Reviving a long-dormant US peacemaking role, Secretary of State Colin Powell won an Israeli pledge today to allow Palestinians enough freedom of movement to hold an election for Mr Yasser Arafat's successor.
Mr Powell, on his first visit to the region in 18 months, told Israeli and Palestinian leaders that Washington was determined to seize opportunities created by Mr Arafat's death and help Palestinians hold a January 9th vote to choose a new leader.
But Mr Powell, who announced his resignation last week and is now seen by both sides as a lame duck with little clout in US policy-making, made only limited progress in a round of high-level talks.
All he appeared to have gained from Israeli officials was a promise to loosen restrictions on Palestinian travel to allow them to campaign and cast ballots, effectively easing Israel's military grip on the West Bank.
"We'll do everything we can in order to remove any obstacles that they might face in their preparations to have their elections," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said.
Israel stopped short of any immediate commitment to pull back forces in and around West Bank cities as the Palestinians have demanded.
While urging Israel to give the Palestinians breathing room to hold their first presidential vote since 1996, he called on the new leadership "to speak out clearly against terrorism...and stop all violence".
He met the interim Palestinian leadership in the West Bank town of Jericho and said he was impressed by their commitment to carrying out reforms of competing security services long sought by the international community. But when asked whether Washington supported creation of a Palestinian state by the end of 2005 as promised by a violence-stalled peace "road map", he declined to make a commitment.
"The answer to that question can only be determined by what happens on the ground," he told reporters in comments certain to anger Palestinians.