A spokesman for Israeli Prime MinisterAriel Sharon today hinted at the possibility of removing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom Sharon's office accused of being responsible for a double attack which killed seven people plus the two bombers.
"Let me just refer you to an experiment that took place in Iraq a month ago - what happened when a when a reign of terror by one leader was taken off, how the people reacted," Raanan Gissin toldreporters.
"... When people say 'he's the leader and he's doing this' well, they haven't had the opportunity really to see what it means to live, or to behave or to act without Yasser Arafat calling the shots, literally," Gissin said.
Gissin stressed any hope for moving along the peace process rested not on the internationally-backed Middle East roadmap, which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, but in ousting Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority.
"The problem is not the roadmap, the problem is the trail of blood ... which has been charted very clearly by Yasser Arafat and those who support him," Gissin said.
"There is a clear understanding after September 11, after the US victory in Iraq after the appointment of a new government in the Palestinian Authority that the first step that must be taken is a real effort, a 100 percent effort on the part all concerned to stopterrorist activity," Gissin added.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner had earlier blamed Arafat for the twin bombings Sunday, charging that the aging leader had formed an alliance with Muslim movements like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a bid to sabotage peace efforts led by Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas.
"It is in Yasser Arafat's interest to hamper his rival Abu Mazen (Abbas' nomme de guerre), to prove he cannot govern, and for that purpose he has formed an alliance with Hamas and Jihad, in an attempt to stop the revival of the peace process with terrorist acts," Pazner claimed.
"I do not yet know which measures will be taken but we will obviously have to take some to fight against this wave of terrorism," he said.
AFP