Palestinian President Yasser Arafat vowed yesterday to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem despite Israel's decision to block his annual pilgrimage to the town where Jesus was born.
Israel's security Cabinet said it has decided in a telephone vote to bar Arafat's journey to Bethlehem through Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, because he was not acting "to dismantle Palestinian terror organizations."
Palestinian officials said diplomatic efforts were under way, with mediation by the US, EU and UN to persuade Israel to lift the ban.
Arafat remained defiant, telling reporters yesterday that "no one can prevent me from going" to Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem. He said earlier he would visit the town "even if I have to go there on foot."
It would be an impractical step for the 72-year-old leader, a practicing Muslim, who would have to hike more than 20km through hilly West Bank terrain to reach Bethlehem from his Ramallah headquarters to the north.
A Palestinian Cabinet minister branded the ban as proof of what he called Israel's arrogance in its continued occupation of parts of the West Bank and a humiliation for Palestinians.
Israel destroyed Arafat's personal helicopters in the Gaza Strip and stationed tanks near his Ramallah office after a Palestinian attack on an Israeli bus in the West Bank killed 10 people on Dec. 12.
It subsequently declared Arafat irrelevant and along with the US and the EU piled pressure on him to dismantle militant groups behind a wave of suicide bombings in Israel that killed 29 people last month.
But Israel's biggest newspaper reported yesterday that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had drafted an interim peace plan that would establish a Palestinian state on 42 percent of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip.
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