Sharon regrets Arafat wasn’t killed shooting
January 22, 2002 

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, attending a special meeting of the
Israeli parliament this week, said in a newspaper interview
Thursday that he regretted that Yasser Arafat wasn't killed
20 years ago in Lebanon.
Reinforcing his fierce hostility toward Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has expressed regret that Israel didn’t “liquidate” the Palestinian leader 20 years ago. However, Sharon also said in an interview published Thursday that he remains willing to enter talks with his arch enemy — now encircled by Israeli tanks in the West Bank town of Ramallah — if Arafat stamps out terrorism.

SHARON TOLD the Maariv daily that Israel should have killed Arafat during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Sharon was defense minister at the time, and led the push to drive Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization out of Lebanon.

“In Lebanon, there was an agreement not to liquidate Yasser Arafat,” Sharon told Maariv. “In principle, I’m sorry that we didn’t liquidate him.”

In recent speeches, Sharon has said Arafat was Israel’s bitter enemy and accused him of leading a “gang of terrorists.”

Looking past the conflict, Sharon said Israel will enter peace talks with Arafat in the future, if he stamps out terror. “If Arafat will take all the steps that we are demanding from him, for me he will return to be a partner in negotiations,” Sharon said.

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sharon’s comments weren’t surprising. 

“I think this reflects what has been always said — that Sharon is trying to finish what he began in 1982, and for prime ministers to announce openly their gangster intention is a reflection of what kind of government we’re dealing with,” Erekat said.

Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said on Thursday Israel was not seeking to eliminate Arafat.

“Today Israel’s policy is not to harm him personally. He (Sharon) has even sent his son to Arafat personally to tell him we would not harm or hurt him,” Gissin said.

This is a reference to Sharon’s son Omri, who has occasionally acted as a private mediator between the two veteran leaders. 

EGYPT’S CONCERN
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak said after a meeting Wednesday with Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer that his country must maintain contacts with Israel since the Israelis and Palestinians are no longer talking to one another. 

“The Palestinians are under siege and the (Israelis) are in trouble,” Mubarak said. “We agreed to remain in contact until a solution is found.”

Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia was to travel to Washington for a meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday.

Qureia was to meet Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in New York on Thursday to try to work out an understanding on a cease-fire and the eventual resumption of peace talks, Israel TV’s Channel Two reported.

The Palestinians said they were going to Washington to clarify their position, as the U.S. administration grows less sympathetic to their cause.

Their mission will precede Sharon’s trip to Washington to meet President Bush on Feb. 7, his fourth visit to the White House. Arafat has yet to receive an invitation.
       Arafat remains virtually trapped in Ramallah, with Israeli tanks parked about 70 yards from his compound.

MORE VIOLENCE
Meanwhile, in the the Gaza Strip on Thursday, two militants detonated a roadside bomb and opened fire on a truck carrying Thai farm hands to Jewish settlements. Soldiers escorting the truck returned fire, killing the assailants, the army said. The truck was damaged, but the workers were not injured. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

Also Thursday, a 17-year-old Palestinian wounded last week by Israeli army fire died of his injuries, doctors said. The teen-ager was shot while throwing stones at tanks near Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. 

Overnight, Israeli soldiers arrested two Hamas members in a Palestinian-controlled area of Ramallah and near the West Bank town of Tulkarem, the Israeli military said. Israel accuses the Palestinian Authority of doing little to prevent attacks on Israelis by Palestinian militants, and says Israeli troops have to step in to track down militants.

The militant Islamic Jihad group said Wednesday it would carry out more attacks against Israelis. The group took responsibility for a bombing earlier in the day that wounded two officers from Israel’s Shin Bet security service and killed the Palestinian attacker, a former informer for Israel.

“We will continue with our jihad and operations, more strikes in the Zionist depth are coming, God willing,” the group said in a statement. Islamic Jihad and Hamas have carried out dozens of bombings and suicide attacks during the current conflict, which started in September 2000.

And in Lebanon, the Hezbollah group said it fired in Israeli planes that “violated Lebanese airspace.” 

Witnesses in the village of Teir Dibba near the coastal city of Tyre heard anti-aircraft fire as the planes swooped overhead and saw a shell smash into the ground near a cluster of houses, sending shrapnel flying and throwing earth into the air.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, and it was not immediately clear whether the projectile had been fired from the air or ground.

Hezbollah regularly fires anti-aircraft guns at Israeli planes, which have flown over south Lebanon almost daily since Israeli ground forces ended their 22-year occupation in May 2000.