Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa looks on as PA Chairman Yasser Arafat addresses reporters on Friday. (Reuters)

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A meeting of Arab foreign ministers and delegates held in Cairo yesterday recommended suspending contact with Israel. A statement issued following the meeting "called for severing all Arab political communication with Israel as long as the aggression of the siege on the Palestinian people and their national authority continues.''

Decisions of the Arab League forum are not binding on the league's 22 members, but delegates "were believed to have been in contact with the highest levels of their governments during the eight-hour gathering," according to an Associated Press report.

The gathering was the first of the Arab League under its new Secretary-General, former Egyptian Foreign Minister

"The Arabs are shooting themselves in the foot, and their call can only provoke more violence and suffering" - Israeli spokesman Raanan Gissin

Amr Moussa. "[The Israeli air strikes] require rapid international intervention to stop the organized killing of Palestinians with the aim of exterminating them," Moussa told reporters. "The attacks against the Palestinians will have to stop, otherwise we will be acting under the point of the gun which we totally and utterly reject," Moussa added.

Egypt's new Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said, "Using F-16s is [an act of] war, and this is unacceptable. What we need is for Israel to cease its aggressive and provocative acts."

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat told Arab foreign ministers that the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated into a "decisive battle for Palestine." Arafat said, "We will not give in. We will go on, God willing, until we pray together [in Al-Aksa Mosque]."

The Arab ministers and delegates stopped short of calling for an outright break in diplomatic relations with Israel. The two countries that would be most affected by the Arab League decision are Egypt and Jordan, which have signed peace treaties with Israel.

League decision halts Egyptian-Jordanian initiative
The New York Times reported that the Arab League decision "effectively halted the tenuous Egyptian-Jordanian effort to mediate a truce in the conflict and may add new pressure on the United States to intervene as the only remaining party that could engage both sides, though the Bush administration refused to comment on the announcement."

Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, deplored the Arab League decision, calling it 'nonsense.' "The Arabs claim to want peace, like ourselves, and if they cut off relations, it seems difficult to pursue that idea," Gissin said. "The Arabs are shooting themselves in the foot, and their call can only provoke more violence and suffering," he added.

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