Ministers from 13 Arab states -- Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen -- took part in the one-day meeting at the Cairo headquarters of the 22-member Arab League.

The other members of the organization were represented by lower ranking information officials, but Qatar, known for its strong relations with Israel, did not attend.

The meeting, chaired by Syrian Information Minister Adnan Omran, discussed a project "calling on Arab states to launch a media campaign" that "addressed to international public opinion," at a cost of 20 million dollars.

Under the project, the campaign will counteract "Israeli and U.S. attempts to portray the Palestinian national struggle as unjustified terrorism."

The draft also calls on "Arab media not to allow Israeli officials to address Arab public opinion in their attempt to justify aggression."

The resolution embarrassed Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel. Qatar has so far refused to force Al-Jazeera not to air the comments of Israeli officials on the Middle East conflict.

In a speech, Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said that "not one dollar" has been committed so far to kick start the plan, although it has been on the table for around one year.

Aridi blamed "inter-Arab differences" and said some Arab states, which he did not name, "preferred to act outside the Arab League" framework.

His comments drew a reaction from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with Saudi Information Minister Fuad al-Farsi saying the kingdom was "ready to contribute 3.36 million dollars, provided the other Arab countries also allocate funds."

Egyptian Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif said the Arab states "need to unify and organize their efforts before gathering the funds."

The draft project urges Arab states to "speed up the creation of an Arab satellite television channel to address international and American public opinion."

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa warned that Israel has already taken the lead by preparing to launch on June 25 an Arabic-speaking channel to address Arab public opinion.

"We all know how much falsification should be expected" from the Israeli channel, Mussa said.

The draft calls on Arab and international media to "engage in an organized effort to gather evidence of Israeli war crimes in order to put Israeli generals, officers and settlers on trial before international courts."

The planned campaign will also denounce the fence being built by Israel to isolate Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and other "racist measures" and "collective punishment" against the Palestinians.

The project provides for "urgent aid" to enable the Palestinian Authority to "rebuild the media infrastructure that Israel destroyed, and to finance a newspaper printing house in Gaza."

Omran, the Syrian minister, said Arab media needed to be more active because the September 11 terror attacks on the United States had tarnished the reputation of Arabs.

But Farsi said Saudi Arabia had done its share "by inviting 250 Western journalists to the kingdom" in a bid to dispel accusations of tolerating so-called Islamic militants, as 15 Saudis were believed to have been among the September 11 plane hijackers.