Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The Palestinian Authority is not fulfilling its commitments to crack down on terror, raising questions about P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' ability to be a peace partner, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Wednesday.

The comments came one day after Abbas accused Israel of wanting to spill Palestinian blood.

A fragile truce between Israel and the P.A. appears to be breaking down, with a sharp increase in terror attacks during the last few weeks, including rocket and mortar fire on Israeli communities in and around the Gaza Strip and Israeli forays into P.A. areas to arrest wanted Palestinians.

President Bush has strongly backed Abbas, even inviting him to visit the White House, but Bush also has called on Abbas to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.

"Israelis want Palestinian blood to be spilled, and we don't accept that," Abbas was quoted as saying by WAFA, the official P.A. news agency. "This is the red line."

Abbas said that the P.A. is running its security services in its own way to protect Palestinians.

"There are obstacles and progress is slow," Abbas admitted, but he said that the P.A. "is acting to prevent chaos and a proliferation of guns on the streets and in public places."

But Sharon advisor Dr. Dore Gold said the P.A. is doing nothing to fulfill its commitment to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and he questioned Abbas as a peace partner.

"Israel holds the Palestinian Authority directly responsible for the emerging situation," Gold said. "It has the utterly failed to fulfill the understanding it took upon itself at Sharm el-Sheikh between Prime Minister Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas."

At Sharm el-Sheikh, Abbas pledged "to cease all acts of violence against Israelis and Palestinians anywhere." Sharon, speaking at Sharm el-Sheikh, said the only solution was for Israelis and Palestinians to work together to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.

"The first thing is to diagnose correctly the situation instead of building international expectations about an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough," Gold said. "It's far more important to see the Palestinian Authority follow through on what it has already declared it will do."

International expectations for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and a return to the road map peace plan were elevated following the death of P.A. Chairman Yasser Arafat late last year and Sharon's plan to remove 21 Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip and four from the northern West Bank starting this summer.

The world community has been focusing on Sharon's disengagement plan as a means to bring the two sides back into line with the road map peace plan.

But Sharon has been firm that the first stage of the plan - the dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure - must be accomplished before Israel will return to the diplomatic process.

An Israeli soldier and Palestinian terrorist were killed earlier this week during an Israeli arrest operation. The Islamic Jihad fugitive allegedly was responsible for planning a suicide bombing in February in which five Israelis were killed; he had been arrested by the P.A. but recently had escaped from P.A. jail.

The P.A. also reportedly released within a day a Hamas activist who had been arrested following the firing of Kassam rockets at Israeli targets.

In the past, the P.A. would arrest wanted militants, only to turn a blind eye a short time later when they allegedly "escaped" from P.A. custody. Israel called it the "revolving door" policy.

Gold said it is unacceptable to arrest Hamas militants engaged in launching rockets and to release them without criminal proceedings.

"Clearly this Palestinian behavior raises serious questions about the extent to which Israel had a reliable peace partner on the Palestinian side," he said, adding that the prerequisite for any meaningful peace process is the dismantling of the terrorist network that has threatened Israel for more than a decade.

Nevertheless, Gold said that implementing the disengagement plan is not linked to the P.A.'s fight against terrorism.

"The disengagement is not contingent on the performance of the Palestinian Authority," he said.

Despite the upsurge in terrorism, Israel has continued to prepare for the disengagement but Sharon has stated that Israel would not withdraw from Gaza under fire.