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Posted on 10/02/2002 9:13:26 AM PDT by Bella_Bru
MOSCOW Israel is concerned that the Palestinians will try to "set the ground ablaze" before a US attack on Iraq in an attempt to provoke an Israeli response and make it more difficult for the government to act, a senior official said.
"The concern now is not about a few Scud missiles, but suicide bombers everywhere," the official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's entourage said Tuesday. He said there is also heightened concern about infiltration attempts from Lebanon and Jordan.
The much-criticized siege of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound was a signal to the Palestinians, after last month's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, that even with an impending US action, Israel will not sit with folded hands, the official added. He predicted that over time the blockade will prove to have had a deterrent effect.
Meanwhile, Sharon dismissed reports of growing tensions between himself and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, saying their relations are "very good."
He was responding to reports that he scolded Ben-Eliezer for the IDF's failure to keep some of the wanted men in Arafat's compound from fleeing. Sharon replied that he knows Ben-Eliezer is carrying out a difficult job in the "best manner possible."
During a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Sharon said Israel is interested in holding discussions with Palestinian leaders "who want to further the diplomatic process" and who "understand that Arafat has brought them a disaster."
With this, however, a senior diplomatic official in Sharon's entourage categorically denied that outgoing Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy who flew to Russia with Sharon traveled from there to a Persian Gulf country to meet with PA representatives.
During the hour long meeting with Ivanov, Sharon according to the source raised the issue of PA reform, the need to distance Arafat from the various PA "security agencies," and the need for a Palestinian prime minister.
He said the name of one of the leading candidates now for that job, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), was not raised in the meeting with Ivanov.
Abbas is slated to arrive here today for talks with Ivanov.
He was quoted as saying in an interview with a Lebanese television station that "the use of arms against Israel has brought Palestinians complete destruction."
Sharon reiterated to Ivanov that for a diplomatic process to move ahead, there needs to be a total cessation of terror and true PA reform that includes disarming the terror organizations. The source said Sharon detailed the types of reform he believes are necessary.
The source said in Sharon's view, Russia is one of three countries that understands the dangers poised by fundamentalist Islamic terror. The other two are the US and Israel, he said. This understanding, he said, now underpins the strengthening of Russian-Israeli ties.
Sharon also met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kazyanov and with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II.
A Moscow-based Israeli diplomat said the meeting with Alexy was highly significant because "he is the most influential man" in Russia after President Vladimir Putin."
Russia, he said, is going through a religious revival, and Alexy is extremely important. Sharon told Alexy that while Israel is holy to the three monotheistic religions, it was promised only to the Jews.
And why should they????
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