West Bank refugee camps despite Bush's call Thursday for Israel to withdraw.
Israeli soldiers faced the toughest resistance yet in their West Bank offensive, trading round-the-clock fire with Palestinian gunmen Saturday in Nablus and Jenin.
Israeli soldiers were again unable to take full control of the two cities for a third straight day of fighting.
Overall, 17 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed Saturday, with most of the deaths in Nablus and Jenin, which are 15 miles apart in the northern part of the West Bank.
A day before Secretary of State Colin Powell was leaving for the Mideast to push for a cease-fire, Bush stepped up pressure on Israel by calling, for the first time, for an immediate pullback.
Blair sought to soften the blow for Israel. "I think that most people in Israel will realize that they don't have two greater friends in the world than the United States of America or Britain," he said.
Holding forth in a small-town high school gym, the president refused to say whether there would be consequences for Israel if Sharon refused to withdraw.
"I expect Israel to heed my advice, and I expect for the Palestinians to reject terror," Bush said.
Aides said the president has become increasingly frustrated with Sharon, who, in Bush's view, stubbornly has clung to his position that the attacks are the only way to defend Israel against terrorist strikes.
That shift came quickly as the death toll mounted: Just a week ago, Bush had told reporters at his ranch that he understood why Israel was invading Palestinian territory.
Pressing the Palestinians as well, Bush has instructed Powell to urge moderate Arab leaders such as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan to join with the United States in an unprecedented alliance seeking peace.
Specifically, Bush wants the Arab leaders to compel Arafat to crack down on Palestinian militants. Powell will warn them they will bear responsibility if terrorism continues, said a senior Bush administration official.
The appeal to Arab moderates also reflects Bush's frustrations with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom Bush seems to be giving a final chance to get involved in the peace process.
"He needs to speak clearly, in Arabic, to the people of that region and condemn terrorist activities. At the very minimum, he ought to at least say something," Bush said.
A few blocks away in the small Texas town, several hundred Arab-Americans gathered at a community center to protest the Israeli actions. "No justice! No peace!" they shouted.
The British government is believed to be less inclined than Bush to isolate Arafat, but Blair did not address the topic in their 20-minute news conference.
On Iraq, Blair carefully measured his words to show support for Bush without endorsing military action, which the president has yet to rule in or out.
"Any sensible person looking at the position of Saddam Hussein and asking the question — would the region, the world and, not least, the ordinary Iraqi people, be better off without the regime of Saddam Hussein? — the only answer anyone could give to that question would be yes," Blair said.
However, neither leader said how that could be accomplished. Left unsaid, too, was a growing consensus that the Middle East crisis and the resulting unrest in the Arab world have threatened Bush's plans to act against Saddam sooner rather than later.
Later at the ranch, Bush's 20-year-old daughter, Jenna, and Blair's daughter Kathryn, 14, were joining their parents for a dinner of pecan-smoked beef tenderloin.