A newly appointed hard-line Israeli minister said he believes Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "does not deserve to live" because of his alleged links to "terrorism," in an interview published Friday.
"Arafat does not deserve to live because he incarnates the deadliest kind of terrorism," said Effi Eitam, who became a minister without portfolio when his National Religious Party (NPR), the political arm of the Jewish settlers, joined the coalition government last week.
"I can't say where and when it will happen (Yasser Arafat's disappearance), if it will be here or somewhere else, but he does not deserve to live," the former general told Yediot Aharonot daily.
Eitam joined Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government on Monday, shortly after being voted the head of the NPR, which has five seats in the 120-member Israeli parliament.
In addition, he was appointed to the security cabinet, which decides on military operations.
Eitam represents the interests of Jewish settlers who have built their communities on Palestinian land occupied in the 1967 war and is known for his extreme nationalistic positions.
Moreover, he refuses any compromise with Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, which he considers an integral part of the biblical-era Israel.
"We're not going left or right, we're heading straight to our forefathers' path ... They (the Palestinians) will never reach sovereignty, nor have an army or a government in any part of Eretz Israel (the biblical-era Israel)," he also recently stated. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
