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Israel's right-wing government fumed Wednesday at U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to meet the authors of a symbolic Middle East peace pact that it rejected as capitulation to Palestinian demands.

An olive tree symbolizing peace is highlighted during the launch of an unofficial Middle East peace plan, dubbed Geneva Initiative, in Geneva December 1, 2003. Israel fumed Wednesday over U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's plan to meet the authors of the peace accord despite fierce Israeli objections. [Reuters]

Former peace negotiators from Israel's opposition and Palestinian moderates conceived the Geneva Accord to fill a void after three years of grinding violence bereft of serious negotiations, even after Washington launched a "road map" peace plan last June.

Under the accord, hailed by dozens of former world leaders as a brave peace initiative, Israel will hand over lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, including Arab East Jerusalem, to Palestinians to set up a state alongside Israel.

Prime Minister Arial Sharon's government has condemned the unofficial Geneva initiative, given a glittering launch in Switzerland Monday, for requiring handover of lands it deems as crucial to Israeli security and sacred to the Jewish faith.

In a rare reproach to Washington, Israel's main ally, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Powell Tuesday it would be wrong to put his imprimatur on the plan by receiving its main architects as planned in Washington later this week.

Powell insisted Wednesday that the road map plan was not dead and, addressing the Sharon government's priority, added: "What we need is commitment from the Palestinian leadership to stop terrorism."

But he stood firm against Israeli criticism, saying his job required examining all peace ideas even if from opposition figures -- underlining growing impatience abroad with intransigent incumbents dominating the Middle East agenda.

"The more we talk about peace, the better. I welcome ideas from whatever the source," he told a news conference in Morocco.

"We don't want to argue with Powell," Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said, loath to escalate the unusual spat.

Friction has arisen with Washington increasingly criticizing Israel's harsh crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Palestinian suicide bombings, as obstacles to peacemaking.

OBSTACLES TO PEACE

U.S. President Bush called last month for an end to "daily humiliation" of Palestinians, a halt to construction of a security barrier deep inside West bank lands and Jewish settlements that could prejudice final talks.

There has been no respite to building activity. Palestinians and Israeli peace activists Wednesday scuffled with police in East Jerusalem after bulldozers broke ground on a new Jewish enclave in defiance of the road map which Israel had accepted.

Both the road map and Geneva deal promise Palestinians a state on land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. But the road map suffers from vagueness on how to reach that goal, while the symbolic accord defines solutions to chronic core disputes.

The Geneva pact calls for shared sovereignty over Jerusalem with its thicket of Islamic, Christian and Jewish holy sites, removal of most Jewish settlements from occupied land to ensure Palestinians a viable state, and the right of Israel to decide how many Palestinian refugees from wars since 1948 would return.

The first two provisions are anathema to Israel's right wingers and if carried out would jeopardize Sharon's coalition with hardline pro-settler parties.

But a poll released Monday showed Israeli sentiment warming to the Geneva pact after an initially frosty reception.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has welcomed the Geneva initiative but stopped short of endorsing its details.

The Palestinian public response has ranged from muted to angry. Militants have branded Palestinian co-authors of the Geneva deal "traitors" for watering down what they see as a refugee right of return to what is now Israel.

Wednesday, a large crowd hurled eggs and tomatoes at a car bringing a senior Palestinian official into the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the belief he had attended the Geneva ceremony.

"I was not in Geneva but no one wanted to listen!" Hassan Asfour said after protesters smashed his windshield and forced him to scurry into a second car that whisked him away.

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