The BBC quoted British documents as saying that former US President George W. Bush ordered the search for a possible successor to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after the escalation of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2001.
The documents indicated that the American effort came after the failure of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 between Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar) and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, following the worsening situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to the recently released documents, Bush expected early on that Ariel Sharon - who succeeded Barak in power - would use the Gaza Strip to sow division among the Palestinians.
The documents deal with the discussions and contacts that took place between Britain and the United States a few months after Bush and his team, which was dominated by the neoconservatives, entered the White House.
When Bush assumed the presidency in January 2001, the second Palestinian uprising was at its height, and it had erupted after Sharon stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque on September 28, 2000.
The Bush administration called on the Palestinian leader to stop the uprising in preparation for the start of security negotiations with Israel, and used the veto power to abort a draft resolution in the UN Security Council calling for a proposal to consider the United Nations as an observer force to protect Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.
After the abortion of the project, telephone talks were held between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories were a major issue.
According to the minutes of the talks written by John Sawyers, Blair's personal secretary, the British Prime Minister expressed his concern for Arafat.
He said that the Palestinian leader "has reached the limits of what he can do constructively, and he is only working to maintain his position."
He added that "he no longer has anything to offer more than he did," indicating that he had made all possible concessions.
Bush endorsed what Blair had said, then described Arafat as "weak and useless."
He revealed that he had asked the CIA to search for possible successors to the Palestinian leader, but said that the agency "researched the Palestinian scene thoroughly, and concluded that there is no successor available."
The documents reveal that Bush's search for a successor to Arafat was contrary to the position of his Secretary of State, Colin Powell.
After nearly 4 years of the American endeavor, the Palestinian leader died on November 11, 2004 in France, after medical efforts failed to save him from a cerebral hemorrhage due to what was said to be a toxic substance that had been introduced into his body.
Palestinians and Arabs accused Israel of killing him, but it publicly denied any responsibility for his death.
The documents did not refer to Blair's position on Bush's effort to find a successor to Arafat, but the general British assessment at the time was that Washington supported Israel's actions in dealing with the uprising, including targeting members of the security circle close to Arafat.
Twenty-four hours before Blair and Bush called, Sawers wrote a report in which he said, "The Bush team took hard positions on the Middle East peace process. Bush's comments last night, in which he demanded that Arafat stop the violence, effectively gave his blessing to Israel's strikes on Arafat's bodyguard."
At that time, Israel continued to carry out a military operation targeting Arafat's bodyguards, killing one of them in a helicopter strike, under the pretext of participating in attacks on Israeli targets.