"I will never let any Palestinian refugees enter Israel -- never," Sharon

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, June 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In a further move of defiance to Palestinians’ right of return to their homeland, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed Sunday, June 8, not one Palestinian refugee will ever enter Israel, during a speech to his right-wing Likud party's convention in Occupied Jerusalem.

"I will never let any Palestinian refugees enter Israel -- never," Sharon said as bodyguards shielded him from angry hecklers in the crowd.

As many as four million Palestinian refugees, most of whom live in surrounding Arab countries since being expelled in 1984 Israeli-Arab war, hope to return to their land. But then Jewish state has categorically refused, saying an influx of millions of Palestinians would destroy the country's Jewish character.

"I clarified in the past and repeated in Aqaba that the solution for the Palestinian refugees will not be found within Israeli territory," he stressed.

Sharon met with Palestinian premier Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. President George W. Bush in the Jordanian Red Sea port city of Aqaba last week.

"The U.S. administrations understands very well the threat to Israel's existence (that would be posed) by the entrance of Palestinian refugees."

Israel has more than one hundred settlement and outposts (caravan homes) that have been illegally built on Palestinian territories occupied since the 1948 Middle East war.

Palestinians stick to the right of return as a condition for any peace deal with Israel. Abbas' failure to mention the right of return in his speech Aqaba summit enraged Palestinian political factions.

Backtrack On ‘Concessions’

An Israeli Likud supporter holds her hands over her ears as Sharon makes a speech during the Likud party meeting

Sharon also promised in the convention "to bring peace and security" to Israelis at his right-wing Likud party's convention, but faced angry heckling from the hard-line fringe upset at his endorsement of a roadmap for peace with the Palestinians.

The U.S.-backed roadmap charts a number of reciprocal confidence-building measures leading to the creation of a Palestinian state to exist side by side with a secure Israel.

But following two Palestinian attacks during the day which claimed the lives of five Israelis and five Palestinians, the former general vowed Israel would not make any concessions to the Palestinians unless their prime minister Abbas took "decisive action against terror."

"He who does not understand the pain of concession cannot make true peace because only he who feels the pain will do everything to protect the peace bought at such a painful price," he said.

Sharon had earlier said he would make “painful concessions” to the Palestinians, including disbanding a number of “unauthorized settlements” on Palestinian land. But the influential Jewish settlers said they would oppose the dismantling of settlement outposts in the West Bank promised by Sharon in the Aqaba summit.

The international community said all of Jewish settlements are illegal since they are built on occupied land, but Israel disputes this.

Speaking over boos and shouts, Sharon told his party he believed the Middle East peace roadmap, much-maligned by many in Likud, could improve both Israel's security and economy.

"We have been forced to make a series of hard and complex decisions in a short period of time," he told the crowd, many of whom were waving anti-roadmap banners reading "map of illusions".

Sharon and his government endorsed the roadmap ahead of his attendance at last Wednesday's peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan.

"We have advanced on the political track with a process that I believe, if it succeeds, will help us improve our security situation and our economy," Sharon said, adding that Israel had started on the "way of peace" at Aqaba.

"If the new Palestinian government does not take decisive action against Palestinian terror, nothing will go forward and they will not receive a thing from us."

Abbas vowed at Aqaba to end the armed Intifada and had hoped to reach a deal with resistance groups like Hamas to stop their attacks.

Fearing that the Jewish state will not make good on its promises as was the case earlier in other peace agreements, the Palestinian resistance groups rejected conclusions of the Aqaba summit and vowed that their attacks against Israeli targets would go non-stop until Israeli forces end their occupation of Palestinian territories.

Renege on roadmap

In response to Sharon’s comments before the Likud convention, a senior Palestinian official said they showed Israel was backing away from its commitment to the Middle east peace roadmap.

"This speech means Sharon doesn't want peace and doesn't want to continue with the roadmap," Nabil Abu Rudeina, said a top aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"We ask the United States to push Israel to immediately stop the military and political escalation," he said.

Many Palestinians lamented that as the U.S. quickly launched a military invasion of Iraq it still turn blind eye on helping reach a peaceful settlement with Israel that will end long-standing occupation of their territories and establishment of their hoped-for independent sovereign state.