TEL AVIV, Israel - American and Israeli intelligence officials have concluded that Yasser Arafat has forged a new alliance with Iran that involves Iranian shipments of heavy weapons and millions of dollars to Palestinian groups that are waging guerrilla war against Israel.
The partnership, officials said, was arranged in a clandestine meeting in Moscow last May between two top aides to Arafat and Iranian government officials. The meeting took place while Arafat was visiting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to senior Israeli security officials who declined to describe the precise nature of their information.
The new alignment is significant for several reasons, American and Israeli officials said. In recent years, Iran's support for terrorism around the world has been on the wane, with the notable exception of its ties to Hezbollah, the militant group that fought for 18 years to expel Israel from southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials said they are alarmed by Arafat's alliance with Iran because they say it gives the Palestinians a powerful and well-armed patron in the increasingly violent conflict with Israel. American officials echoed that concern and said they were also worried by intelligence reports that say Tehran is harboring al-Qaida members, including one leader who recently tried to mount an attack against Israel from his sanctuary in Iran.
Questions about Iran's relationship with the Palestinians came into public view early this year when Israel seized a ship carrying 50 tons of Iranian-supplied arms, including antitank weapons that could neutralize one of Israel's main military advantages over the Palestinians and rockets that could reach most cities in Israel.
The Palestinians and the Iranians deny that they are working together, but American and Israeli officials say they now see the shipment as part of a broader relationship. They say that it began with several smaller attempts by Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon to supply arms and was cemented in the Moscow meeting. Officials of Israel and the United States say they believe that Arafat personally approved the dealings.
American officials said that Israeli intelligence reports about the Moscow meeting were at the heart of secret briefings that Israel provided to the Bush administration after the arms shipment was intercepted.
"There's plenty of evidence to show that it wasn't a rogue operation," a senior State Department official said of the ship that Israel seized in early January.
