Israeli troops and tanks must be completely withdrawn from territory under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction, Mr Yasser Arafat has told The Irish Times. He insisted he had the right to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut later this month, where Middle East peace moves are to be discussed, but expressed concern he might not be permitted to return to his homeland.
The Palestinian Authority President said he was "ready" to meet the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon. He welcomed the latest EU declaration on the Middle East along with the peace efforts of the US special envoy, Gen Anthony Zinni.
He also praised the Saudi Arabian peace initiative and what he called Ireland's "important" role in Middle East peace efforts at the UN Security Council.
Mr Arafat was speaking in an interview at the presidential office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, where he has been confined under effective house arrest until recently by the Israeli government.
The results of Israeli attacks on his compound could still be seen. A guest house for official visitors is in ruins. The scars of an assault on another building, 20 metres from his office, is still visible.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere was relaxed and, prior to the interview, Mr Arafat had received a delegation from the Socialist Left Party of Norway.
It also emerged that he had left the compound on Saturday night to visit the nearby al-Amari refugee camp, scene of very heavy fighting during the recent Israeli occupation of the town.
Mr Arafat was in good spirits and, if anything, seemed energised by his recent travails. There was no sign of his famous "quivering lip", which was so evident when I met him in Gaza City on September 11th. He spoke in his own special brand of English, consulting occasionally with an interpreter.
When asked to comment on the peace proposal by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, offering Arab recognition of Israel within its 1967 borders, he replied: "It is a good start and we hope that the Israelis will take it into consideration, if they are ready to achieve peace.
"But I am sorry to say, until now, [there has been] no official response from the Israeli government."
News reports the previous night had suggested Mr Sharon would be meeting Palestinian leaders within 24 hours but, as Mr Arafat pointed out: "They denied it today."
Did he see any possibility of a meeting between himself and the Israeli Prime Minister? "Why not?"
He had met him before: "If he is ready, I am ready." But he made clear that this would be in the context of a withdrawal by Israeli troops and tanks.
"If you were in my place," he said, "what would you suggest for your country, for your land, for your holy, sacred Christian and Muslim places? I am not asking for the moon. I am asking for what had been agreed upon with the superpowers." He reeled off a list of plans and agreements, the Tenet Understanding, the Mitchell Report, going back to the Oslo Accords and the Madrid conference of the early 1990s. It all amounted to one simple idea, land for peace.
He paused, then repeated: "Land for Peace, according to United Nations resolutions 242 and 338 and 425 and 194." Until recently, these were the milestones of UN involvement in the Middle East but a new one was added last week.
I asked for his views on the potentially-historic US-sponsored Resolution 1397 which held out the prospect of a Palestinian state. "We appreciate it very much and we had expressed our appreciation officially. I sent my thanks to his excellency President Bush for this good initiative and also to the countries which had accepted it." Only Syria failed to support the resolution which was backed by all other members of the security council, including Ireland.
I asked him what role a small country like Ireland could play on the council. "First of all, from the beginning till now you have a very important role.
" We are proud that the relations of our two peoples are very strong and very old and we are proud of it."
He has been confined to his Ramallah headquarters for some time but the Israeli government recently indicated he could now possibly travel again. I asked him if it were his wish and intention to attend the Arab summit in Beirut on March 27th and 28th.
"This is my right. This is a test for the Israelis, do they want peace or not? And the most important point, if they are intending to give me the green light to go to Beirut and prevent me to return back or not."
He looked at his aides as though confirming that this was indeed the key question.
Did he understand the fears of the ordinary Israeli citizen confronted with suicide bombers? "We are completely against any attack against any civilian, Palestinian or Israeli, and we condemn it. But don't forget that the main reason for the suffering which our people is facing: the humiliation and the continuous attack by all the Israeli military installations against our people, our towns, our villages, our refugee camps. These refugee camps are under United Nations supervision."
He handed me over some photographs of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bethlehem which had been badly damaged by Israeli fire during a security operation.
"What is the meaning of that? You remember what happened to the Afghanistani Taliban when they did something like that to Buddha's statue?
"The whole world was condemning Afghanistan. What about Sancta Maria in the holy city in Bethlehem?"
I offered him back the photos. "You can keep them."
It should be stated that the Israeli army has expressed regret over the incident which is the subject of disciplinary action. I commented on the damage to his own headquarters and asked if he was concerned for his personal safety.
"For me it makes no difference. What is important for me is what our people are suffering, day and night from this military escalation, killing our children, our women, our families, our men.
"All our establishments have been destroyed and bombed by their helicopters and by their F-15s and F-16s, by their tanks, by their artillery, by their missiles."
He went on to criticise the Israelis for "all this destruction and bombing of all our infrastructure, bulldozing all our farms, uprooting the majority of our olive trees, the schools, the statistics bureau, the airport, the harbour, the roads, the water-wells everywhere, the electricity transmitters of many of our cities".
He continued his list of charges, claiming that: "This problem of the water and the electricity is preventing our students and our teachers to go to their schools and even preventing women to go to deliver their sons in the hospitals and some of them have been obliged to deliver the son at these checkpoints. If this had happened anywhere all over the world. And recently two women have died when they were delivering their children on the checkpoints."
I had myself been obliged to pass through an Israeli checkpoint to get to the interview and found it a somewhat fraught experience. "Maybe you have suffered," the President said. "I don't know if you have suffered on one of the checkpoints or not? This Berlin Wall all around Jerusalem."
I asked him what the EU could do to ease the situation, apart from the substantial funding it provided to the Palestinian Authority.
"A lot," he replied. "Don't forget that 70 per cent of the Israeli economy [i.e. trade] is with Europe. And historically it is geopolitics between what is going in the Middle East and Europe, geopolitics.
"And their role internationally, their role in the Middle East, with the Americans, the Russians, the United Nations and the Security Council, this role is very important and we are looking with all our concern to their steps to protect the Peace of the Brave which I have signed with my partner [the late Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak] Rabin, who lost his life for this."
He welcomed the EU declaration on the Middle East at the Barcelona summit: "It is good and we have to thank them for this communiquΘ."
He spoke of his visit to the local al-Amari refugee camp the previous night: "Their spirit is very high but the damage is also unbelievable, massive."
An aide produced an Arabic newspaper which showed Mr Arafat examining a huge hole blown in the wall of a refugee family's home in al-Amari. "They are ruining the walls, one room to another," the aide said.
"Why?" Mr Arafat chimed in. "Where has it been done all over the world?" Was the high-profile visit by the US special envoy, Gen Anthony Zinni, likely to produce peace?
"We hope so, and I have to thank him for coming and to thank his excellency President Bush and Mr Colin Powell to send him in these very crucial circumstances."
Would he be meeting Vice-President Cheney who was currently touring the region? Mr Arafat opened his hands: "He didn't ask to meet me."
He invited me to have my picture taken with him against a photograph of the Dome of the Rock, the Jerusalem site sacred to Muslims.
Afterwards, a Palestinian admirer embraced him in a gesture of hero-worship. The father of his people: in a sense it was the most revealing moment.