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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (189532)	10/5/2001 1:30:07 PM
From: goldworldnet	Respond to of 769670

ANALYSIS-Sharon 'Appeasement' Warning Sparks Row with U.S. By Matt Spetalnick Friday October 5 1:08 PM ET JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A fierce row between Israel and its guardian ally the United States reflects Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's alarm at how far Washington is prepared to go to win Muslim support for a global front against terror. In a unusually harsh attack that one Israeli newspaper likened to a ``volcanic eruption,'' Sharon urged the United States and the West on Thursday not to appease Arab nations the way Europe appeased Hitler on the eve of World War Two. That drew an icy response from the White House on Friday. It called Sharon's comments ``unacceptable'' and reminded him that Israel has no stronger ally than the United States. The right-wing prime minister made clear that he would not allow efforts to recruit Arab states to come at Israel's expense as it battles a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. ``We feel isolated and it's not comfortable,'' a senior Israeli diplomat said. ``They want to bring countries into the coalition as potential allies that used to figure quite high on the State Department list of state sponsors of terror.'' However, it was Sharon's caustic language rather than his message that stunned Israelis accustomed to the warmest of words between the two allies. They are aware that alienating the United States would be the biggest blunder Israel could make. Invoking the Nazi era, Sharon said: ``I call on the Western democracies, and primarily the leader of the free world, the United States, do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when enlightened European democracies decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a convenient temporary solution.'' ``Israel will not be another Czechoslovakia; Israel will fight terrorism,'' he told a news conference. Sharon was alluding to Western acquiescence to Nazi Germany's takeover of part of Czechoslovakia under the Munich Pact of 1938, which paved the way for further German conquests. He unleashed his scathing attack just hours after a Palestinian gunman posing as an Israeli soldier killed three people at a bus station in the northern Israeli town of Afula. A Sharon aide later said the Israeli leader did not mean to imply the United States was ``dealing in a dishonorable way.'' And a senior Israeli official said Secretary of State Colin Powell called Sharon on Thursday night and received the prime minister's assurance that ``no offence was intended.'' RELATIONS WITH U.S. STRAINED After last month's attacks on the United States, Sharon had hoped that Washington's new anti-terror drive would help cement Israel's place as America's greatest friend in the Middle East and give him a freer hand to crush the Palestinian revolt. But the rare public row shows how Israel's vital relations with the United States, which contributes billions of dollars a year in aid to the Jewish state, have been strained. Israeli officials are dismayed that while the United States has ruled out an Israeli role in any military response to the attacks, diplomatic overtures have been made to Syria and Iran. Both countries have in the past been listed by the U.S. government as states it believes sponsor terrorism. ''Apprehension is building among Israelis, and Sharon's message is 'don't do this to us','' Israeli analyst Mark Heller said. In the meantime, Sharon has come under intense U.S. pressure to adhere to a truce deal with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat aimed at ending a year of bloodshed. The week-old cease-fire effort was in tatters after a series of clashes. Israeli tanks and troops thrust into a Palestinian area of the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, seizing strategic positions and killing five Palestinians in a gunbattle. ``Likening Israel's situation to Czechoslovakia and the continuous aggression on Hebron and other Palestinian cities are part of Sharon's intention to sabotage the international coalition,'' said Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Arafat. MIXED REACTION IN ISRAELI MEDIA Sharon's blunt warning drew a mixed reaction at home. ``The Bush administration will no doubt be surprised by Sharon's hurling what is the most painful arrow one ally can aim at another, the charge of Munich-style abandonment,'' the Jerusalem Post said in an editorial. But it said: ``Sharon is absolutely right that it is morally and strategically bankrupt for the U.S. to act as if its alliance with Israel is a liability in the war against terror while praising Arab regimes that have been fanning the jihad (holy war) against America for years.'' The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper took the opposite view, saying Sharon had ``set a record in self-alarmism.'' Israeli political analyst Gerald Steinberg said Sharon's message was that Israel should not be counted on to show the same restraint this time that it did during the Gulf War. In 1991, when another George Bush was in the White House, the United States forged a coalition to oust Iraqi invasion forces from Kuwait. Washington pressed Israel to remain on the sidelines to clear the battlefront for allied Arab forces. Israelis in gas masks hunkered down in rooms they sealed with duct tape and Israeli forces stayed in their bases as dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles slammed into Israeli cities. It is not the first time that Sharon, a former general who as defense minister masterminded Israel's most unpopular war -- the 1982 Lebanon invasion which bogged Israeli forces down for 22 years -- has run afoul of the United States. In May 1991, as housing minister, Sharon championed the building of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian lands. The U.S. administration, led by Bush's father, refused Sharon an official reception during a visit to Washington. James Baker, U.S. secretary of state at the time, later wrote in his memoirs that Sharon was an ``obstacle to peace.'' dailynews.yahoo.com * * *