Powell urges Israel to end Gaza operation

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Israel Tuesday to end its retaliatory incursion into Gaza, while U.S. diplomats at the United Nations vetoed an Arab resolution designed to end the operation.\nPowell, while flying to Brazil, said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon found a need to respond to rocket attacks. But Powell said he hoped "whatever he does is proportionate to the threat that Israel is facing."\nAdded Powell: "I hope that this operation can come to a conclusion quickly."\nSharon undertook Israel's bloodiest incursion into Gaza in four years after a Palestinian rocket attack killed two Israeli children.\nThe State Department immediately affirmed Israel's right to defend itself, but also called on Israel to limit its retaliation to a proportionate use of force.\nAs supporters of the Palestinians pushed at the U.N. for a resolution, the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to the incursion, American diplomats conferred about the wording with other governments.\nIn Washington, a senior U.S. official said the Bush administration hoped the resolution would not be brought to a vote. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the administration preferred that solution over the United States having to use its veto power.\nAs it turned out, the United States vetoed the resolution after British and German efforts to forge a compromise text failed.\nAt a briefing Tuesday, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli declined to threaten a U.S. veto, but criticized the resolution as not being balanced.\nFrequently, the United States uses its veto to block resolutions it considers too one-sided in their criticism of Israel, but also has occasionally abstained to show its disapproval while permitting the resolution to pass.\n"We'll work in the council to try to address the shortcomings that we see and affect the changes that we think are needed," Ereli said.\n"What we have before us," he said, "is an unbalanced resolution."\nJohn Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in New York that the Security Council "acts as the adversary of the Israelis and cheerleaders to the Palestinians."\nPowell, meanwhile, has been calling on both Israel and the Palestinians to hold their fire.\nIn a telecast last week to the Arab world, he called for an end to the intifada, as the violent Palestinian uprising against Israel entered its fifth year.\n"What has it accomplished for the Palestinian people?" he asked. "Has it produced progress toward a Palestinian state? Has it defeated Israel on the battlefield?"\n"So it is time to end this process," he told Al-Jazeera television. "It is time to end the intifada"