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Sharon Rejects Palestinian Peace Proposal: PM Office
Officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's office said that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has rejected the peace proposal put forth by Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), Israeli Radio reported Thursday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, however, is said to be studying the proposal with great interest.
Under the peace proposal, both Israelis and the Palestinians would take steps to stem the violence and fully implement signed agreements.
In addition, the proposal also demands, as part of efforts to renew peace negotiations, that Israel lift its blockades on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stop its policy of assassinating Palestinian militants, freeze settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories and free up tax revenues it owes to the Palestinian National Authority.
While some Israeli officials received the proposal positively as it did not include a former demand to resume peace talks from where they were left off in negotiation with Israeli previous government led by Ehud Barak, right-wing Likud lawmaker Moshe Arens rejected the proposal Thursday, saying that the Palestinians first "had to reach the conclusion that violence does not pay."
Arens, a former defense minister, added that once Peres completed reading the document, he would no doubt reach the conclusion "that it is not so interesting," quoted by the radio.
Zehava Gal-On, Knesset (parliament) member from the left-wing Meretz Party rebuffed Arens' argument, saying that the government should take Abu Ala's initiative seriously and military might would not solve the conflict.
"It's possible to conquer more homes, leave more people without a roof over their heads and continue with the assassinations and then the Palestinian (National) Authority will collapse," she said.
She said that the Israeli government should discard its vow not to talk under fire. "You have to talk in order to end the fire. And it is not possible to talk only about renewing security cooperation," she added.
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