EX-GERMAN FORG. MINISTER: SHARON NOT A MAN OF PEACE

BECAUSE HE WAS SKEPTICAL THAT ARAFAT WANTED PEACE!

Sharon not a man of peace: ex-German FM Fischer.
“He was not a man of peace, neither as a politician nor as a soldier,” Fischer said of Sharon, whose political future has been thrown into doubt since he suffered a major stroke last week.

Fischer noted that Sharon was “the political foster father of Israeli territorial expansion and with it the settlement movement” and was deeply skeptical about the Palestinians’ will for peace. “He never seriously believed in the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, and certainly never with Yasser Arafat,” he said, referring to the late Palestinian leader. “He did not see a partner in Arafat or the Palestinian leadership and he did not want to negotiate.

“We often talked about that point and the prime minister always expressed his conviction that first of all, the Arab side would never truly accept Israel in the foreseeable future and secondly, the ideas about a final status were too far apart on the two sides and thus could not be bridged in negotiations.”