JERUSALEM - After three years of violence and pessimism, there are signs of willingness to explore new avenues toward Mideast peace.

Palestinian militant groups are considering ending attacks on Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has promised to make a major policy speech outlining new moves with the Palestinians. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell lent encouragement to a symbolic peace deal brokered by former officials.

Even Syria, perhaps Israel´s most intractable foe, has made noises about reopening peace talks.

Few are celebrating, but these hints of flexibility inject a bit of hope into the dark situation.

"All these things are happening ... because of a growing sense of impatience," said Mark Heller, an Israeli political analyst at Tel Aviv University´s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

On both sides, many have become exhausted.

Some Palestinians, suffering under Israeli closures and other stifling restrictions, are beginning to question the wisdom of the Palestinian intefadeh, or uprising.

Israelis are also frustrated by the violence, seemingly unending despite repeated military crackdowns.

The U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, envisioned as the blueprint for regional harmony and Palestinian statehood by 2005, has been stalled for months.

Both sides realize trying to solve the conflict through force is counterproductive, said Kadri Hefny, an Egyptian psychology professor who has participated in past Israeli-Palestinian mediation efforts. "There has been a historical accumulation of violence that has proven nothing," he said.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, working to get peace efforts moving again, traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to try to persuade militants to halt attacks on Israel.

Qureia then hopes to leverage such a unilateral truce declaration into a cease-fire with Israel.

Israeli officials have expressed support for Qureia and said they planned to make some concessions - possibly easing restrictions and freeing prisoners - to build popular support for the premier.

However, disagreements remain.

Israel insists on an eventual Palestinian crackdown on militant groups as demanded by the road map. Palestinians refuse, saying it could lead to civil war.

Palestinians insist on an immediate halt to settlement construction and the dismantling of West Bank outposts as called for in the peace plan. Israel has made no move to stop settlement growth.

Sharon has also rejected Palestinian demands to stop building a separation barrier that shaves off large swaths of West Bank land. Qureia has threatened to call off a planned meeting with Sharon over the issue.

In recent days, Sharon, his approval ratings plunging, has made vague statements about taking unilateral steps if peace efforts fail. He has refused to elaborate, with aides saying he will fill in the details in an upcoming speech.

Sharon´s plan would reportedly include the dismantling of some Israeli settlements, the annexation of others and the unilateral creation of a border along the separation barrier. A recent poll showed 60 percent of Israelis supporting a plan to unilaterally dismantle some settlements if talks fail.

Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published Friday that peace talks are destined to fail and that Israel should pull out of most of the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem.

Even contemplating a division of Jerusalem was long taboo among Sharon´s hard-line allies. "The solution I am talking about will demand a heavy price from us," Olmert said.

The Israeli feelers arrived in the wake of the so-called Geneva Accord, an unofficial peace plan written by former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.

The virtual agreement, widely debated in Israel and launched at a high-profile event in Switzerland on Monday, has put pressure on Sharon to come up with new proposals of his own.

The plan envisions a Palestinian state roughly along the 1967 borders. It would require Israel to uproot nearly all of its West Bank settlements. It also proposes vague limitations on the right of Palestinian war refugees to return to Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell encouraged the agreement´s chief negotiators at a meeting Friday, while reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the road map.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad told The New York Times he was ready to resume peace talks where they left off in 2000. At the time, Israel offered to return nearly all the Golan Heights captured in 1967, a deal Israel´s current government is unlikely to repeat.

Israeli officials says Syria must crack down on Palestinian militants it has been hosting for decades, and rein in Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon before talks can resume. Syria says it has shut down offices of militant groups.

Ahmed Ghneim, a Palestinian delegate the Cairo talks from the ruling Fatah party, was skeptical about peace prospects.

"I don´t think there is a chance for true peace now. But there is a chance to stop Israeli aggression and return the situation to where it was before September 2000," Ghneim said, referring to the date the conflict flared up.

Heller, too, doubts that the growing impatience among the Israeli and Palestinian publics will bridge their leaders´ difference.

"The fact that more and more people say that something needs to be done doesn´t indicate there is any kind of consensus about what that something ought to be," he said. (© 2003 The Associated Press 12/06/03)