Lebanese leader trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

President Bush insists the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has nothing to do with his war on Osama bin Laden. Arab leaders are unanimous in saying it does. Saudi Arabia - traditionally not prone to criticising the US - has taken the lead on this issue.

Washington's reluctance to become involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict "is enough to make a sane man go mad," the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said at the weekend. "If the Palestinian problem were solved," Crown Prince Abdallah asserted recently, "more than 50 per cent of the terrorism in the world would stop."

Lebanon's Prime Minister, Mr Rafiq Hariri, became a billionaire - and a dual Lebanese and Saudi citizen - by building palaces for the Saudi royal family. In Paris to see his old friend President Chirac, Mr Hariri told The Irish Times he was in complete agreement with the Saudi princes. Mr Hariri will take the same message to the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schr÷der on Wednesday.

For while Mr Bush was snubbing President Yasser Arafat in New York, Mr Hariri said he was "trying to push the leaders of European countries to restart the (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations on the basis of UN resolutions". The solution to the Palestinian problem is simple, Mr Hariri says. "Implementation of UN resolutions (242 and 338)", which demand that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "It is on the table and it is accepted by all parties except Israel. They are the occupying power; they are like 19th-century colonialists. If Israel wants peace, they can have it tomorrow. The Arabs are ready."

Mr Hariri says he is not anti-American. "Arabs like America. We like their system, their way of life. We send our children to study in the US; we go there for medical care. We have a huge amount of trade with them. But there is one problem: unlimited US support for Israel. It has led to a feeling of bitterness in the Arab world. Solving the Palestinian problem will make this feeling disappear. The Arabs are not asking the US to abandon Israel; we want them to use their influence to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict."

The deaths of Muslim civilians in the US bombing of Afghanistan and the near certainty that the bombing will continue during the holy month of Ramadan make pro-Western Arab leaders like Mr Hariri uneasy. "The Taliban regime is not loved by Arabs or Muslims or the people of Afghanistan," he says. "I am proud to be a Muslim and I cannot imagine myself living under a regime like the Taliban. But bombing during Ramadan will embarrass the entire Muslim and Arab world."

On November 2nd, Mr Bush included the Lebanese Hizbullah on a list of "terrorist" organisations whose funds he wants frozen. Mr Hariri refused, and Mr Bush spoke menacingly this weekend of the "consequences" for "allies of terror". As a Sunni Muslim with close Saudi ties, Mr Hariri has no affection for the Iranian-backed Shia Hizbullah. But Syria's domination of Lebanon gives him no leeway. "Hizbullah is a resistance movement and a political party," he insists, adding that an April 1996 agreement to which the US and Israel were parties recognised it as such.

Mr Hariri's business sense makes him think new constraints on the flow of information, goods and people in the wake of September 11th will continue to brake Western economies. Paradoxically, the Lebanese economy is improving.

Some 200 Arab students from the Gulf have left the US because they feared anti-Arab prejudice there, and they've enrolled in Lebanese institutions. The price of property in Beirut has shot up. Annoyed by the treatment they now encounter in Switzerland, Gulf Arabs are switching in droves to Lebanese banks.