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" The way we've dealt with other murderers is the way we'll deal with Arafat," said Sharon
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, September 14 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened anew Tuesday, September
14, to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the occupied
Palestinian territories.
Sharon
has also revealed that he had rejected a US bid to restart peace talks
with Syria.
"Arafat
will be expelled from the territories," Sharon told the Israeli
mass circulation Yediot Ahronot.
The
hawkish Premier said Arafat would be banished from the Palestinian
lands at the convenient time as was the case with Hamas top leaders
late sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdul Aziz Al-Rantissi.
"We
took action against Ahmad Yassin and Rantissi and a few other
murderers when we thought the time was right. On the matter of
Arafat's expulsion we will operate in keeping with that same
principle: we'll do it at a time that suits us," Agence
France-Presse (AFP) quoted Sharon as telling the Israeli paper.
Yassin
was assassinated on March 22 in an Israeli
missile attack that also killed at least eight of
his companions.
Rantissi
was
assassinated one month later in a similar attack on his
car.
Responding
to a question if he sees any difference between Arafat and the two
slain Hamas leaders, Sharon said he doesn't see any difference.
"I
don't see any difference. He, he and he adopted a policy of murder.
The way we've dealt with other murderers is the way we'll deal with
Arafat."
Sharon
had repeatedly threatened to expel or assassinate the veteran
Palestinian leader.
Last
September, the Israeli security cabinet agreed
by majority to outline a plan to expel Arafat.
The
Israeli decision drew stinging criticism from the international
community as the United Nations General Assembly had issued a
resolution demanding Israel not to kick out Arafat.
Arafat
has been confined by Israeli forces to his battered headquarters in
the West Bank town of Ramallah since December 2001 shortly after the
outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada.
No
Peace With Syria
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An Israeli soldier looks for evidence near a gate at the separation wall after the Qalqilya operation
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to Watch
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Sharon
has further revealed he had rejected a proposal from Washington last
year to resume peace negotiations with Syria.
He
told the Ha’aretz daily that senior White House envoy Elliot
Abrams had made the suggestion during a meeting in Rome last November
but let the matter drop when it was met with a cool response.
"It
was immediately taken off the agenda and they're not raising it any
more," AFP quoted him as saying.
"He
(Abrams) wanted to talk with me then on the Syrian issue," said
Sharon. "He spoke about what the Syrians were trying to do, that
they would enter into negotiations with Israel."
All
attempts to reach a peace deal between the two countries have
foundered over the return of the Golan Heights which was occupied by
Israel during the 1967 Middle East War and annexed 14 years later.
Syrian
President Bashar Al-Assad was reported last January to have said that
he was ready to
re-start negotiations but Sharon had set several
conditions.
The
Israeli army's chief of staff, General Moshe Yaalon, caused a stir
last month when he said that Israel could hand back the Golan, the
first time that such a senior officer had accepted the possibility of
a total withdrawal from the strategic plateau.
Palestinian
Bombing
On
the ground, three Israeli soldiers were injured Tuesday in a
Palestinian operation in the West Bank city of Qalqilya.
The
attack, which was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, took place
between Qalqilya and the nearby village of Habla, reported AFP.
The
attacker set off the charge he was carrying near an army jeep as it
was passing through a gap in the Israeli separation wall.
Palestinian
security sources said that two Palestinians were also wounded in the
attack.
The
Brigades told AFP over the phone the operation came in retaliation for
the killing of three of its fighters Monday, September 13, in an
Israeli helicopter strike on a car in the flashpoint northern West
Bank town of Jenin.
