Sir, - It is already well known that Ariel Sharon's irresponsible and deliberately provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque triggered a second intifada among the Palestinians, followed by the expected disproportionate Israeli response which has left almost 300 Palestinian civilians dead, many of them teenagers armed with such lethal artillery as rocks.
It really says something about Israeli politics that such a man is now rewarded for wrecking the peace process by being overwhelmingly elected prime minister. Barak, despite all his flaws, at least represented a new direction and some compromise. The election of an outdated warmonger such as Sharon represents the Israeli electorate's swing back to the old climate of intractabilty.
Sharon's track record speaks for itself: the massacre of 69 civilians at the Jordanian village of Qibya in 1953; unprovoked raids on Gaza and a Syrian outpost near Galilee in 1955, condemned by the UN Security Council; and finally his murderous actions in West Beirut in 1982. Realising that his plan for a new political order in Lebanon had failed, he presided over the vengeful massacre of up to 2,000 civilians in Sabra and Shatilla, which, according to two Israeli journalists, involved "the wholesale slaughter of families", infants being trampled to death, and live grenades being hung around victim's necks.
During the Al-Aqsa intifada, the Palestinian representative to the UK, Afif Safieh, was asked if an emergency unity government with Sharon would create difficulties for Palestinian negotiators. He responded yes, because Sharon should not be in government, he should be in prison. With Sabra and Shatilla in mind, it is difficult to see the flaw in his point. But the Israeli electorate clearly feel that their country can eschew the respect of the international community by electing a war criminal to bring peace. - Yours, etc.,
Gary J. Malone, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.