Israel says evidence links Arafat to terror

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has arrived in Washington for meetings with President Bush carrying documents linking Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and close aides to terrorist attacks on Israelis, Israeli officials said Sunday.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat dismissed the report as "forgeries, lies, shams and stunts."

The White House said it has not seen the 103-page intelligence dossier, which CNN obtained Sunday.

Shortly after Sharon left Sunday for the United States, Israeli Cabinet Minister Dani Naveh showed reporters copies of the report.

It includes what Naveh said are copies of requests for funds for Palestinian militants -- whom the Israelis later accused of carrying out terror attacks -- signed and approved by Arafat.

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"We have clear-cut, hard evidence that Arafat and his close aides were involved directly in terrorist activities," Naveh said. "They authorized the activities, they financed the acts and they were involved directly in planning them."

For example, he said, one of the documents signed by Arafat authorized payment to Fatah terrorists.

Other documents proved that other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq, assisted the Palestinian Authority "with moving ahead with this terror campaign," he said.

Anyone who sees the documents "should come to the conclusion that there is no way to achieve peace as long as Arafat is in town," he said, adding "We have to acknowledge the fact that Arafat can't be a partner for peace again."

None of the documents seems to show a direct link between the Palestinian leadership and specific acts of violence, according to CNN Correspondent Jerrold Kessel.

Israeli intelligence officers seized many of the documents during the Israeli army's military offensive in the West Bank, Naveh said.

The report also alleges that the Palestinian Authority used funds it received from the international community to finance militants who were responsible for waging the recent terror campaign against Israelis.

Other documents appear to be orders to militants to enroll Palestinians, including women and children, for suicide actions against Israel.

The dossier contains photocopies of Palestinian Authority documents listing weapons kept in Palestinian Authority armories, including anti-tank missiles and machine guns. Under interim peace accords with Israel, the Palestinian Authority is barred from acquiring such weapons.

Some of the documents appear to have been accumulated over recent months, and some were circulated earlier by Israel, before being compiled into the dossier. Some of the documents were shown previously to CNN.

Dismissing the allegations, Erakat said attention instead should be focused on the deaths Sunday of a Palestinian woman and her two young children, whom Israeli soldiers mistakenly killed in the northern West Bank. "I have not even heard these soldiers were arrested," Erakat said.

In addition, he said, "I believe the real focus should be on the Palestinian people's disastrous living conditions now under Israeli occupation."

He scoffed, too, at the assertion that other Arab countries backed Arafat in terror. "Everybody who doesn't see eye to eye with Israel is going to stand accused," he said.

"I believe these documents are not authentic, are forgeries, are lies. I think their end game is to prepare for either deporting President Arafat or killing him ... and destroying the Palestinian Authority," Erakat said.

The desire of the Israelis, he said, is "to destroy the Palestinian Authority in order to say, 'We want to make peace, but we don't have a partner.' "