Agis
January 12th, 2006, 02:26 AM
BERLIN (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not a man of peace...
Fischer, who was a trusted and active mediator in the Middle East before leaving office in November, wrote in the German weekly Die Zeit that he had always had an ambivalent take on the Israeli leader.
"He was not a man of peace, neither as a politician nor as a soldier," Fischer said of Sharon, whose political future has been thrown into doubt since he suffered a major stroke last week.
Fischer noted that Sharon was "the political foster father of Israeli territorial expansion and with it the settlement movement" and was deeply skeptical about the Palestinians' will for peace.
"He never seriously believed in the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, and certainly never with
Yasser Arafat," he said, referring to the late Palestinian leader.
"He did not see a partner in Arafat or the Palestinian leadership and he did not want to negotiate.
"We often talked about that point and the prime minister always expressed his conviction that first of all, the Arab side would never truly accept
Israel in the foreseeable future and secondly, the ideas about a final status were too far apart on the two sides and thus could not be bridged in negotiations."
Fischer added that Sharon "was and is totally inflexible" on the status of Jerusalem.
But he said Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip in September had been a monumental step that would secure Sharon's place in history.
"That was an unprecedented, nearly revolutionary event. That remains Ariel Sharon's lasting achievement," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060111/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelpoliticssharongermanyfischer_060111154311
Fischer, who was a trusted and active mediator in the Middle East before leaving office in November, wrote in the German weekly Die Zeit that he had always had an ambivalent take on the Israeli leader.
"He was not a man of peace, neither as a politician nor as a soldier," Fischer said of Sharon, whose political future has been thrown into doubt since he suffered a major stroke last week.
Fischer noted that Sharon was "the political foster father of Israeli territorial expansion and with it the settlement movement" and was deeply skeptical about the Palestinians' will for peace.
"He never seriously believed in the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, and certainly never with
Yasser Arafat," he said, referring to the late Palestinian leader.
"He did not see a partner in Arafat or the Palestinian leadership and he did not want to negotiate.
"We often talked about that point and the prime minister always expressed his conviction that first of all, the Arab side would never truly accept
Israel in the foreseeable future and secondly, the ideas about a final status were too far apart on the two sides and thus could not be bridged in negotiations."
Fischer added that Sharon "was and is totally inflexible" on the status of Jerusalem.
But he said Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip in September had been a monumental step that would secure Sharon's place in history.
"That was an unprecedented, nearly revolutionary event. That remains Ariel Sharon's lasting achievement," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060111/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelpoliticssharongermanyfischer_060111154311