SHARON: MAN OF PEACE

Ariel Sharon, Man of Peace
Remember back in 2002 when President Bush called Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a "man of peace"? Bush's critics sneered, and Palestinian Arab politicians whined; at the time, the Washington Post quoted one of the latter, Saeb Erekat, as saying: "When I hear the president saying that Sharon is a man of peace after he has destroyed our way of life, and after the Jenin refugee camp, I don't know if this is not a reward for Israeli terrorism against the Palestinian people." That Jenin stuff, of course, turned out to be phony.

Anyway, Haaretz reports Bush's assessment of Sharon has won an important supporter in the Arab world: Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak. "Mubarak on Thursday described Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as the Palestinians' best chance for peace," the Israeli paper says:

"I think if they [Palestinians] can't achieve progress in the time of the current [Israeli] prime minister, it will be very difficult to make any progress in peace. He [Sharon] is capable of pursuing peace, and he is capable of reaching solutions, if he wants to," Mubarak told reporters in Port Said, where he had gone to inaugurate a new port project.

"Israel's prime minister said he was ready to do what the Palestinians want, to facilitate the elections, and help in removing the checkpoints. He only asks for one thing: the end of the explosions, so they can work together on a solid basis," Mubarak said.

Haaretz notes that this is "a marked departure from past comments from Mubarak and other Egyptian officials blaming Sharon for the escalation of violence in the territories." Perhaps Iraq's liberation and Bush's re-election have helped bring Mubarak around to the president's way of thinking.