ARABS-ISRAEL - March 25 - Israel Bans Arafat's Trip To Beirut.

Justice Minister Meir Shitrit says: "I think if Arafat does not implement and give an unequivocal order to stop the terror, something he has not done so far, despite his promises, he should not be allowed to go" to the Arab League summit meeting in Beirut beginning on March 27. Deputy Defence Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof says: "It seems to me that the general direction of the cabinet will be not to allow him to go". (This comes despite the continued efforts by Washington to urge PM Sharon to let Arafat go, with White House spokesman Ari Fleischer saying: "The president [Bush] believes that Prime Minister Sharon and the Israeli government should give serious consideration to allowing Yasser Arafat to attend" the summit). Meanwhile, PA officials say Arafat is not so eager to attend under the current circumstances because Israel is placing too many conditions on his trip. Sharon has said that unless Arafat's participation in the summit was constructive, from Israel's point of view, he might not let him return.

Bahrain's Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa said: "The Arab summit will be useless" if Arafat does not attend. Further complicating the discussions, a group of Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, issued a joint statement urging Arafat and other Arab leaders to reject the Saudi peace proposal because it did not call for Israel to leave Palestinian lands fast enough. The groups behind the statement are responsible for nearly all of the suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel in recent months. On March 26, PM Sharon said in an Arab-language broadcast on Israeli television, "conditions have not ripened yet" to allow Arafat to travel to Beirut.

PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo angrily described the Israeli decision as "provocative" and said: "President Arafat has consulted with his leadership and has studied the issue carefully. He has decided not to allow Israel to pressure the Palestinian negotiators into submitting to Israeli conditions, and so he decided not to go to the summit". Sharon's declaration came at the end of a day of furious manoeuvring and speculation, overcast by high tensions. A suicide bombing was apparently averted when Israeli security forces tried to stop a suspicious vehicle with two men inside, and it blew up. The car was headed in the direction of a large shopping mall in southern Jerusalem. In the evening, the Army announced that two members of an international monitoring force - a Swiss and a Turk - had been ambushed and killed in their car near Hebron, apparently by Palestinian gunmen who presumed they were Israelis. The victims belonged to the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, set up after an Israeli settler massacred 29 Muslim worshippers in 1994 to serve as a neutral monitoring agency. With Israel in preparation for Passover, which begins at sundown on March 27, security was extraordinary, with policemen, soldiers and roadblocks everywhere in evidence. Israel's private Channel Two news reported that security forces believed Palestinians were preparing a major "strategic" terror attack, but there was no official confirmation.