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Erakat: Sharon Destroying Peace Process Revival Efforts
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| Erakat: Irresponsible policy of the Israeli government is leading the region to a cycle of violence, chaos, instability and bloodshed |
GAZA
CITY, May 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian chief
negotiator Saeb Erakat accused, Tuesday, May 14, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon of "tearing apart" efforts to revive
the peace process by vowing not to negotiate with the
"corrupt" Palestinian Authority unless it carries out
sweeping reforms.
"With
this speech Sharon is tearing apart all the efforts aimed at reviving
the peace process and sabotaging all the agreements that have been
signed", Erakat told AFP by telephone, referring to an address to
parliament Tuesday.
"The
irresponsible policy of this [Israeli] government is leading the
region and its people to a cycle of violence, chaos, instability and
bloodshed", he added.
Sharon
told the Israeli parliament on Tuesday there will be no peace talks
until the "corrupt and dictatorial" Palestinian Authority
carries out sweeping internal reforms. "The Palestinian Authority
must undergo basic structural reforms in all areas, security,
economic, legal, and social; the complete transparency and
organizational responsibility."
"Only
then will we be able to sign a permanent peace agreement that we all
hope for so much," Sharon told the Israeli Knesset.
According
to Erakat, Sharon's speech "reflects in the clearest way the
policy of the Israeli government based on state terrorism, pursuing
occupation and intensifying settlement activities".
He
urged the United States, Europe and the Arab countries "to
realize that this government does not want to hear any talk about
peace.
"Sharon
proves to President [George W.] Bush that he is not a man of peace as
the latter called him, and that the aggression and the occupation will
continue", Erakat added.
Sharon,
speaking to parliament, made no mention of a future Palestinian state,
two days after his own Likud party tried to box him into a corner by
adopting a resolution banning Palestinian statehood in the West Bank
and Gaza.
He
said he had told the U.S. Administration he would only enter peace
talks if the reforms were carried out and if there is a "complete
cessation of terrorism, violence and incitement.
Late
Tuesday, the Palestinian leadership announced Arafat had issued a law
on judicial independence. It said the law would be published in full
and would come into immediate effect.
The
Palestinian leadership also issued a statement describing the vote by
Israel's Likud party ruling out the prospect of a Palestinian state as
representing "a refusal by Likud and the Israeli government of a
just peace."
In
a poll released by Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Aharanot there was
evident strong support for Sharon, as well as for a Palestinian state
as part of an overall peace deal.
The
poll showed that 63 percent of those surveyed favor accepting a
Palestinian state in a final Middle East peace deal and 34 percent
object.
It
showed that 68 percent of respondents, and 64 percent of Likud
supporters, considered that Sunday's vote should have been postponed
as Sharon wished. Those supporting Netanyahu among the overall
population and among Likud members stood at 26 percent and 35 percent,
respectively.
Asked
whom they would like to see as Likud's candidate for prime minister in
the next elections, due in 18 months, 55 percent of general
respondents opted for Sharon and 23 percent for Netanyahu. That
proportion was reflected almost exactly by Likud members.
Netanyahu
was prime minister for three years until 1999, when his defeat by
Labor’s Ehud Barak forced him into temporary retirement from
politics. He admitted Tuesday that most Israelis did not share his
opinion.
In
another development, Israeli occupation troops backed by four
tanks and an armored bulldozer pushed 200 meters into a Palestinian
controlled sector of the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday and began
searching homes, Palestinian security sources said.
The
raid into Rafah came the morning after two Palestinians were slightly
wounded by Israeli gunfire in the same area, near the border with
Egypt.
An
army spokesman for his part reported Palestinian gunfire against the
Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim near Rafah. No one was wounded, he
said.
An
Israeli military source also said that two mortar shells were fired
late Tuesday against a group of Jewish settlements in the southern
Gaza Strip known as Gush Katif, where a house was damaged.
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