And then they wonder why so many Saudis have publicly and financially actually expressed support for Osama Bin Laden and the demand that U.S. troops get out of Arabia; while so many others in one way or another support the suicide bomber phenomena; and why now even the foreign observers who have come to try to help are being targeted as rage, hatred, and despair spread like wildfire.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (Associated Press, AP - March 26) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will not attend this week's Arab summit, his government announced Tuesday. Mubarak's decision leaves the gathering without a key moderate voice as it deals with a Saudi overture of peace with Israel.

The cancellation came as Egypt advised Yasser Arafat to stay away as well, angered by conditions Israel has imposed on allowing the Palestinian leader to attend.

Ten heads of state from the 22-member Arab League are not attending the two-day summit, but Mubarak's cancelation is the most significant. It could undermine chances for a strong voice on the Saudi proposals, which had been praised by the United States and which the Arab leaders had been expected to adopt.

Egypt's foreign minister said Mubarak could not attend because of unspecified "domestic commitments."

The Saudi proposal, as floated by Crown Prince Abdullah last month, would offer Israel full normalization of relations with the Arab world in return for a withdrawal from Arab lands occupied in 1967. A proposal of normalization would be the strongest offer made by the Arabs since the peace process began.

But in the past weeks, more hardline Arab states have sought to change to offer to full peace - seen as a lower level than normalization, which would entail more cultural and trade exchanges.

As they left debate of the Saudi initiative for their leaders, who open the summit Wednesday, the Arab foreign ministers drew up a more hardline draft final statement. It demanded complete Israel withdrawal from occupied Arab lands but said little about what sort of peace Israel would receive in return.

Any decision on the Saudi initiative could be worked into the draft, which also dealt with Iraq and other issues, or passed alongside it at the end of the summit.

Meanwhile, summit preparations have been overshadowed by the question of whether Israel will allow Arafat to leave the West Bank town of Ramallah for the first time in months and travel to Beirut.

Despite U.S. pressure to allow Arafat to attend, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set conditions Tuesday night that made the Palestinian leader's trip extremely unlikely. Sharon insisted he reserved the right to prevent Arafat from returning home if there are terrorist attacks while the Palestinian leader is gone. Israel has also been demanding Arafat agree to a U.S. brokered cease-fire as a condition for leaving.

Egypt said it was better for Arafat to stay home.

"The Israelis have been playing games with this matter of whether Arafat will attend," Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told CNN. "They were trying to impose conditions, unacceptable conditions, and the honorable way is for Arafat to say that he is not coming, because it does not depend on the decisions of Israel."

In an interview earlier with the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, Mubarak warned that if Arafat went to Beirut, Sharon will stir up violence and "destroy the last offices of the Palestinian Authority and force it to remain outside."

Egypt, the most populous Arab state and the first to sign a peace accord with Israel, will be represented at the Beirut summit by Prime Minister Atef Obeid, state television said.

The heads of state of Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan and Mauritania will also not attend the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi rejects peace moves with Israel, while President Saddam Hussein has not left Iraq in more than a decade.

Saudi Arabia will be represented by Abdullah since King Fahd, like a number of aging Gulf monarchs, has health problems.

The draft final statement drawn up by the Arab foreign ministers demanded a "complete withdrawal" by Israel from lands held by Israel since 1967 and it ruled out any new relations with Israel "in light of the relapse of the peace process," according to Lebanon's National News Agency.

The leaders would also step up financial support to Arafat's Palestinian Authority, promising $55 million a month for at least the next 6 months - possibly more if Israeli-Palestinian violence continued. Leaders also would contribute $150 million total to two other funds for the support of Palestinians.

Underlining the animosities, Al-Jazeera television - the Arab world's best-known broadcaster - canceled plans to air a live interview with Sharon. Arab journalists covering the summit had objected to the interview, with more than 100 staging a protest outside Al Jazeera's studio at the press center.

An Al-Jazeera announcer said the interview was canceled because of "technical conditions" imposed on its crew by Israeli authorities.

In Yemen, several hundred thousand people protested Tuesday in the capital, San'a, against any normalization of relations with Israel. In Egypt, thousands of students at four university campuses staged angry protests, calling on Arab leaders to use force - not peace plans - to back the Palestinian uprising.

Mubarak, in the An-Nahar interview, outlined the five points of the Saudi plan. The first three, he said, deal with an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land, Palestinian statehood and resolving the issue of Palestinian refugees. The other two address peace as a necessary strategy for Arabs and Israel. Details were not provided. In the contention over the level of peace to offer Israel, Mubarak said there was "no difference between normalization and peace."

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters - 26 March ) - Two members of an international observer group were shot dead as they drove on a West Bank road on Tuesday night, fellow observers and the Israeli army said.

Israeli officials said the attack was carried out by Palestinian gunmen, but Palestinians denied that they were involved.

The observers were the first foreign monitors to be killed since a Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation of Arab land erupted in September 2000.

Israeli police said one of the dead was Swiss and the second was from Turkey. Initial reports had said the two were Norwegian nationals.

"Two international observers were killed and a third was lightly wounded when Palestinians opened fire on their car as they drove south of Halhoul," near the West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli army spokesman told Reuters.

Their car was plying a road frequented by Jewish settlers who have been targeted by Palestinian gunmen in their uprising. But the mayor of Palestinian-ruled Hebron denied Palestinian gunmen were behind the attack.

"The observers were shot by Israeli soldiers who according to doctors fired at them...bullets which are only used by the Israeli army," Mayor Mustafa al-Natsheh told Reuters.

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority said it blamed the shooting on Israeli forces and expressed "its condolences to the families of the victims, to the Turkish government and the Swiss government."

Members of the observer group, which consists of several dozen members from six European Union countries, said initially that they did not know who was behind the shooting.

The observers, an unarmed force known as the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), works in the divided city to monitor tensions between the Palestinian majority there and a tiny enclave of Jewish settlers.

Hebron (West Bank) 26 March: Israeli occupation troops on Tuesday shot and killed two international observers while on a routine patrol near Hebron, eyewitnesses said.

The incident took place around 8:00 pm local time (18:00 GMT) west of the village of Halhul, 3 kilometers north of the southern West Bank of Hebron.

An eyewitness testified that he saw Israeli soldiers shoot at the two observers' marked car from two directions.

Earlier the Israeli occupation army accused "Palestinian gunmen," an allusion to Palestinian resistance fighters, of killing the two observers.

Palestinian security sources vehemently rejected the Israeli accusation, describing it as "a cheap lie."

"We are sure 200% that the Israelis did it, they simply don't have the courage to take responsibility for this crime."

Later in the evening, the Israeli army spokesman partially dropped its earlier accusation that the Palestinians were responsible for the killing.

The Israeli state-radio quoted a military spokesman in Hebron as saying that "it was not clear who did the shooting," adding that "we are looking investigating the incident."

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/3/723.htm