Syria said Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was a complete failure for the peace process, while Lebanon called Barak's resignation a victory for the Arab "resistance."
"Nearly 10 years have gone by since (the peace conference at) Madrid, and a year and a half since the election of Barak, who said he was for peace and that he was elected on that basis," said Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara, in his country's first reaction to Barak's resignation.
"The result is that he has achieved neither peace nor security and his resignation, be it a maneuver or trickery, shows one thing: that if Israeli mentalities remain unchanged we must not place our hopes in Israeli leaders be they from the left of the right," said Shara, opening an Arab ministerial conference.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri said Barak's resignation "proves that the resistance of the Palestinian people has begun to have an effect on the Israeli political body."
"It proves that Arabs' firmness toward Israel can change the equations inside Israel," Hariri said at a dinner at his home to break the daily fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Barak in May ordered an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, ending a bloody 22-year occupation, a move Hariri called "a victory for Lebanon and its resistance" that "without doubt has had repercussions on what is going on right now in the occupied Palestinian territories and which has put Israel in a state of acute crisis."
Hariri said the only solution for Israel was to follow "reason and the law and conform with international law by choosing the path of a just and comprehensive peace based on decisions by the international community." -- DAMASCUS (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
