UNITED NATIONS – Even though it did not participate in yesterday’s London summit, which was intended to strengthen the recently elected Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas, Israel hoped the meeting would lead to stronger pressure on Syria and other terrorist elements, senior officials in Jerusalem say.

The conference, at which $1.2 billion was pledged by donors to help the Palestinian Authority, also called on Mr. Abbas to disarm terror organizations. Mr. Abbas promised reforms in the Palestinian Authority to assure the donations would improve his people’s lot.

Secretary of State Rice endorsed Israeli intelligence at the meeting that the foreign ministers of Russia, France, major Arab states, and Secretary-General Annan attended, that implicated Syria in last Friday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Five Israelis were killed in the terror attack that was perceived in London also as an assault on peace moves in the region. “There is evidence that Islamic Jihad, headquartered in Syria, was in fact involved with the planning of those attacks in Tel Aviv,” Ms. Rice told ABC News. “And so the Syrians have a lot to answer for.”

Mr. Abbas said he had no evidence of Syria’s involvement. But France, which has cooperated at the U.N. with Washington in pressuring Syria to pull out of Lebanon, indicated it might endorse a resolution based on the new intelligence, but “it has to be made public,” U.N. Ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere told The New York Sun yesterday.

In Jerusalem, Ms. Rice’s statement was seen as an endorsement of Israel’s claim to have intercepted communications that established that orders and plans for the attack came from the Damascus headquarters of Islamic Jihad; Israeli officials called for the already intense international pressure on Syria to be increased.

“Syria is the weak link in a terror triangle, along with Iran and Hezbollah,” a senior official in Prime Minister Sharon’s office told the Sun, adding that Islamic Jihad was merely “an errand boy” in the grand terror scheme.

The official, who asked not to be named, explained that while oil-rich Iran supplies the funding and grand strategy for terrorists in the Palestinian Arab areas, and while Hezbollah organizes and executes terror attacks, Syria’s role is that of a “land base.” Goods, weapons, funds, and orders run from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and in the Palestinian Arab territories. Israel, he said, “has an interest in neutralizing Syria, which is now in the world’s crosshairs, to break this crucial part of the triangle.”

The conference was envisioned by the host, Prime Minister Blair, as a way to strengthen Mr. Abbas’s hand in diplomatic matters, but the Friday bombing put new pressures on him regarding terrorism. Until now, Mr. Abbas has merely tried to reach a cease-fire with terrorist organizations. Now Israel is demanding he disarm them.

The demand was tacitly endorsed in London. A statement issued by the steering group known as “the Quartet”, which includes America, Russia, the European Union, and the U.N., called on Mr. Abbas to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to trial, but also stressed “the need for further and sustained action by the Palestinian Authority to prevent acts of terrorism.”

In yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Mr. Sharon vowed there would be no progress in the region “until the Palestinians take strong action to eliminate the terrorist organizations and their infrastructures in the Palestinian Authority areas.”

“The London gathering was intended for, to paraphrase a movie title, Saving Private Mazen,” his aide told the Sun. “Now everyone understands that this is impossible if terrorism continues.”

Mr. Abbas called for widening the effort to reach a resolution on outstanding “final status” issues beyond America, expressing hope that yesterday’s meeting would lead to “an international conference that would take place in accordance with the road map.”

At the U.N., too, officials saw the London gathering as an opportunity to “reinvigorate” the role of the international steering group. “The Quartet remains ready to engage,” its statement yesterday said. This was also Mr. Blair’s intent – but not Jerusalem’s.

“Israel has no interest to upgrade the role of the quartet,” Education Minister Limor Livnat, who attended a U.N. conference on women’s rights yesterday, told the Sun. “Foreign involvement is not necessarily helpful.”

Instead, Israel hoped to engage Mr. Abbas’s cooperation in implementing Mr. Sharon’s “separation plan,” initially envisioned as a unilateral measure. The Jerusalem official told the Sun that such cooperation could help shorten the time allotted for evacuating settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank, so that it could be completed by September 1, and not the end of 2005, as previously scheduled.