The Arab League has expressed surprise and concern at the US decision to veto a UN Security Council resolution on the Middle East at the weekend.
Ireland and France backed the resolution which supported the establishment of a monitoring mechanism to "help create a better situation in the occupied Palestinian territories".
The US was using its veto power for only the second time in more than four years to block the resolution. Twelve of the 15 council members supported it while the UK and Norway abstained.
The council sat until the early hours of Saturday morning to discuss the draft text which condemned extrajudicial executions, excessive use of force and widespread destruction of property.
"The resolution before us fails to address the dynamic at work in the region," the US ambassador, Mr John Negroponte, said. "Instead its purpose is to isolate politically one of the parties to the conflict through an attempt to throw the weight of the council behind the other party."
Mr Nasser Al-Kidwa, Permanent Observer of Palestine, said the Palestinian Authority had joined the coalition against terrorism after September 11th and it had also condemned the terrorist attacks committed by suicide bombers against Israel.
Ambassador Aaron Jacob of Israel said Palestinian violence was continuing even as the council met, despite the insistence by the international community that Chairman Arafat fulfill his responsibilities to fight terrorism. Calling the draft text unbalanced and counter-productive, he said it would not help the parties to return to the negotiating table, which was the only place where outstanding issues could be resolved. "The primary obstacle to peace and to a negotiated settlement between our peoples is the continuing murder of civilians and the abhorrent attempt to justify those murders by Palestinian leadership," he said.
Meanwhile, speaking in Dublin, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, said independent monitors would reduce the level of violence and killing. She had been in the West Bank last year and "found it compelling that there should be some independent eyes and ears on the ground".
According to the Middle East News Agency, the Arab League Secretary General, Mr Amr Moussa "expressed his strong astonishment and concern that the US used its right of veto during the vote on the draft resolution presented by Egypt and Tunisia to the Security Council". He said the text was characterised by balance and objectivity.