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Man Responsible For Sabra And Shatila Massacre Elected Israeli PM
WASHINGTON & JERUSALEM, Feb 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 has been elected as the new Israeli prime minister.
Ariel Sharon stormed to a landslide Israeli election victory on Tuesday over Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who suffered a massive voter backlash over his failure to bring peace with the Palestinians amid months of deadly violence.
Sharon, the leader of the right-wing Likud party who has vowed to take a hard line with the Palestinians, thrashed Barak by 59.5% to 40.5%, both Israeli television stations said, citing exit polls.
The 19-point victory was a stunning turnaround for Sharon, a 72-year-old former general, who was almost written off because of his role as defense minister in the bloody 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The special election for prime minister was triggered by Barak's resignation in December, as his government was crippled by a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that cost nearly 400 lives.
Palestinians immediately gave the thumbs down to Sharon's election.
"We reject all that was said politically during the election and it does not represent for us a basis for any discussions between the two sides," Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman said of Sharon, who has vowed not to meet key Palestinian demands on Jerusalem, land and refugees.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was more moderate, saying he respected the election result and hoped the peace process will continue under Sharon, an aide reported.
In a sign of deep disenchantment with both candidates, the turnout rate was down sharply from the May 1999 election that brought Barak to power in a landslide, and election officials said it could prove a record low.
While Barak had denounced his rival as an "extremist," bluntly saying Israelis had to choose between war and peace, the "Bulldozer" Sharon appealed to the electorate with a pledge to preserve Jerusalem forever under Israeli sovereignty.
The statement seemed bound to anger Palestinians who want part of the city as their capital.
Barak's defeat appeared linked to a boycott of the vote by Israeli Arabs to protest the killing of 13 of their number in the early days of the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising.
Israel's Channel Two television station said Sharon called Barak after the polls closed, inviting him once more to join a national unity government. It did not say what Barak's reaction was.
Meanwhile, Palestinian threats of a "day of rage" brought clashes in the West Bank, leaving 23 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers injured.
Chanting "the Intifada will continue" and "Sharon the Butcher," up to 2,000 protestors took to the streets in Ramallah following a call by a coalition of Palestinian groups for mass demonstrations to mark the election.
Sporadic shooting incidents were also reported in Ramallah and Hebron, the divided flashpoint town in the southern West Bank.
Israel stationed 15,000 police throughout the country to ensure calm and sealed off the Palestinian territories amid warnings of possible attacks.
Sharon, blamed by Palestinians for triggering the uprising with a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, has said he will only negotiate when there is an end to the violence.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic resistance group Hamas said Sharon's victory was a motivation to pursue resistance.
"We and our people are not afraid of Sharon; just the opposite, he gives us a motivation to pursue the resistance," Hamas spokesman Ismail Abu Shanab said.
"We will continue the resistance as long as there is occupation," said Abu Shanab, adding that Hamas does not make a distinction between Sharon and defeated Labor party incumbent Barak, calling them both "faces of occupation."
The election was widely regarded as a protest vote against the Labor leader because of the collapse of peace talks and the explosion of violence in late September, rather than any ringing endorsement of Sharon.
"A victory for Sharon today is tantamount to the majority of people saying 'no' to a comprehensive arrangement," wrote the Yediot Aharonot's star columnist, Nahum Barnea.
"A dangerous military and diplomatic vacuum will be created," he said, adding that neither Sharon nor Barak would have a secure majority in parliament, an unruly chamber of 120 MPs and no less than 19 factions.
Abroad, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered a passionate plea for regional calm in the aftermath of the election, before it was known who the victor would be.
"We want to ... persuade all of the parties to the conflict that during this very, very delicate time immediately following the election, we do nothing and the leaders in the region do everything to make sure that violence doesn't start to swell up," Powell said.
He said the United States stood ready to engage with the Palestinians and whoever won the Israeli election but said U.S. efforts to forge a peace could not move without an end to the violence.
"The real reason that we are pleading for restraint today is that we don't want to see more lives lost in the region," Powell said at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
"All we ask of whoever is chosen is that they work with the international community to take forward negotiations on the Middle East peace," Cook said.
Sharon has 45 days to form a government following the official publication of the election results due by February 14th.
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