By Khaled Amayreh The appointment last week of Ariel Sharon as Israel's new foreign minister came as no surprise to most Palestinians. Rumours that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu intended to put the former army general at the helm of Israeli diplomacy had been circulating for some time in the media. Netanyahu, it seemed, was only waiting for the opportune moment to announce his decision, which came on 9 October, a few days before the convening of much-heralded talks due to open today at Wye Plantation near Washington. From the Palestinian point of view, it is hard to give Netanyahu and the man he has chosen as foreign minister the benefit of the doubt. The appointment itself was in no way motivated by goodwill or a desire on Bibi's part to advance the peace process. Nor does it seem, as some observers have suggested, that the Israeli premier was simply seeking to silence or mollify his extreme right-wing critics, such as the pro-settlement movement Gush Emunim and the National Religious Party; Sharon has proved to be one of the most ideologically extreme and jingoistic politicians in the country. The only possible conclusion is that his appointment as Israel's top diplomat is a move designed deliberately to sever the last remaining threads holding the peace process together. Netanyahu's assertions that Sharon could make a valuable contribution to the peace efforts can simply be dismissed given the former general's credentials. The man known as the "bulldozer" for his drive to expand Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, is the "Mr No" par excellence. Not only does he vehemently oppose the hand-over of more than 10 per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (PA), but he rejects the implementation of the third (and paramount) phase of redeployment, which according to the 1993 Oslo Accords should end with the Israeli army's withdrawal from the whole of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, bar East Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and military positions. More to the point, Sharon insists on retaining most of the Hebron plateau, the Jordan Valley and most of the so-called Gush Etzion bloc between Jerusalem and Hebron. In short, he envisages a "settlement" with the Palestinians whereby up to 65 per cent of the West Bank will be retained by Israel, leaving the PA overseeing scattered chunks of territory lacking any semblance of continuity or contiguity. Besides his extreme political views and attitudes, the new foreign minister is best remembered by Palestinians as a mass murderer and war criminal. "Sharon is a mass murderer; he is not capable of making peace, he can only carry out massacres as he did in Sabra and Shatilla in 1982," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat. Ereikat, who is supposed to take part in intensive face-to-face talks with Sharon at Wye Plantation this week has no illusions about the man: "Sharon represents the antithesis of the peace process; he doesn't believe in it, since he rejected Oslo from the start," he said during a radio interview with the PA's official radio station, Voice of Palestine, earlier this week. But given that Ereikat believes Sharon has nothing to offer, why is he going to Washington to meet him? Ereikat's response is short and to the point: "So as not to give the Americans a pretext to accuse us of seeking to corrode their efforts." Nabil Shaath, the outspoken PA minister for planing and international cooperation, believes the Palestinians have no choice but to deal with Sharon as Israel's foreign minister: "Yes, Sharon is a criminal. Yes, he is an evil man. But he is also the new Israeli foreign minister and we cannot escape this fact," he said in a separate interview. Shaath said he would reserve judgement on Sharon as foreign minister until after the Wye Plantation talks, "so we will know for sure if we are dealing with the old nefarious Sharon or with a reformed Sharon who has grown wiser and come to believe in peace and reconciliation." Another Palestinian leader, Hani Al-Hassan, a member of Fatah's Central Council, said that political realities may compel Sharon to moderate his erstwhile extremist stance. "If he proved to be inflexible, he would be a liability to the Israeli government," said Al-Hassan. But Al-Hassan's comments appear to represent the views of a minority within both the PA and the Palestinian people in general. "Pinning hope on Sharon to give us our rights is like seeking justice in a thief's den and safety in a snake's pit," said Hamas's spokesman in Hebron, Anwar Naseraddin. The Islamist official scoffed at "PA naivety in dealing with the Zionist establishment." He added that "the PA must stop entertaining the false notion that peace is possible with those murderers who only just stop short of denying our very existence." Meanwhile, the appointment of Sharon as foreign minister was welcomed by leaders of the settler groups in the West Bank, who view him as "a true defender of the integrity of the land of Israel." "Sharon is faithful to the land of Israel and we believe he will not betray us at Wye Plantation," said Yesrael Veleristein, head of Moest Yesha'a, the council of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Veleristein's praise of Sharon contrasted sharply with statements by Yossi Sarid, leader of the dovish Meretz movement. "Sharon is a despicable figure [and] can't be expected to make peace with the Palestinians." Sarid said Netanyahu had only one thing in mind when he decided to appoint Sharon as foreign minister, "and that is to kill the peace process." During his long military career, Sharon has been involved in massacres in Palestine and Lebanon. In 1954, he is believed to have ordered the killing of more than 50 Palestinian villagers at Kafr Kassem in central Palestine. Two years later, he reportedly instructed soldiers to execute scores of Egyptian POWs in the Gaza Strip. Sharon consummated his bloody history on the 17 and 18 September 1982, when, as defence minister, he gave Christian militiamen the green light to murder thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla camps near Beirut. An Israeli court, responding to international pressure, put Sharon on trial for the massacres. He was found "partially guilty" of "not reining in our Christian allies" and "of not foreseeing the possibility of a massacre." Symbolic as it was, the partial incrimination had little effect on Sharon's career. In 1997, Netanyahu appointed him minister for national infrastructure and a member of the internal cabinet, which deals with security issues and takes key decisions related to the peace process.
