BEIRUT, JERUSALEM

The much-anticipated Arab League Summit begins in Beirut today but as leaders arrived in the Lebanon the focus was firmly on two notable absentees.

The Palestinian President Yasser Arafat remains confined in Ramallah while Hosni Mubarak of Egypt dealt a further blow to the two-day meeting by deciding not to attend, due to what his foreign minister has called "domestic commitments", advising the Palestinian leader to stay at home for fear the Israelis would not let him back.

Yasser Arafat had hoped to put in an appearance but Israel set pre-conditions for freeing him from confinement that he judged unacceptable.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat accused the Israeli government of handling the issue in a "despicable" fashion and said it had attempted to humiliate the Palestinian leader and the Palestinian people.

"There are no limits to the provocations of Sharon and his occupation army," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abdo Rabbo said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher accused Sharon of playing games with Arafat and said the Palestinian leader should not try to attend the summit.

"The honorable way is for Arafat to say that he is not coming because it does not depend on the decisions of the Israelis, which is illegal, which is unjustified. And Arafat, whether he comes or not, will be represented by all the rest of the Arab states," Maher said.

The Bush administration still holding out hope that Arafat would attend because Arab leaders are to consider a Saudi proposal that would swap normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world for an Israeli withdrawal to its borders before the 1967 war.

"It's a complicated situation," a senior administration official said. "There are a lot of mixed signals certainly in public and we will have to see what happens." 

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has shrugged off appeals from the United States, the European Union and many world leaders for Yasser Arafat to be allowed to attend the summit.

His no-compromise stance has fuelled outrage among Palestinians keen to show their support for their President who is set to address the meeting nonetheless, via video link from the West Bank.

Meanwhile, despite his absence, Arab leaders are still expected to endorse a new Saudi plan aimed at bringing peace to the Middle East.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose country currently heads the EU, are all due at the summit.

The proposed Arab peace initiative that will be presented to the Arab summit will affirm that "peace is a strategic goal of all the Arab states", according to the final draft.