Associated Press President Bush meets with Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen yesterday in the Oval Office at the White House. President Bush asked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday to let Yasser Arafat attend an Arab League meeting in Lebanon so he can participate in discussions of a peace proposal by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

WASHINGTON - President Bush urged Arab nations yesterday to affirm a Saudi land-for-peace proposal with Israel and said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should let Yasser Arafat participate in considering the U.S.-backed initiative.

"The president believes it is time for Arab nations in the region to seize the moment, to create a better environment for peace to take root," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Bush welcomes the proposal by Crown Prince Abdullah and "he thinks it would be very helpful in the search for peace in the Middle East," Fleischer said.

In Jerusalem, however, Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon, said Israel would not lift its travel ban on Arafat until the Palestinian leader took decisive steps against militants. Israel will make its decision by today, the day before the summit, Gissin said.

The president's request to Sharon was conveyed through Secretary of State Colin Powell, who talked to the prime minister on both Saturday and Sunday. There was no explanation why Bush did not talk directly to the Israeli leader.

Powell also had a lengthy telephone conversation yesterday with Arafat, in which Powell again urged Arafat to condemn violence against Israel in "clear and unambiguous" terms, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. During that call, Arafat sought more U.S. intervention in the Mideast conflict and more pressure on Israel, said Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

Boucher, meanwhile, pressed Arafat to dismantle Hezbollah and other groups the State Department says are engaged in terror.

Fleischer said Bush would like Arab leaders to agree in Beirut to approve "Abdullah's initiative that recognizes Israel's right to exist."

The White House official did not mention that Abdullah is insisting that in exchange for diplomatic recognition and trade, Israel must relinquish all the land it won from the Arabs in their 1967 war. Israel rejects that main element.

Sharon has penned Arafat in his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah in response to persistent Palestinian attacks on Israel.

"The president believes that Mr. Sharon and the Israeli government should give serious consideration to allowing Yasser Arafat to attend," Fleischer said. "The president wants to see the meeting in Beirut focus on ideas for peace."

Meanwhile, truce talks between Israel and the Palestinians are continuing despite few signs of progress and much criticism of Arafat by the Bush administration.

Violence raged Sunday even with the cease-fire effort. Israeli commandos backed by helicopters tracked and killed four militants who slipped across the normally quiet border with Jordan, and seven other people were killed in incidents elsewhere.

The administration clings to the hope that the bloodshed can be stopped and that Arafat can and should control militant groups who have made it clear they have no intention of halting their killing of Israeli civilians until, at least, Israel yields the West Bank and Gaza.

The truce terms U.S. mediator Anthony Zinni is working on do not require Israel to give up the land the Arabs lost in the 1967 war. Bush and Powell, however, regularly hold out to the Palestinians the vision of eventually getting a state for themselves on that land.

Vice President Dick Cheney, who was prepared to fly to Egypt to see Arafat if he agreed to a truce, said Sunday the Palestinian leader had not earned such a meeting.

The two sides met Sunday under U.S. auspices and evidently made little, if any, headway toward building a truce that would start Israel and the Palestinians into preliminary peacemaking.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said another meeting was scheduled for yesterday. Talks cannot be held from sunset Wednesday until nightfall Thursday because of observance by Israelis of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

Cheney said Arafat had not met a series of conditions for a meeting, including renouncing terrorism and sharing intelligence with the Israelis.

"We're going to do everything we can to try to bring the bloodshed to an end and get on a political track, but we're not there yet," Cheney said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation".

Bush has shunned Arafat, withholding an invitation to the White House. Sharon has been there four times in the past year.