Sharon the merciless and Arafat the corrupt have nothing meaningful to offer each other
Posted: Saturday, May 4, 2002

by Robert Fisk in Jerusalem

Self-delusion has crossed the Atlantic. George Bush is having visions again – just as he did before the most recent bloodbath in Israel and Palestine – and Colin Powell, whose latest Middle East mission was a wholesale disaster, wants to devise "a set of principles" for an Arab-Israeli peace. And, as usual, it is the occupied, not the occupier, who is warned this is the "last chance" for peace.

That the United States wants to enlist the Europeans, Russia and the UN in its plans for a Middle East peace conference is perhaps the only sign of realism in the initiative. Otherwise, it's the same old twaddle.

Yasser Arafat has to earn "trust" – this from the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer – and will not, for the moment, receive any invitations to the White House. He has to curb "terror". But Ariel Sharon, whose army was accused of war crimes in Jenin by Human Rights Watch yesterday, will be joshing with Mr Bush in Washington next week.

It was impossible, in Jerusalem yesterday, to take any of this seriously. MORE

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