JERUSALEM, July 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian intelligence chief General Omar Soleiman met Sunday with top Israeli officials and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, in what Israeli sources cited as an attempt to closely monitor reforms to the Palestinian Authority and prevent chaos in the Palestinian occupied territories.

Soleiman met with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer in a Jerusalem hotel at 10:00 am (0700 GMT), Defense Ministry officials said.

He later met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Soleiman expressed Egypt's concern at the ongoing bloodshed after almost 22 months of Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation. In recent days, Israeli forces have virtually occupied and locked down the whole of the West Bank.

The Egyptian spymaster then traveled north to Ramallah in the West Bank to see Arafat.

Egypt played an important role in plans to overhaul the much-criticized Palestinian security services, which failed to prevent resistance groups attacking Israel, a matter seen as their only task by Israel and the United States.

Soleiman was expected to be accompanied by Osama al Baz, political advisor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but officials in Egypt said they had no news of his arrival.

The visit "comes in the light of attempts to emerge from the crisis in the region caused by Israeli policies," Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told reporters in Cairo Saturday.

Israeli Defense sources, meanwhile, said Egypt is particularly concerned over the potential eruption of chaos in the territories, therefore the dispatching of Soleiman to Israel.

"The Egyptians are coming to follow the reforms closely because they are very much concerned that there not be chaos here," said one senior defense official, reported Israeli daily newspaper The Jerusalem Post.

Peres, for his part, was quoted by Israeli daily Ha’aretz, as telling Soleiman that the Palestinian Authority had to combat terrorism, and had to crack down on militant groups such as the Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad.

Mubarak announced the mission a few days ago saying that he is concerned that the situation may deteriorate, leading the "entire region into anarchy." Officials in Cairo described the intelligence chief's visit as "overly important."

Israel Radio quoted sources in Jerusalem as saying that the Egypt wants to increase its involvement in implementing PA reforms and also wants a role in selecting a new Palestinian leadership, should Arafat step aside.

It is worth mentioning that Mubarak has repeatedly announced that the Palestinians are the only people entitled to choose their own leadership.

In a separate related development, a veteran Egyptian well-informed political writer, on a TV program broadcast over the weekend, and widely covered on Egyptian papers, warned against Egypt’s involvement in any security arrangement for the Palestinian territories.

“A security vacuum [in the Palestinian territories] is sure to take place, in light of the deterioration of the abilities of the Palestinian Authority,” said Mohammad Hassanien Hiekal, on the Egyptian Dream TV Private Channel.

The former Minister of Information, during the rule of President Nasser, cited a written promise from Egypt’s assassinated former President Sadat, to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in which the first committed Egypt to intervene in the Palestinian territories, to preserve security, should a security vacuum take place.

Hiekal then warned against “getting Egyptian security forces involved in the West Bank and Gaza,” asserting it would be a very hurting move “not only to Egypt’s role in the Arab World, but also to its strategic national interests”.

However, an Egyptian political analyst, speaking to IslamOnline Sunday, on condition of anonymity, said Israel was trying to make use of Egypt’s interest in restoring order to the Palestinian land, so as to implicate the biggest Arab state as conspiring against the Palestinians.

“We have to be very careful, in this critical stage of our history, not to fall into Israeli traps. Soleiman’s visit could simply be no more than a political step to monitor the situation. It is not logic to send Egyptian security forces to protect Israel against the Palestinians. No sane man can even think about such a move,” he added.