Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is thinking only of using force to stop the uprising in the Occupied Territories, a top Palestinian minister told the Spanish daily El Pais on Wednesday.
“Sharon thinks that with the Israeli army, anything is possible,” Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Nabil Amr told the paper.
Amr nevertheless added: “But, you know what? Sharon won’t live forever.”
The Palestinian minister also said this was an “exceptional moment to negotiate peace,” stating that the US was more willing to accept a wider European role in resolving the conflict.
He called the Bush administration more balanced in its approach than Clinton’s, and highlighted the need to send international observers to the Occupied Territories to bring the true authors of the violence to the world’s attention.
The minister said the Palestinian Authority had no role in bringing the Belgian court case against Sharon for his alleged role in the 1982 Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon, in which Christian militiamen allied with Israel’s invasion force slaughtered at least 800 unarmed men, women and children.
“It’s been Palestinians and Lebanese, survivors of the massacre perpetrated by the Christian guerillas, and consented to by Sharon,” said Amr.
Nevertheless, he said there was no doubt that the trial would be well received by the Palestinian public and even by “some Israelis who consider [Sharon’s election] as an ethical scandal.”
Amr blasted the Tel Aviv suicide bombing in June that killed twenty Israelis, most of them young women of Russian descent.
“The attack reflected an ugly image of our struggle,” said the minister. “Don’t lose track the fact that we are fighting against Israeli occupation, against her settlers, but not against young people having a good time, most of them Russians, away from the battle lines.”
He said the attack “put a question mark” beside the justification of the Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, “which was born from the very roots of the problem, from the frustration with a peace process in which, in the last ten months, more than 500 of our compatriots have died.” – Albawaba.com
