MIDDLE EAST: The Palestinian Authority yesterday accused Israel of violating signed agreements and creating a "provocation", after the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, told his cabinet that for the second year running the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, would be barred from visiting Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations.
In what appeared to be an attempt to ensure Mr Arafat did not head for Bethlehem despite the ban, Mr Sharon told the weekly cabinet meeting yesterday that if "Arafat tries to slip out of Ramallah then we must immediately go into the Muqata [Arafat's headquarters] and snatch all the wanted people there."
He was referring to a group of Palestinians on Israel's wanted list who are holed up in the Palestinian leader's battered compound and whom Mr Arafat does not want to be seen to be abandoning.
The army chief-of-staff, Lieut Gen Moshe Ya'alon, told ministers that the military did not plan to pull out of the biblical city, considered to be the traditional birthplace of Jesus, during Christmas.
Asked about President Moshe Katsav's statement to Pope John Paul II, during their meeting last week at the Vatican, that Israel would make every effort to remove its troops from the city during the holiday, Mr Ya'alon said the army had reported it would lower its profile there during Christmas, but would not leave completely.
A senior Israeli source, however, said that foreign pilgrims, Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and Israeli Christians would be allowed into the city.
Israel reoccupied Bethlehem last month after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus, killing 11 people.
An aide to Mr Arafat, Mr Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said Israel's decision to keep the Palestinian leader from attending midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity "aims to provoke the Palestinian people and the Arab nation and belittle international efforts exerted to salvage the peace process ".
Last Christmas, after Mr Sharon slapped a travel ban on the Palestinian leader in the wake of a series of suicide bombings, Mr Arafat vowed to walk to Bethlehem, but he ultimately never left Ramallah.
Meanwhile, Mr Arafat yesterday called on the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, to stop using the Palestinian struggle as a pretext for attacks.
"Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now?" he asked in an interview in the Sunday Times. "Bin Laden never, not ever, stressed this issue. He never helped us.
"He was working in another completely different area and against our interests," he said.
Mr Arafat also dismissed as "big, big lies" Mr Sharon's claims that al-Qaeda has agents operating in the Gaza Strip.
In Washington the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Shaul Mofaz, is to meet the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, and the National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice.
Israeli media said his three-day visit was aimed at co-ordinating the Jewish state's preparations for any armed conflict in the Gulf.