Sharon says Labour is 'the party of Arafat'

The Times (U.K.) ^ | 01/13/03 | Stephen Farrell

[Pokey78]

FrARIEL SHARON yesterday accused Yassir Arafat of interfering in Israel’s general election campaign by trying to engineer a period of calm to swing voters to the Left.

In a move apparently designed to identify Amram Mitzna’s opposition Labour as the “Arafat” party — and to divert attention from corruption scandals plaguing his own Likud Party — the Israeli Prime Minister was scathing about a weekend call by the Palestinian leadership for armed groups “to behave with self-restraint” in the run-up to voting on January 28.

Conceding that suicide bombs and attacks within Israel had damaged the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian leadership said that it “announces and underscores its opposition to all violence that is directed against Palestinian or Israeli civilians. The operations against Israeli civilians have harmed the Palestinian interest in the international arena and have hurt public opinion in Israel and the Israeli forces of peace.”

At a weekly meeting of the Israeli Cabinet Mr Sharon denounced the statement as a gesture born out of cynical self-interest, not a genuine desire to see an end to civilian killings. “Not only is the murder of Israelis a constant and permanent goal for the head of the Palestinian Authority, it is also a political purpose,” he said. “Killing Israelis way before the elections is fine, but once elections near it is better to stop, only to continue after the elections are held.”

Most Palestinians would prefer to see a victory for the Left, with Labour promising a near-immediate withdrawal from the Gaza Strip if Mr Mitzna becomes Prime Minister and unconditional negotiations.

Analysts believe that Mr Sharon benefits from an image of being tough on the Palestinians and that a bloodbath before the election would frighten disaffected voters back into his camp.

But Labour quickly saw the pitfalls of being associated with Mr Arafat — a near- universal hate figure in Israel. Even the dovish Mr Mitzna has taken to adopting the Sharon and Washington mantra that the veteran Palestinian leader is “irrelevant”.

Also dismissing the Palestinian statement, Mr Mizna said: “Arafat cannot latch on to internal Israeli affairs, and cannot qualify his opposition to terror with dates. Israel will fight terror in every place and at all times, and if the Palestinian leadership wants peace, it must do the same.”

There was little sign of a reduction in violence over the past 36 hours. The Israeli military killed two Palestinians in a helicopter missile attack against suspected militant targets in Gaza’s Khan Younis, and two other Palestinians in attacks elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

Mr Sharon continues to suffer from the fallout of a corruption scandal that centres on accusations that he misled fraud police over how be paid back back illegal contributions to his leadership campaign three years ago.

• Britain’s Ambassador to Israel failed yesterday in a last-minute attempt to persuade Ariel Sharon to allow senior Palestinians to travel to London for talks on reform. Sherard Cowper-Coles met Mr Sharon to try to persuade the Israeli Prime Minister to change his mind over the talks, which are due to begin tomorrow. Officials said that Mr Sharon refused to reconsider, and that after Mr Cowper-Coles had spelt out the argument that the conference could only promote much-needed reforms, “both sides agreed to disagree”.

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[knighthawk]

Every socialist/labor/liberal party is pro-Arafat.

[Arkady]

Now that arafat has changed affiliations, the party of Evil is going to have some shoes to fill.

[monkeyshine]

Which explains why European leaders are such Arafatian sychophants.

[aynrandfreak]

It took a political scandal to push Sharon into finally speaking the truth about these lefty appeasers. Which party do you think terrorists would rather have in power in America?

[_inside_information_]

Im not surprised by Sharon's comments, he has done nothing for Israel and now he's scrambling. Time to show support for Amram Mitzna, a man with a real plan!