In an interview with the Israeli newspaper "Ha'aretz", Arafat used the same phrase that U.S. President George W. Bush recently used - "Enough is enough" - and said he supports the initiative of 60 Palestinian intellectuals and politicians, including Mr. Sari Nusseibeh, Mrs. Hanan Ashrawi and Mr. Mamdoh Nofal, who published an advertisement, partly paid by the European Union, in the daily "Al-Qods" against the suicide bombings inside Israel.

But Israeli experts were not certain Arafat could effectively control hard line Palestinian groups opposed to any peace with the Jewish State.

"Even when the Palestinians say "yes", they mean "no". Arafat is returning to traditional Palestinian line according to which Palestine belongs to the Arabs and the presence of Jews is both illegal and immoral", Mr. Benny Morris, an Israeli historian and researcher, told the French centre right daily "Le Figaro".

In his interview with "Ha’aretz", the Palestinian leader accused "foreign" forces of "exploiting young hopeless Palestinians, encouraging them to commit attacks in exchange for money", adding that two families of suicide attackers from Jenin received 30,000 US Dollars each from these foreigners.

Though he did identified the "foreigners", but analysts said he might have referred to either Iran or Saudi Arabia, both countries supporting openly the families of suicide attackers and victims of Israeli attacks.

"When Arafat talks to his people in Arabic, he assures them that he is going to plant the Palestinian and Islam flags on Jerusalem. Unfortunately, I think 99.9 per cent of the Palestinians, deep in their hearts, do not want to see an Israeli state in Palestine and Arafat represents them", Noted Mr. Benny, author of "The Birth of Palestinian Refugees Problem 1947-1949".

Mr. Arafat told the paper that he had imposed a house arrest on HAMAS’s blind leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza and his advisers have expressed "amazement" that Israel has not taken any steps against this group and the Islamic Jihad, preferring to focus its military campaign against the Palestinian Authority and Fatah.

But Palestinian and Israeli sources said Arafat’s "persuasion" capacity against his fundamentalist rivals, particularly HAMAS, is "very limited".

In fact, few hours after the interview and after a solemn call to Palestinians to "completely end" all suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, militant Palestinians entered the Itamar settlement situated south of Nablus and killed five settlers, including three children and their mother, before being shot by Israeli soldiers.

The Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for this latest attack.

Yesterday's interview was the first time Arafat has declared his acceptance of the Clinton proposal. The plan does not mention the right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Arafat also said he supports border corrections and territorial exchanges, and that he is proposing Israeli sovereignty over, and access to, the Western Wall and the Old City's Jewish Quarter.

During the interview, which took place at Arafat's much-battered headquarters compound in Ramallah, the PA leader pointed to a document that, he said, was the security reform plans he had received from the security chiefs of Egypt and Jordan. He said the PA's new Interior Ministry has already begun implementing the reforms, having visited Cairo this week for consultations with the Egyptian security services, and he expressed readiness to cooperate with Israeli security on condition that they let him reorganise his own security services.

Arafat claimed he had yet to receive any information from the United States about a proposal for a provisional state, but that he does not rule one out. He added that he had not ruled out the Peres-Abu Ala plan, which includes the declaration of a Palestinian state to be followed by negotiations on borders, Jerusalem and refugees. Arafat said it was Sharon who said Foreign Minister Shimon Peres did not have the mandate to propose the plan, and he called the Labour Party "a fig leaf for Sharon."

According to Arafat, he would prefer to see a Benelux-like relationship between Israel and the Palestinian state with open borders. He regards himself as an elected leader, and said he has no intention of retiring. ENDS ARAFAT TO HAARETZ 21602

Editor’s note: Mr. Akiva Eldar carried out Chairman Arafat’s interview, which was published by Ha’aretz on Friday.

Highlights are by IPS