Arafat won’t go to summit

Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Yasser Arafat decided Tuesday not to attend a key Arab summit after Israel brushed aside appeals by the United States and threatened to prevent the Palestinian leader from returning home if violence flared during his absence.

The absence of Arafat — and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who decided Tuesday not to attend the conference in a protest against Israel — could undermine Arab support for a Saudi peace plan being presented in Beirut.

Despite calls by the United States that he let Arafat go to the summit, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said "conditions are not ripe" to do so. He insisted the Palestinian leader call a cease-fire first and that Washington back any Israeli decision to bar Arafat from returning home if there is violence during his absence.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher insisted Israel grant a "round trip" for Arafat to and from the summit, which opens in the Lebanese capital today.

Underscoring the incendiary situation on the ground, two observers from an international force in the West Bank were shot and killed. The Israeli military said Palestinians opened fire on their car on a road used mostly by Jewish settlers north of Hebron, where the force is stationed. The observers were from Turkey and Switzerland.

Also, two Palestinians from a militia linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement drove a bomb-laden car toward Jerusalem’s largest mall Tuesday morning, blowing themselves up when they were stopped by police. No Israelis were hurt.

U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni made some progress in his efforts to broker a cease-fire. Israel grudgingly accepted new compromise proposals, while the Palestinians expressed some reservations.

Still, Sharon said Arafat must "in his own voice, to his people" declare a halt to violence before being allowed to leave.

Mubarak, often viewed as an Arab moderate, decided not to attend after his government accused Israel of "playing games" and imposing "unacceptable conditions" on Arafat’s travel.

Without the two, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s plan for a pan-Arab peace with Israel in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands may quickly lose momentum that has built since he unveiled it last month.