1.   Also at issue is the Old City, with its religious sites holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews.

2.   Although he is Muslim, Arafat has made a point of attending the annual Christmas services in Bethlehem to assert his patronage of the Christian holy sites there.

3.   And all three monotheistic faiths are rooted in the same part of the world, even sharing some holy sites.

4.   And does Sabbagh foresee a day when Israeli tourists will browse through his Damascus shop and Syrians will travel to Jerusalem to pray at the Muslim holy sites?

5.   And it has been a careful steward of the holy sites of three religions.

6.   And the Palestinian flag would be flown from the Islamic holy sites.

7.   And, last July, Israel formally acknowledged claims by King Hussein of Jordan to a special status in administering Muslim holy sites there.

8.   Arab Palestinians and Jewish Israelis consider many of the same places in Israel as holy sites for their own religions.

9.   Arafat has said repeatedly that the Palestinians should have control of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank.

10.   At the holy site revered as the tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel, mothers traditionally come to pray for God to watch over their children.