Palestinians said on Wednesday a U.S. veto of a U.N. resolution demanding that Israel not harm or expel President Yasser Arafat showed that Washington was turning its back on a peace "road map."

In some of the most scathing Palestinian criticism since President Bush formally launched the peace plan in June, cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said U.S. policy had become a "hostage" to Israeli hard-liners.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat voiced concern that the U.S. move at the Security Council session, which angered the Arab world, could be seen by Israeli leaders as a license to kill the Palestinian leader.

"It's a black day for the United Nations and for international law," he said.

The right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon touched off an international outcry last week by announcing a decision to "remove" the 74-year-old Arafat following two suicide bombings that killed 15 Israelis. Israel has not said how or when it will "remove" Arafat.

In vetoing the resolution, which demanded Israel "desist from any act of deportation and cease any threat" to Arafat's safety, the United States -- Israel's chief ally -- said the text failed to name Palestinian groups blamed for suicide attacks.

"This is a clear announcement that the American administration is not willing to live up to its commitments under the road map," Abed Rabbo told Reuters.

"The American veto not only disappointed the Palestinian people and the Arab world but it shows that depending on the U.S. efforts and U.S. role is futile and useless."

Dore Gold, an adviser to Sharon, accused members of the Security Council anxious to protect Arafat of ignoring violence against Israelis.

Israel has called Arafat an obstacle to peace and charged he has encouraged bloodshed in a three-year-old Palestinian uprising for statehood, allegations he denies.

"ORWELLIAN SITUATION"

Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that killing Arafat was an option, along with expulsion from the Palestinian territories or isolation at his headquarters in Ramallah, a West Bank city where the Israeli army has roadblocks and patrols.

Eleven Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution, while Britain, Germany and Bulgaria abstained after hours of consultations failed to lead to a compromise acceptable to both the United States and Syria, the resolution's sponsor.

"Israel found itself in an Orwellian situation by which its war on terrorism was to be judged in a Security Council resolution sponsored by Syria, one of the main state supporters of terrorism in the world," Gold told Reuters.

In New York, Syrian U.N. envoy Fayssal Mekdad called the U.S. veto "regrettable" and said Israel was "responsible for having scuttled the peace process in the Middle East."

The U.N. vote followed Israel's dismissal of a cease-fire call by Arafat's national security adviser, Jibril Rajoub.

Israel said that instead of pursuing a truce, Arafat's Palestinian Authority should hunt down militants as mandated by the road map peace plan.

Early on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers shot dead a militant from an armed group linked to Arafat's faction in a gun battle in the West Bank city of Nablus, security sources said.

Palestinians say Israel's campaign to kill militants and their leaders only fuels a cycle of violence.

Militant groups that declared a cease-fire on June 29 canceled the truce seven weeks later after Israel killed a senior Hamas political leader in a missile strike that followed a suicide bombing which killed 23 people in Jerusalem.

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