Netanyahu aide Shai Bezek said the prime minister believes Arafat's missive, which did not contain specifics, is the same one he sent former Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

"This is not what the government intended when it demanded the Palestinian Covenant be canceled," Bezek noted.

Peres had insisted before he lost the May election that the PNC had lived up to its promises to drop the part of the covenant seeking Israel's destruction, but the Likud said the PNC did not fulfill its end of the agreement.