Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is to leave Wednesday for Cairo and Amman to meet with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah during which he will present Israel's stand on the American bridging proposal to the Arab leaders, reported Haaretz newspaper.
It added that Barak will also ask the two leaders to convince Palestinian president Yasser Arafat to accept the proposal.
Barak, who is counting on a peace deal that may be his only chance of winning a February election for prime minister, said Monday he would agree to the compromise proposals but was awaiting the response of Arafat, according to AFP.
On Wednesday also, Barak is due to convene his security cabinet to prepare a response to the plan, said AFP.
In the meantime, US President Bill Clinton said Monday that he was prepared to accept only minor changes to the bridging proposals for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace deal which he submitted to the two sides in Washington over the weekend, said Haaretz, quoting Israel's radio.
Clinton made it clear that if the Palestinians insisted on the right of return for refugees, there would be no agreement, said the report.
The paper added that Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo was critical of the American proposals Tuesday.
He said that Israeli and US experts had drafted the proposal whereby the Palestinians would get sovereignty on the surface of al-Haram al-Sharif, where the Al Aqsa Mosque is located, while Israel would receive the area under the ground, where the remains of what the Jews call the 'Temple' may be buried.
He defined the proposal as a verbal trick, said Haaretz.
He also said that the Palestinians would not agree to Jewish settlements on 6 percent of West Bank land, and would reject any decision on the refugee issue that is not based on UN resolutions, according to the paper.
Haaretz, meanwhile, said that President-elect George Bush's future secretary of state, Colin Powell, told Israeli representatives last week that the Bush administration preferred that Clinton conclude a deal now between Israel and the Palestinians -- (Several Sources)
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