Sharon: peace deal would not bind me

WASHINGTON - Israeli Opposition leader Ariel Sharon says he would not feel bound to carry out a peace agreement with the Palestinians if Prime Minister Ehud Barak loses an election billed as a referendum on the deal.

Sharon, the Likud Party leader who is challenging Barak for the premiership in elections on February 6, told Newsweek that he would instead aim for a long-term "non-belligerency" agreement which he said would make life easier for the Palestinians.

Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat have accepted, with reservations, a package of US proposals which provides for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank, including Arab parts of East Jerusalem.

In return, the Palestinians would renounce the right to return to Israel.

Barak would like to seal a deal before the poll to boost his chances of re-election. US President Bill Clinton wants a deal before he leaves office on January 20.

But Sharon doubted that an agreement would help Barak, once all the details were revealed.

"The more the details will be known, the more negative the effect will be," Sharon said.

"Have you seen the document of the agreement? It's a terrible thing. It's unbelievable."

Sharon objects to proposals on the old city of Jerusalem, where the Palestinians would have control over the surface of the Temple Mount - the area known to Arabs as al-Haram al-Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary.

"That is the heart of the Jewish people. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible, I think, 676 times," Sharon said.

Asked what he would do if Barak reached a deal and then lost the election, he said: "I'll have to deal with that and, as I said, it's very complicated. But if I go on what Barak says - that [the election] is a referendum - if he loses I don't have to [honour it].

"It's very complicated to reach a permanent agreement on the issues of Jerusalem, security zones, the refugees. Therefore I suggested then that the concept would be non-belligerency, something long-term with no timetable but with a list of expectations.

"As a Jew, I can say very clearly that I understand it's not easy to be a Palestinian ... And we have to take steps in order to make their life easier."

Sharon, whom Palestinians hold partly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, did not explain how he would make their lives easier without a permanent agreement.

He said the US peace proposals were also a threat to stability in neighbouring Jordan because Arafat would have control of the west bank of the River Jordan.

"I say that they [Jordanians] are terrified. And they don't understand. But they know that if Arafat will be sitting on the Jordan River, he will destabilise the situation in their country."

- REUTERS

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