Jerusalem ? Trying to deflect intense pressure, the Palestinian Authority has handed the United States a detailed written response to allegations that it has not acted against terrorism.

The 17-page document, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, says the Palestinians have arrested 195 militants, blocked 56 suspect bank accounts, closed 15 illegal munitions factories and 79 unregistered charities and clamped down on militant mosque preachers.

Yasser Arafat’s government “remains committed to peacefully negotiating an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories,” said the document, which seemed to be part of a concerted Palestinian effort to convince Western nations that it is sincere in trying to find a way to end 16 months of violence and restart peace talks.

Earlier this week, Arafat wrote an article in The New York Times condemning Palestinian “terrorist groups” who attack Israeli civilians and saying he was “determined to put an end to their activities.”

Israel has dismissed the overtures and violence has continued, with each side blaming the other.

“As far as we know, there are no actions and there are no results,” said Danny Ayalon, a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The claims of arrests are especially misleading, he said, because those arrested were “small-fry” who were not on a list of 33 militants the United States and Israel have demanded be arrested.

“The warning of terrorist attacks are continuing all the time,” Ayalon said. “The Palestinians are talking the talk, but they won’t walk the walk.”

The United States has been pressuring Arafat to take more decisive action to end the violence especially since Israel intercepted an illegal weapons shipment apparently bound from Iran to the Gaza Strip in December.

The new Palestinian document concedes the smuggling effort “demonstrated gaps in Palestinian enforcement measures” and says Arafat ordered the arrests of those involved.

It also says the Palestinians accept “Israel’s right to exist in safe and secure borders,” seek “reconciliation with the Israeli people” and pledge to pursue their goals “exclusively through peaceful means.”

But it argues that in reining in the militants, the Palestinians are hindered by the fact that they have full control over only a small part of the West Bank. It also calls for an end to Israel’s killing of wanted militants, incursions into Palestinian autonomous zones and blockades of Palestinian towns.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said Parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia gave the document to Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday.

Paul Patin, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, would say only that Qureia “outlined steps that they have taken, and we agreed that those are a good start, but more needs to be done.”

Arafat, Patin added, “seems to have one foot in the camp of the peacemakers and one in the camp of the terrorists, and he needs to get both feet in the camp of the peacemakers.”