ARAFAT CALL TO PRAYER IN JERUSALEM THWARTED BY ISRAELI SHOW OF ARMS.

Byline: Alan Sipress Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

A vast deployment of Israeli security forces deterred thousands of Palestinians on Friday from heeding Yasser Arafat's call for a political show of strength by praying at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hundreds of assault rifles bristled in the ancient stone alleys of the Old City as part of the heaviest presence of Israeli troops in East Jerusalem for more than two years. As a result, fewer than 20,000 Muslims attended Friday prayers at the mosque, far fewer than the 100,000 expected by Palestinian and Israeli officials - and even fewer than on a normal Friday.

Arafat responded with a veiled threat to return to the confrontational tactics of the ``intifadah'' uprising.

``We are the ones who waged the longest uprising in the 20th century, and murder, imprisonment and expulsions did not terrorize us,'' Arafat told 200 Palestinians at the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank.

``I don't have a magic wand, but I have the children of the uprising,'' he added.

Palestinians from the nearby West Bank were turned away at army roadblocks outside the city, while worshipers who could reach the Old City had to pass a phalanx of police at the gates to Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Officers separated young and middle-age men from their families, scrutinized their papers and searched their belongings.

While the day passed peacefully, the heightened security crackdown marked the latest escalation in tension between Palestinians and Israelis since the election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May.

``Pressure like this will just lead to an explosion,'' said Hassan Tahboub, Palestinian minister of religious properties, shortly before Al Aqsa's midday prayer began. ``This is the house of God, and Muslim people have to be able to come here and pray in the thousands.''

Arafat called Wednesday for a mass turnout at Friday prayers to protest a series of provocative measures taken by Israel, including the decision this week to build at least 2,000 more homes for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

The Palestinian administration also has been angered by Israel's demolition of Arab buildings in Jerusalem, including what Palestinians say was a club for the disabled, and its five-month delay in withdrawing troops from the West Bank city of Hebron as required by the latest peace accord.

Except for a briefing by Israel's internal security minister, the Israeli cabinet did not discuss the protest. Netanyahu did announce that he and a small group of cabinet ministers would oversee peace talks with the Palestinians. The move was noteworthy in that it left out hard-line Minister of National Infrastructure Ariel Sharon.

Arafat's call to prayer was the second stage of a Palestinian protest that began Thursday with a four-hour general strike observed across the occupied territories. It also was meant to emphasize Palestinians' claim to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The appeal for a large turnout at Al Aqsa was designed, too, to test Israel's pledge to provide access to Jerusalem's holy sites for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. For more than three years, many Arab Muslims and Arab Christians have been prevented from worshiping at the sacred sites by Israel's periodic closures of the West Bank. The latest closure came in response to four Palestinian terrorist bombings that killed 61 people last winter.