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Sharon practically killed the peace process long ago, analysts say
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JERUSALEM,
Sept 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon said Friday, September 06, 2002, that for Israel, the
1993 Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians no longer exist. This
drew swift rebuke from top Palestinian officials.
Speaking
to the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv to mark the Jewish New Year,
Sharon said the same fate had befallen the offers made by his
predecessor Ehud Barak at talks in Camp David in the United States and
Taba in Egypt in 2000, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"Oslo
doesn't exist any more, Camp David doesn't exist any more, neither
does Taba. We will not return to these places," he told the
mass-circulation daily.
"Real
damage only occurs when it is impossible to go back. But this is not
the case. Apparently God has come to our aid. It is not because of the
wisdom of the Jews, but solely because of the bad plans the
Palestinians made," he said.
"Since
the beginning, (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat's aim has been to
bring about the end of Israel. There were some naive people, or people
who wanted to be led on, or made wrong assessments," Sharon said.
"The
problem is more fundamental than terrorism. It stems from the Arab and
Palestinian refusal to recognize the Jewish people's right to exist in
their state and their homeland."
"The
Palestinians were convinced we were incapable of taking the blow. But
the fact is we have not been broken, and if they could, they would
neutralize Arafat and stop him exerting any influence on their
security or financial apparatus."
It
is worth mentioning here that the Arabs have offered several peace
initiatives to Israel, to put a permanent end to the more than half a
century long conflict. During the last Arab Summit in Beirut, the
Arabs adopted a comprehensive Saudi peace plan to settle the conflict.
On March, 29, Israel launched massive attacks and reoccupied most of
the Palestinian territories.
Sharon
Claims Peace Readiness, Acts ‘All-Out War’
The
right-wing Premier also played down diplomatic efforts by the Israeli
left to revive political negotiations for peace.
"There
are all sorts of people who have contacts, sign all sorts of papers,
travel to Egypt. But, in line with the Americans, they know very
exactly that in Israel there is a government of national unity and
there is only one Prime Minister," Sharon added.
In
another interview with the daily Yediot Aharonot, Sharon said
"Arafat will not manage to finish me off ... His existence must
simply be ignored."
Sharon's
published comments drew swift rebuke from Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu
Rudeina.
"Sharon's
words will only strengthen the state of paralysis and political
stagnation which dominate the region and drag the region into more
tensions," he told AFP.
He
added that if Sharon "does not implement what remains of the Oslo
accords and the Taba and Camp David arrangements, Israel will lead the
whole region into a deadlock.
"There's
no hope of progress without a complete Israeli withdrawal from the
Palestinian territories and a return to negotiations," he said.
Under
the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Authority was granted limited
self-rule in the territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East
war.
However,
almost all the autonomous towns in the West Bank have been reoccupied
in recent months by Israeli forces after Palestinian suicide bombings,
with no sign of the army leaving.
The
invasions also left the Palestinian Authority, the government of the
autonomous zones, on its knees and barely functioning.
Sharon’s statements came only two days after he rejected the peace
plan proposed by the European Union countries. The Palestinians, for
their part, declared their acceptance of the EU plan.
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