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Sharon Claims Peace Readiness, Acts ‘All-Out War’
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A Palestinian shot dead by Israeli
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JERUSALEM, April 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – While claiming his readiness to meet any moderate Arab leader to seek peace, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon Monday appointed a fanatic war monger as minister without portfolio.
Catapulted into the limelight with a nomination as a minister in Israel's government, former general c is a staunch defender of Israel's claim to its so-called biblical era borders - including the Palestinian territories.
Eitam was voted head of the National Religious Party, the political arm of the illegal Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories, on Sunday.
The 49-year-old hardliner believes in the restoration of so-called Eretz Israel - the Jewish state whose borders included the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In a conference in 2000, he called the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat a "miserable assassin."
He cut short his army career in December 2000 when he was turned down a promotion to major general.
In the meantime he set up a religious and Zionist organization, Mayim (United Jewish movement), to promote the interests of a greater Israel and the central role of Judaism in Israeli institution, reported AFP.
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He plans to breathe a "new spirit" into the idea of a "Greater Israel" as the head on the NRP.
He denounced Israel's tendency to become "a pale imitation of the United States, westernized, liberal, secular and democratic."
Instead he insists that "Israel must become a Jewish state." He also rejects any possibility of a Palestinian state in the West bank or Gaza Strip. As for Arab Israelis, he has called them "cancerous cells" and a "fifth column."
Meanwhile, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud charged Monday that Sharon's speech to parliament a "maneuver aiming to deceive the international community" prior to the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in the region.
It is a 'formal and hypocritical maneuver aiming to deceive the international community prior to the tour of the American Secretary of State", said Lahoud in a declaration to the press.
"I call for meetings immediately with moderate Arab leaders and officials, and am ready to go everywhere, without prior condition from either side, to speak of peace," Sharon declared.
He nonetheless reaffirmed that he would continue his offensive in the occupied Palestinian territories taking this "mission" to the end, in disregard of repeated calls from the international community for an immediate Israeli withdrawal.
His words "flagrantly contradict UN resolutions, in particular 194, 242, 338 and 425, destroying all the foundations of peace," said the Lebanese leader.
These resolutions, the bases of the peace process launched in Madrid in 1991 and the Arab Initiative adopted by the Arab Summit in Beirut at the end of March, stipulate the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes, and a withdrawal by Israel from all the territories occupied since 1967.
"These Israeli statements deceive nobody, especially at this moment when Israel is pursuing its policies of assassination, destruction and genocide against the Palestinian people in an offensive launched the day after the adoption of the Arab peace initiative", said the Lebanese leader, who headed the Arab summit held in Beirut from March 27-28..
Lahoud saw this as "proof of Israel's bad intentions, that it does not want peace but wants to impose security through the use of force".
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