Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon begins his first official visit to Europe on Thursday to “strongly urge leaders there to pressure Palestinian President Yasser Arafat into enforcing the ceasefire,” according to Haaretz newspaper.
He will also be asking them to adopt what he calls a more "balanced" policy on the growing crisis in the Middle East.
Sharon's European trip comes after a somewhat stormy security cabinet session on Wednesday during which right-wing ministers attacked the so-called "policy of restraint" in the face of Palestinian Intifada, said the paper.
But the session ended with the government toeing Foreign Minister Shimon Peres's moderate line and agreeing to stick to the Tenet understandings for implementing the ceasefire and the Mitchell Commission report.
The paper added that the 13-member security cabinet also decided to “allow the army to target more Palestinians for focused prevention, the latest euphemism for the targeted assassination policy the government is using to foil terror attacks.”
Sharon will visit Germany and France, but will not visit European Union president Belgium.
He is currently under investigation there for war crimes during the 1982 Lebanon invasion, but he will meet Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel in Berlin, said earlier reports.
An official told the paper that “Sharon will tell the Europeans they share an interest with Israel in trying to bring stability to the Middle East, and the only way to achieve that stability is to pressure Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat into putting an end to the violence.”
A further point of discussion is likely to be any future contribution by France - and the EU - to brokering peace between the two sides.
The French have made it clear they would like an "open diplomatic dialogue" with Sharon, where each side puts forward his side, said the official.
On Tuesday night, the EU condemned the latest escalation in the Middle East and expressed "deep worries" about the situation.
A formal EU statement condemned both the bombings in Yehud on Monday and Israel's assassination of three Palestinians on Sunday.
It also condemned Hizbollah's renewed attacks on Israeli outposts near the Shabaa Farms on the Syrian-Lebanese border and Israel's retaliatory attack on the Syrian radar station the next day.
The EU called on both sides to "demonstrate restraint and to settle differences in negotiations."
Sharon was initially meant to visit Europe last month but postponed that trip after a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv nightclub killed 21 Israelis.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed over 112 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and over 458 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, and over 520 killed.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
