Arafat declares commitment to peace
But the letter cited conditions, including an international observer force to help enforce US-led peace moves, that Israel has already rejected. Israeli officials swiftly dismissed Arafat's initiative as a ploy to avoid threatened expulsion.
The four-month-old "road map" peace plan sponsored by the Quartet has been stymied by a relapse into tit-for-tat bloodshed in recent weeks with Washington preoccupied by turmoil in occupied Iraq and a looming election campaign at home.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Arafat received Quartet envoys from the European Union, United Nations and Russia in his half-demolished West Bank compound where Israeli forces have confined him for almost two years.
"President Arafat handed them a letter in which he said he is committed to a total cessation of violence against Israelis anywhere, provided the Quartet intervenes to revive the road map and sends monitors to commit the two sides to implement it."
Erekat said Arafat also reiterated his support for the road map, aimed at defusing the Palestinians' three-year-old independence uprising by granting them a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005. US envoys were absent from the meeting as part of Washington's policy, echoing Israel, to boycott Arafat for allegedly instigating violence, a charge he denies. Raanan Gissin, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, waved aside Arafat's gesture.
"Everything he says to the Quartet is based on his fear of the sword of Damocles over his head the fear that he will be deported," he said, referring to an Israel cabinet decision in principle two weeks ago to "remove" Arafat by unspecified means.
"I wouldn't take Arafat's words too seriously. If the Palestinians continue with terror and Arafat (in charge), they will never have a state," said Mr Gissin.
Israel has ruled out a foreign observer force or anything that might "internationalise" a resolution to the conflict which the Palestinians, as the much weaker party, have long desired. Israelis regard the EU, UN and Russia as pro-Palestinian and insist on Washington, Israel's main ally, taking the overriding peacemaking role.
Palestinians see the United States as pro-Israel and accuse Washington of prolonging the conflict by failing to lean on Israel to withdraw forces and settlers from occupied lands.
Analysts say the road map has bogged down partly because it is only a framework that does not specify who should do what first or how it should be enforced.
Erekat said the envoys also asked Arafat to form an "empowered" peacemaking government as quickly as possible.
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