ME peace promoters blast Bush admn

"I hope personally that there will be a new president in the United States of America because that's the best interest of the state of Israel," former Israeli Labour Party politician and parliament speaker Avraham Burg said.

"I would like the Democrats to take over and a Democrat administration to pick up at the point where (ex-president Bill) Clinton left the region," he told journalists during a conference in the Swiss village of Caux.

Burg and his Palestinian counterpart on the Geneva Initiative, former information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, called for a revival of US political involvement in the Middle East conflict.

The Geneva founders also rounded on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's announced unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, warning it would be counterproductive without an idea of what follows afterwards.

"The position of the United States was not positive and is not helpful in moving from Gaza to Geneva," Rabbo said, adding that the international community had a key role to play in the conflict at this moment.

Meanwhile, two Palestinians were killed early Monday in a raid by an Israeli helicopter on the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.

The Apache helicopter fired four rockets at a farm inside the camp, the sources said.

The two dead were identified as Mussa Abu Mashi, 20, and Mohamad Salmane Abu Hashish, 21. Locals said that they had been employed as guards in the farm.