WASHINGTON, BEIRUT, JERUSALEM

The Washington Post has reported that the Israeli military is planning a massive attack on Palestinian areas, an attack that would reach cities, towns and refugee camps.

According to Israeli army officials quoted by the Post, the attack would take place once the cease-fire talks with the Palestinians collapse.

However, while officials said that Israel will give the talks a chance, they expressed their pessimism that a cease-fire agreement is possible.

The officials who spoke to the daily on condition of anonymity said that there is growing support in the Israeli government and in the military for a "comprehensive military confrontation" with the Palestinians.

Although a massive assault took place earlier this month where over 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians were killed and hundreds more wounded, in additional to the destruction of entire neighborhoods, the officials say that the new attack would be broader and deeper.

"The next days might be crucial, because if we don't succeed (in the talks), we may come to the conclusion that there is no hope, and we have to choose the other way," one top Israeli official told the Post.


Green Light for Arafat?

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to convene top-level ministers this morning to decide whether Israel will allow Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to leave Ramallah to attend the Beirut summit meeting of the Arab League.

Israeli Government sources in Jerusalem said last night that "the conditions haven't ripened yet" for an Israeli approval for Arafat's trip, and that Israel is sticking to its demand, as presented to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, for Arafat to announce in his own voice, and in Arabic, a cease-fire and the start of the Tenet work plan process. Another Israeli condition for Arafat's trip is that no terror attacks take place before his departure.

But sources in Washington said last night U.S. President George Bush would personally contact Sharon to ask that Arafat be allowed to attend the summit. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday that Washington believes Israel should "seriously consider" allowing Arafat to go. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the same to Sharon in a phone conversation yesterday. Powell also spoke with Arafat, pressing him to give an "unequivocal order and start acting on the ground."

The Palestinian officials last night prepared its questions for clarification for the plan to give to Zinni. Palestinian sources said the Zinni plan is still too close to the Israeli demands, and that the American and Israeli proposals are a departure from the original Tenet plan, so the Palestinians have the right to make additions.

Also Palestinian sources meanwhile said that Arafat has lost much of his enthusiasm for going to the Beirut summit. The PA is now tilting toward rejecting what the Palestinians perceive as an Israeli attempt to link the Tenet work plan to Arafat's movements. Fatah, in particular, is critical of the over-emphasis given in recent days to the issue of Arafat's attendance at the summit.

According to sources in the movement, if Arafat is not allowed to leave Ramallah, it would serve the Palestinian cause better than if he does go, because going would distract attention from the sieges on Palestinian towns and cities.

If Arafat does go to Beirut, he will helicopter to Amman and from there to Cairo, possibly joining Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on board an Egyptian plane for the flight to Beirut.

A senior Palestinian sources said yesterday that the U.S. pressure to allow Arafat to attend the summit is based on Washington's interest in seeing the summit focus on the Saudi Arabian initiative.

Sharon yesterday proposed a three-stage plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and repeated his offer to share it with Arab leaders at their summit meeting in Beirut this week. Speaking at Likud Party headquarters in Tel Aviv, at the party's Pesach reception last night, Sharon said the first stage would be an end to hostilities and terror attacks, followed by a lengthy interim period. The final stage would be a full peace agreement and a declaration that the conflict was at an end.

Most of Sharon's speech was devoted to his confidence that the government would survive until October 2003, and his emphasis on the need for a national unity government. Without mentioning his arch-rival, Benjamin Netanyahu by name, Sharon said the Likud has to be a "model for the nation" by displaying its own unity.

Meanwhile, Meretz - and Knesset Speaker MK Avrum Burg - yesterday called on the government to allow Arafat to go to Beirut unconditionally. Meretz leader MK Yossi Sarid said that while he doubts Arafat is so interested in making the trip, there is no doubt that Israel should be interested in moving the resolution of the conflict to the entire Middle East, as proposed by the Saudis. "That would be the breakthrough that Arafat alone does not want or is incapable of making," said Sarid.

MK Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right wing National Union party, called Sarid's statement "a prize for terrorism, proving that Sarid and his cohorts in the extreme left systematically ignore the murder of Jews and terror."

Burg said that if the government decides not to allow Arafat to leave Ramallah for Beirut, it would be cause for the Labor Party to quit the coalition.