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Probe Committee Should Blame Arafat for Violence: Sharon
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sunday told an international fact-finding committee, which is touring the region for investigations into the six-month Israeli-Palestinian violence, that it should put the blame on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
During the meeting with the committee Sunday afternoon, Sharon said that if the committee fails to do so, it would send out a message that "violence pays," according to Sharon's aide Ra'anan Gissin.
Israel has repeatedly accused Arafat of master-planning the violence long before Sharon's provocative visit to a disputed shrine in East Jerusalem on September 28, 2000, which was widely regarded as the fuse triggering the bloody clashes.
The violence has left more than 430 people dead, most of them Palestinians, and thousands of others injured.
Gissin told Israel Radio that Sunday's meeting was held in a good atmosphere and the committee reaffirmed that it only has the mandate to check what happened in the past six months of violence, and how to avoid such things happening again.
Earlier Sunday, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, head of the five-member team, told reporters after a meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav that the probe team is not an international tribunal and it will not put anyone on trial.
The committee's position obviously relieved Sharon, who said earlier Sunday that although Israel cooperates with the team, it will not agree to be put on trial before an international tribunal.
Sharon told Israel media that in his opinion, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's nod to set up such a fact-finding committee was "a historic mistake because no one has the right to put Israel to a world trial."
The committee was set up upon understandings reached at an emergency Mideast summit in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh last October to investigate the causes of the Israeli- Palestinian clashes.
Mitchell said on Sunday that the committee has enjoyed " excellent cooperation" from both the Palestinians and Israelis, and that the team may soon finish its report on the investigations, likely at the end of April.
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