"Personally, I didn't have much hope for this process anyway, and one of the reasons I didn't is because I figured these attacks were going to continue," a diplomat said.

Nine Israelis were killed in 12 hours when a kamikaze attacked Jewish settlers in Hebron and a pair of suicide bombers swooped down on Jerusalem.

Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner immediately blamed Yasser Arafat and accused the Palestinian leader of forming an alliance with hardline groups to sabotage peace efforts led by his Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas.

None of the three attacks had been claimed Sunday evening, but radical Islamic groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad -- fierce opponents of the roadmap and of negotiations with Israel -- were the prime suspects.

The internationally-drafted blueprint which was published on April 30 demands Abbas crack down on militant groups and disarm them while Israel is expected to freeze its settlements and pull its troops back from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But Israel insists it will not move on the roadmap before the Palestinians stamp out their militant factions.

Echoing the Israeli position, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged the Palestinians to take rapid and "decisive" action against hardline militants, hinting that a crackdown was pre-requisite rather than a condition of the roadmap.

"If there is no movement against terrorism, there is no roadmap, there is no peace process," said analyst Gerald Steinberg who predicted a rise in Israeli operations against the Palestinians.

The suicide attack on the Hebron settlers which left two dead plus the bomber and Sunday morning's twin blasts in east Jerusalem which left nine dead, including the bombers, coincided with the first meeting between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

But far from putting the peace process back on track, the highest-level Israeli-Palestinian meeting since the outbreak of the 31-month intifada gave fresh impetus to the violence and highlighted the difficult road ahead for a negotiated settlement.

Sharon told Abbas that Israel would continue to shy away from officially accepting the roadmap -- which paves the way for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 -- so long as hardline militants have a free hand.

According to a statement issued by his information minister, Abbas told Sharon that the Palestinians had "the ability to deliver on their commitment" to the roadmap but that a formal Israeli acceptance of the plan was needed.

However, Sharon, who has drawn up a list of 15 amendments to the three-phased plan, has yet to sign up for the roadmap.

Before the latest bloodshed, he had delayed a decision on the roadmap until his scheduled Tuesday visit to the White House but that trip has been postponed in the wake of Sunday's two bombings.

"The question is who'll start," explained Abdullah al-Hurani, a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Executive Committee.

The Palestinians argue that only unambiguous pressure from the White House could lead Sharon to take serious steps and, in turn, clear the way for Abbas to start his crackdown.

"From my point of view, the Americans are not serious... From the beginning, I didn't expect any future for this roadmap," Hurani told AFP.

"As long as these attacks continue, the Bush administration is not going to put a lot of pressure on Sharon," the diplomat explained.

"I think Abu Mazen is living on, I don't want to say borrowed time, but he has so much time. If the situation doesn't change, then Abu Mazen will be history," he added.

The recent spate of attacks also proves that Israel's year-old reoccupation of the West Bank has failed to prevent Palestinian attacks and that radical groups have managed to reconstitute themselves.

"The roadmap hasn't begun yet, but right now, it doesn't seem like it is going to go anywhere, because the essential conditions for beginning the roadmap ... have not been created,' Steinberg explained.

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