THE MIDDLE EAST: Having made clear in one Hebrew newspaper interview his regrets that Mr Yasser Arafat was not killed by Israel 20 years ago, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, told a second newspaper yesterday that he will urge President Bush next week to sever all contacts with the Palestinian Authority president.
Mr Sharon, who is to visit the White House on Thursday, told the top-selling Yediot Ahronot tabloid he planned to tell Mr Bush: "Ignore Arafat. Boycott him. Don't have any contact with him and don't send him delegations."
Palestinian officials yesterday urged Mr Bush to reject such demands. But in practice, the president is already virtually following them. While his meeting with Mr Sharon will be the fourth in the past year, he has not met Mr Arafat and shows no sign of intending to do so. And he has suspended the peacemaking efforts of the US State Department envoy, Mr Anthony Zinni, demanding yesterday that Mr Arafat "do a better job to fight terror".
Mr Bush indicated he considered Mr Arafat responsible for the 50-ton Iranian arms shipment intercepted by Israel, apparently en route to Gaza, in the Red Sea last month, saying that it had been ordered "for terrorist purposes" and "in total contrast to what he [Mr Arafat] assured us: that he would help us fight against terror."
EU officials are attempting to moderate the strong anti-Arafat line. Mr Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, has been urging US officials not to sever contacts with Mr Arafat. A Palestinian delegation, led by the parliamentary Speaker, Mr Abu Ala, is to hold talks with US officials next week, with the same aim.
Mr Sharon's moderate Labour party partners are also increasingly discomfited by the prime minister's rigid anti-Arafat position, but have yet to indicate a serious desire to bolt the coalition.
The ongoing intifada confrontation is causing dissent within the army, however, where some 50 reserve officers have signed a letter pledging to refuse further service in the occupied territories. All are expected to lose their officer rank.
A former head of the Shin Bet security service, Mr Ami Ayalon, has said that soldiers are sometimes being asked to take "illegal" actions and too few of them are refusing to do so.
"To shoot an unarmed youth is a blatantly illegal order," said Mr Ayalon. "I am very worried by the number of Palestinian children shot in the past year."
Israel is still on high alert for further bombing attacks; sappers defused a large explosive device placed in an apartment block in the town of Tsur Hadassah, outside Jerusalem, yesterday morning.
In remarks published by the Ma'ariv newspaper on Thursday, Mr Sharon was quoted as saying he was "sorry we didn't eliminate" Mr Arafat in Lebanon in 1982.
In the full text of the interview, published yesterday, Mr Sharon does not make that remark, but answers "yes" when asked by the interviewer whether he regrets the failure to kill the Palestinian leader at the time and then adds: "Our situation would be a lot better."