ABU DHABI -- Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies plan to avoid direct negotiations with Israel.

Gulf officials and diplomats said Gulf Cooperation Council states do not want to come under fire from Arab and Islamic critics for any public links to the Jewish state. They ruled out the prospect of normalization with Israel in the context of any peace agreement.

The assessment contrasts with a suggestion raised by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz. Abdullah told the New York Times last month that he had considered issuing a proposal that the Arabs offer to normalize relations with Israel in return for the full withdrawal from what he termed occupied territories.

Gulf allies have endorsed the Saudi suggestion. But officials and diplomats said GCC countries would not accept the free movement of Israelis in the Persian Gulf in the wake of the Sept. 11 Islamic suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

The diplomats said GCC allies have played down the prospect that Saudi Arabia would present the offer of normalization with Israel as part of any formal proposal. Instead, they regard the Saudi offer as a way to create Western pressure for Israel to allow Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to leave the West Bank city of Ramallah for the Arab League summit in Beirut later this month. Arafat has been trapped in Ramallah for nearly three months.

In a lecture last week entitled "The Israeli Strategy," Maj. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, commander of Dubai's police force in the United Arab Emirates, warned against Arab leaders visiting Israel. Tamim said Israel is bent on world domination, intends to weaken the Islamic religion and spread secularization in the Arab world.

"After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Zionists shifted their attention to their next great barrier ø Islam," the UAE commander said. "Within the coming 50 to 75 years, the aim is to secularize the entire Islamic world. But will they succeed?"

Tamim said Israel hopes to introduce secular values in the Persian Gulf by establishing trade relations. He said the targets are Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The officials and diplomats said GCC countries have expressed the fear of Israeli influence and that of globalization, which is also vigorously opposed by the Islamic world. They said Israel has recruited the United States in the effort to pressure GCC countries to accept globalization.

"Israel is much too weak on its own to initiate direct confrontation with its rivals," Tamim said. "So, it is trying to compensate, by playing Arabs against each other, while it takes a back seat. Unfortunately, Israelis have succeeded in fooling Arabs and they have also involved the U.S. in this scheme."

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