\"It could have been worse.\" This, essentially, was the Israeli response to the Mitchell Committee report on the Arab violence of the past several months. The report was presented to Israeli and PLO leaders Friday. Prime Minister Sharon told his Cabinet today that its findings were \"reasonable\" in that it did not blame Israel and his own visit to the Temple Mount for the violence. Sharon said, however, that it was regrettable that it did not specify that the Palestinians were responsible for the fighting. The committee\'s recommendations to \"freeze all settlement activity, including the \'natural growth\' of settlements,\" and to evacuate \"isolated settlements\" such as that in Hevron, are also not considered acceptable to Israel. \"We do not believe that the issue of settlements is relevant to the present cycle of violence,\" said Minister Danny Naveh. Israel has long rejected any form of conditional cessation of violence. Israel was happy, however, with the rejection of PA demands to internationalize the conflict.
The report, prepared by a five-man committee headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, also found that \"both sides should immediately implement an unconditional cessation of violence. The PA should make efforts to jail terrorists and stop sniper fire, and should ensure that Palestinians with Israeli work permits are \"free of connections to [terrorist] organizations...\" Israel, for its part, should use only \"nonlethal responses\" to the firebomb-and-rock hurling mobs, and should release impounded PA tax funds to the organization which has been attacking it for the past seven months.