Bush urges a stop in financial support

CHICAGO -- President Bush deplored Wednesday's bus bombing in Jerusalem and urged all nations to block financial assistance to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and similar organizations and "isolate those who hate so much that they are willing to kill to stop peace."\nVisibly angry, Bush spoke after a suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in downtown Jerusalem, killing at least 16 people and wounding 30. "Today there was a terrible bombing in Jerusalem," Bush said.\nBush spoke to reporters as he boarded a helicopter in Chicago after a speech about Medicare.\n"To the people in the world who want to see peace in the Middle East, I strongly urge all of you to fight off terror, to cut off money to organizations such as Hamas, to isolate those who hate so much that they're willing to kill to stop peace from going forward."\nHamas, one of several Palestinian militant groups, has criticized a U.S.-backed peace plan that envisions a Palestinian state by 2005 and has claimed responsibility for recent attacks on Israeli soldiers, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's suicide bombing.\nThe bombing came just a week after Bush stood with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Aqaba, Jordan, to announce support for the so-called "road map" to peace and a Palestinian state alongside Israel.\nThat plan calls on both sides to end violence.\nBut Bush found himself for the third day in a row denouncing new outbreaks of violence in Israel.\n"It is clear there are people in the Middle East who hate peace; people who want to kill in order to make sure that the desires of Israel to live in security and peace don't happen; who kill to make sure the desires of the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and others of a peaceful state, living side-by-side with Israel, do not happen," Bush said.\n"I strongly condemn the killings, and I urge and call upon all of the free world, nations which love peace, to not only condemn the killings, but to use every ounce of their power to prevent them from happening in the future," he said.\nThe suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus during afternoon rush hour. The attack followed a threat by Hamas to take revenge for Israel's botched missile attack Tuesday on one of its leaders, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was wounded. The State Department lists Hamas as a terrorist group.\nOn Tuesday, Bush said Israel's helicopter attack on the Hamas leader could make it harder for the new Palestinian leadership to combat terrorism and made no contribution to Israel's security -- some of his administration's strongest words against Israeli actions to combat Palestinian terrorism.