Palestinians voiced fear Wednesday that Israeli political leaders would use violence to increase their popularity in the run-up to new elections, but said Prime Minister Ehud Barak had no choice but to make peace, according to AFP.
Nabil Shaath, minister of international cooperation in Yasser Arafat's self-rule authority, said Barak's only chance for political survival was "to stop his aggression and crazy war and lead a path that can give him a chance to succeed if he really desires real peace."
Barak, elected in May last year on a platform of making a "peace of the brave," with Israel's Arab neighbors, said Tuesday that he was ready for new elections in the face of mounting criticism of his handling of the two month spiral of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
"He is, in giving in (to opposition calls for early elections) facing an internal Israeli situation that he cannot win unless he goes to the Israeli street with peace and not with failure, war and destruction," Shaath told the al-Ayyam Palestinian daily newspaper.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said he was worried that Israeli political leaders would be under increased pressure to spill Palestinian blood to garner popularity during the election campaign, said the agency.
The Israeli right wing and the diminishing left have been calling for even stronger military action and economic sanctions against the Palestinians to stop the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which has claimed the lives of almost 300 people, among them some three dozen Israelis.
"It seems that Israeli politicians who inflict harm, kill and threaten to use the military machine against the Palestinian people will get more votes," Erakat told Voice of Palestine radio.
"We hope that during the election campaign there will be no more escalations, no more guns, no more tanks, no more gunships, and no more missiles," he said in separate statements to Israeli army radio.
In the meantime, senior Palestinian Authority officials said that they had received messages from Israel saying that Barak was willing to soften his positions on certain key issues in an effort to reach a permanent peace treaty in the coming months, reported Haaretz newspaper, quoting the army radio.
They said Barak had indicated willingness to show flexibility on issues over which he had refused to compromise during the failed Camp David summit in July.
But the radio said the Palestinians had reiterated their opposition to Barak's proposals for returning to interim peace agreements, according to the paper.
It quoted a senior aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as saying that "the period of interim agreements is over. Therefore, we must reach a final agreement on all the outstanding issues."
The paper said that Barak was to convene a team of senior ministers, aides and a peace emissary ahead of a bid to forge a pre-election peace deal with the Palestinians, said the paper without giving more details.
- (Several Sources)
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