ISRAEL will not guarantee Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat the right to return to the West Bank, if he travels abroad, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told ABC television’s Nightline on Wednesday.
“We are not giving any guarantees for that,” Sharon said in the interview.
“We’re not asked to give any guarantees, we’re not going to give any guarantees, because usually in the past when he left, it was always a sign for a wave of terror,” Sharon said.
The comments were made public after Israel lifted its siege of Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, which allowed the Palestinian leader to make his first public appearance in weeks.
Sharon hinted that Arafat might not be allowed to return, if terrorist acts against Israel occurred during his trip abroad.
“If there will be a wave of terror, and if he’ll be going around the world inciting and … then we have to consider and discuss what to do,” he said.
The Israeli leader rejected allegations his government was trying to hide a massacre of civilians when it refused to allow a UN fact-finding mission to come the war-ravaged Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin to conduct an investigation.
“We do not have anything to hide. The Israeli armed forces got very high values,” he said.
At the same time, he lashed out at the United Nations, accusing it of being biased toward Israel.
“I never saw that the United Nations was so determined to send fact-finding commission to other places,” he said.
“They didn’t send to see what happened in the Passover Eve when 28 people were killed.”
The prime minister was referring to the to a recent Palestinian suicide bombing in the Israeli resort city of Natanya. – AFP