Washington ? President Bush pledged Thursday to proceed with peacemaking between Israel and the Arabs despite fresh violence, moving closer to the stand taken by European and Arab governments.

“We refuse to be discouraged,” he said at the start of a White House meeting with three Arab foreign ministers. “We are going to push for peace.”

Arab diplomats found grounds for encouragement. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, said after a 30-minute White House meeting that Bush had promised to use his influence on the Israelis.

Lashing out at the prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, the Saudi told reporters: “I would be more optimistic if Sharon were not there. In Sharon’s view, a good Arab is a dead Arab.”

Among the Palestinians there is talk of a cease-fire in the conflict with Israel, the prince said. That, he said, could set the stage for an Israeli pullback and Palestinian elections.

Bush said the United States, Israel, the Palestinians and others in “the neighborhood” all had a responsibility.

But he declined again to say whether there could be a role for Yasser Arafat in the process. Bush said the focus was on building institutions to help the Palestinian people.

Secretary of State Colin Powell reaffirmed, meanwhile, that “we are unable to deal with Chairman Arafat” although “we recognize that the Palestinian people still look to him as a leader.”

Powell, in a radio interview, acknowledged that the idea of sidestepping Arafat with an active prime minister “has been bandied about a bit.” But he said “it is not a plan that we have presented.”

A double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv Wednesday and a West Bank bus ambush the day before killed 14 people, including the two bombers. They were the first fatal attacks against Israeli civilians since June 20, when Israel sent forces into the West Bank after suicide bomb attacks in Jerusalem.

For months, the administration has called for an end to attacks on Israel as the first order of business in Middle East peacemaking.