Israel is resisting heavy international diplomatic pressure to allow the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, to travel from Ramallah to Bethlehem today for Christmas ceremonies. Although senior government ministers were castigating Saturday night's decision to bar him from the city as hugely damaging to Israel's standing among Christians worldwide, the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, was said to be disinclined to bend.
Mr Arafat declared that "no one can stop me" from making what has been an annual visit to Bethlehem since the city was relinquished to the rule of his Palestinian Authority in 1995. "No one has the right," he added, "no matter what weapons they have, to prevent me from fulfilling the religious obligation to pray in the Church of the Nativity."
Mr Arafat even suggested he might walk the 12 miles to Bethlehem from Ramallah, where he has been kept under virtual house arrest by Israel for the past two weeks. But last night his aides privately indicated he would not seek to challenge the Israeli ban.
Aides to Mr Sharon were curt: Israel was committed to free access for people of all religions to their holy places, said an official, but Mr Arafat was "a Muslim, not a Christian". The Palestinian leader was being restricted to Ramallah because he was not "doing enough to fight terrorism".
Although arrests and office closures have produced clashes between Mr Arafat's forces and Hamas supporters, and although Hamas has called a temporary halt to suicide bombings in Israel, Mr Sharon's aides asserted that the two gunmen responsible for assassinating the Tourism Minister, Mr Rehavam Ze'evi, in October were "right down the block" from Mr Arafat's offices in Ramallah.
The Palestinian Information Minister, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, said the Israeli decision to bar Mr Arafat from Bethlehem demonstrated "the arrogance of occupation. It's a humiliation for the entire Palestinian people, Christians and Muslims".
US and EU officials indicated that they shared this assessment. So, too, did the Israeli ministers who were outvoted, including the Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres. The ban would become "the talk of Christmas around the Christian world", Mr Peres warned. "Let him go, pray, do what he wants to do." Bizarrely, Israel was allowing Mr Sari Nusseibeh, the PLO official it detained earlier this week for holding a reception in Jerusalem for foreign envoys, to host a similar Christmas event in Jerusalem last night.
Mr Peres was also deeply unhappy at statements from Mr Sharon's office distancing the prime minister from a new document, drawn up in talks with Mr Abu Ala, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, that sets out new terms and a new timetable for peacemaking. The paper provides for a declaration of Palestinian statehood within eight weeks, on the 42 per cent of the West Bank over which Mr Arafat has full or partial control, and an effort to resolve all outstanding issues on a state-to-state basis within a year.