THE MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, went to the United States yesterday with a peace plan that includes the marginalisation of Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat.
However, it does not appear as if President George Bush, who meets the Israeli leader tomorrow, is ready to accommodate this demand, for now.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, four Palestinians, three of them children, were killed yesterday by Israeli forces.
While Mr Bush has not hidden his disappointment with Mr Arafat, his National Security Adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice, said yesterday: "We are not going to try to choose the leadership for the Palestinian people."
But Ms Rice did not hide the deep suspicion with which the Bush administration has treated Mr Arafat, and the possibility that his Authority might be living on borrowed time.
"We are going to call on Arab allies, the Europeans and others to press him and we are going to be very clear that the Palestinian leadership that is there now, the Authority, is not the kind of leadership that can lead to the kind of Palestinian state that we need. It has got to reform."
In Washington, Mr Sharon will continue his campaign of trying to discredit the Palestinian leader.
He is carrying a 91-page booklet containing documents Israel alleges directly connect Mr Arafat to the financing of terror attacks.
"We need to be able to keep talking, but with another Palestinian leadership," said Education Minister, Ms Limor Livnat, who was accompanying Mr Sharon.
Mr Bush, however, has been told by his advisers and by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who recently visited him, that Israel's siege of Mr Arafat has only boosted his standing among his people, and that he is currently the only channel for negotiations. Apart from the desire to sideline Mr Arafat, the Israeli leader will present a plan that calls for a reform of the Palestinian Authority, the unification of its various security forces, and then political negotiations toward a long-term interim agreement.
Mr Sharon's plan apparently makes no mention of the controversial issue of Jewish settlements.
But the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said yesterday that: "Settlements continue to grow and continue to expand. . . It is not going to go away as a problemI'm sure this will be part of our discussions with the prime minister."
A senior Palestinian official hit back, saying Mr Sharon's plan was merely a recipe for continuing the conflict.
Near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, a mother and her two children - aged three and four - were killed after a bomb exploded near a tank, which then fired at suspicious figures spotted by soldiers in a nearby grove.
The Israeli army expressed "deep regret" over the incident.
Palestinian medical officials reported that a nine-year-old boy was killed when he was shot twice in the chest as Israeli forces opened fire in the West Bank refugee camp of TulKarm.
The army went into the camp early yesterday in what it said was a bid to thwart a planned suicide attack.
In Bethlehem, there were signs of progress in talks aimed at ending the month-long stand-off at the Church of the Nativity, where over 100 Palestinian gunmen are surrounded by Israeli forces.
Palestinians inside the church provided a European envoy with a list of 123 names of those inside, and the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, intervened directly in the negotiations for the first time.
The continuing stand-off meant Orthodox Christians were not able to celebrate Easter Sunday in the shrine.