New York ? In the shadow of a new Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians, leaders from the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union struggled Tuesday to paper over their differences on Yasser Arafat’s fate and move forward with a new Mideast peace initiative.

But the divisions between the Bush administration and the three other major mediating powers, which call themselves the Quartet, persisted even after a two-hour meeting in New York.

The fissures opened when President Bush declared in his June 24 Mideast speech that the Palestinians would have to replace Yasser Arafat as their leader and thoroughly reform their security, political and financial institutions before they could hope to achieve a state of their own. Arafat, Bush contends, is hopelessly tainted by corruption and support for violence against Israel.

The U.S. conditions provoked objections from Arab and European leaders, who regard Washington’s position as tilted excessively toward Israel.

The Arabs and Europeans insist that Arafat remains the Palestinians’ chosen leader and that a quick timetable for the declaration of a Palestinian state is the best way to resolve the political hopelessness that they say underlies much of the Palestinian violence against Israelis.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell, who before Bush’s speech had advocated similar positions, reiterated the Bush administration’s determination to end Palestinian attacks on Israel and said that the United States would soon present concrete new proposals for reform of the fractured Palestinian security services.

“Everything begins with creating a better sense of security,” Powell told reporters at a joint press conference after the Quartet meeting.

That prompted U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to interject that progress toward Palestinians’ political aspirations was just as important.

“We all agree that we should work on security, but even if the security track gains some traction, unless we show some progress on the other two tracks, that will not work,” Annan said. “That would also fail.”

The Quartet representatives took pains to stress the areas where their Mideast views converge, including the need to support Palestinian economic, political and security reforms and to provide urgent humanitarian relief to alleviate the hardships Palestinians are suffering under Israeli military restrictions. The Israeli army is occupying seven of eight main Palestinian population centers, enforcing travel restrictions, roadblocks and strict curfews.

The diplomats said that they had convened a number of working groups to assist Palestinian reforms, and vowed to continue their work in that area.