Arab Nations Cool to U.S. Idea of Mideast Peace Conference
The still vague proposal from Washington for a Middle East peace conference has elicited only tepid enthusiasm from Arab governments, which are perturbed by continuing Israeli military assaults and question whether the Bush administration is sincerely seeking a fair deal.

The United States' failure to force the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the West Bank underscores Arab doubts about the goal of any such conference, not to mention doubts about Washington's ability to push through far more difficult compromises needed to create a Palestinian state.

"The Egyptian position stresses that the first step before discussing any meeting or conference has to be the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territories occupied in the past weeks," Ahmed Maher, the Egyptian foreign minister, said before traveling to Ramallah to visit Yasir Arafat today.

Both he and Osama al-Baz, the political adviser to President Hosni Mubarak who accompanied him, stressed that any such conference had to be based on the old formula of Israel's exchanging territory for peace and not starting a new round of talks that might dilute what has been negotiated already.

Their trip was clearly meant to underscore Arab support for Mr. Arafat at a time when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel is going to Washington and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, has suggested that Mr. Arafat is not the man who can bring about an independent Palestinian state.

"Nobody can put in doubt the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority or that of Mr. Arafat as elected president at the head of this authority," Mr. Maher said.

Senior Arab officials contend that Mr. Sharon is trying to replay events of 20 years ago, when his forces invaded Lebanon. Then, the Israelis signed a peace treaty after helping install a Lebanese government more to their liking. The president-elect was assassinated, however, the peace deal collapsed, and Lebanon descended again into chaos.

"If Arafat is pushed around and forced into a treaty, it will suffer the same fate as the treaty of Lebanon after the Israeli invasion," Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, said in an interview. "Difficult or easy to deal with, he is the one the Israelis will have to deal with."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/06/international/middleeast/06ARAB.html