Foreign Ministry officials would not comment on the report.

Beilin said in a statement that the Croatian president's plans to apologize for the crimes of his people did not exonerate him from calling the Holocaust a "Jewish invention."

Sarid said Tudjman was an anti-Semite and that hisvisit would be painful for many Israelis.

Israel and Croatia established diplomatic ties in September, a move that drew criticism from some Jewish organizations and political figures, including Beilin.

Tudjman's nationalist policies are viewed by many as an attempt to rehabilitate the fascist Ustashe regime that ruled Croatia as a Nazi puppet state during World War II.

He drew particular fire last year by declaring that he wanted to rebury the bones of Croatian fascists at a Yugoslav-built memorial to the thousands of Jews and Serbs slaughtered at the Ustashe's Jasenovac concentration camp.