Arafat offers ceasefire as summit backs peace deal

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For the first time, the Arab world has collectively offered Israel peace and recognition in return for the Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 war and a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem.

The Saudis initiated the proposals, which gained the support of every nation – even that of Iraq – at the Arab summit yesterday in Beirut.

Reacting to the Arab declaration, the Palestinan leader Yasser Arafat indicated he was ready to offer an "unconditional ceasefire" even as Israeli tanks were again bearing down on his headquarters in Ramallah in the West Bank.

As Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, put it last night, an end to Israeli occupation and a Palestinian state would bring an end to the state of war between Arab and Jew, a peace treaty and "normal" relations. "Israel cannot keep the [Arab] land and demand peace," he said.

The text of what is officially called "the Arab peace initiative" states that once Israel meets the demands, the Arabs will "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region [and] establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace."

While the United States welcomed the initiative, Israel reacted with predictable suspicion. Far more seriously, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were last night predicting an imminent Israeli onslaught on refugee camps in the occupied territories in retaliation for Wednesday night's horrific suicide bombing in Netanya which left 20 Israelis dead.

A gunfight raged last night in the West Bank town of Nablus where Palestinian gunmen attacked settlers, killing at least three.

In effect, the Arab proposal goes back to the original UN Security Council resolution 242 of 1967, which demands an Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war: the West Bank, Gaza, east Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel has never abided by the resolution.

Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has long refused to pull Israeli forces out of all these territories. Vast Jewish settlements around east Jerusalem would have to be evacuated.So would the Jewish colonies built illegally on Arab land in the West Bank, Gaza and Golan. Israel would return to the much smaller territory it held before 1967.