Did anyone really believe Ariel Scheinman aka Sharon would accept any
peace plan when it was he who started this war and his reign of terror
has killed how many innocents and butchered children?
Nice story here (take from Euphorian's E Mail)......and I wonder - ever
have a feeling the Arab Nations, these Great Arab Nations are playing
cat and mouse with this little fly speck on the map for surely, one bit
swat and Israel would not longer be on the map.
That Sharon is pulling the Tiger and Lion's tail and is about to feel
the whiplash?
Strange isn't it that Sharon is still alive? Who really trains these
"suicide bombers" or are they just turned loose from the Israel nut
house where these terrorists are often held? Are they drugged and
programmed there?
OSaba
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Fri 29 Mar 2002
Ariel Sharon: the Israeli Prime Minister has rejected the Saudi peace
initiative.
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Palestinians fear backlash as Israel rejects Saudi peace plan
Ben Lynfield in Jerusalem
AN unprecedented Arab peace offer was overshadowed yesterday by one of
the most lethal attacks against Israelis since the start of the
Palestinian-Israeli war of attrition.
Plans for a major Israeli army offensive showed signs of being moved up
in response to the killing by a Palestinian suicide bomber of 20 people
and the wounding of 140 on Wednesday night at a Passover banquet in the
city of Netanya. Tanks were being brought on carriers to positions near
West Bank population centres hours after Israeli forces sliced the Gaza
Strip into three sections and barred transit between them.
In the northern West Bank, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the Elon
Moreh settlement and killed three people. He was reportedly still
boarded up in a house late last night.
With a sense that an Israeli offensive was imminent, the Palestinian
leader, Yasser Arafat, said last night he was ready to declare an
unconditional ceasefire. He said the Palestinians had informed the US
special envoy, Anthony Zinni, that "we are ready to immediately begin
implementation of the Tenet work plan".
Tenet is a US ceasefire blueprint to which Israel has been seeking
modifications during recent negotiations.
The peace plan issued by the Arab League summit in Beirut was dismissed
by Israel as "less than overwhelming" on the grounds that it fell short
of full peace and warm relations and demanded territorial concessions
that were too far-reaching to be considered. "The basic position unites
the lowest common denominator for Arabs but does not offer anything
hopeful to Israel," said Dore Gold, an adviser to Israel's prime
minister, Ariel Sharon.
Supporters of the plan, however, say it signifies the widest Arab
backing for peace with and recognition of Israel.
As the Palestinian Authority evacuated offices and installations in
Ramallah in anticipation of an Israeli onslaught, Mr Sharon convened
cabinet ministers for a discussion of army "plans for wide action,"
according to media reports. Officials were quoted by Israeli media as
saying that the government would now disregard any inhibitions on
military action it had observed out of deference to the ceasefire
efforts of Mr Zinni and that the operation would be "wide, deep and
would go on for a long time".
However, Ephraim Inbar, a leading analyst, said: "I do not think we will
see a decisive blow. Even the Americans allowed several months in
Afghanistan.
The accumulation of rage in Israel demands that the government act but
the American factor remains unchanged."
He was referring to a perceived American interest in not having the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict disrupt preparations for attacking Iraq. Mr
Inbar added that he was not certain that Mr Sharon's Labour party
coalition partner would support a large-scale operation.
The terrorist attack in Netanya, carried out by Abdel-Basat Odeh, a
militant from Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, has outraged the
entire country and is referred to in the media and government as "the
Passover massacre". Ninety eight people were still in hospital
yesterday, 16 of them in a serious condition. Palestinian police say
Odeh knew the territory since he had worked as a waiter in Netanya
hotels.
The images on Israeli television screens last night were of bloodstained
skullcaps, screaming ambulances and stunned survivors rather than of
Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia outlining the Arab world's
conditions for peace.
The often stormy two-day summit in Beirut endorsed a Saudi plan offering
Israel peace and normal ties if it returned all occupied Arab lands and
agreed to live alongside a Palestinian state. The plan insisted that
Israel also agree to a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee
problem in line with a 1948 United Nations resolution that calls for
refugees to be repatriated or compensated.
The Arab countries would in return "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict
ended and enter into a peace with Israel [and] establish normal
relations".
Mr Arafat gave his blessing to the plan in a televised speech. But Mr
Gold stressed that the plan used the words "normal relations" with
Israel instead of "normalisation" which he said meant the difference
between a full peace and a colder state of relations. He added that the
plan required of Israel concessions that went beyond what was required
under UN Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for Israeli
withdrawal from "territories occupied" in the 1967 Middle East war.
Akiva Eldar, a columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, said that the
Netanya attack "makes the Saudi proposal theoretical, even bizaare". He
said: "People being killed on one of the holiest days of the Jewish
people gives Sharon a set-up for making a different show. People now are
not going to respond logically, they will sympathise with military
action and he can calculate that there will be no American pressure. "
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