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The following information is
presented as a public service. MYTH #100 “Ariel Sharon has made clear that he does not want peace and no deal is possible as long as he is Prime Minister.” FACT Ariel Sharon has been demonized by the Arabs and caricatured by the media, which often insists on referring to him as the "right-wing" or "hard-line" Prime Minister, appellations rarely affixed to any other foreign leaders. Sharon has spent most of his life as a soldier and public servant trying to bring peace to his nation. It was Ariel Sharon who gave then Prime Minister Menachem Begin the critical backing that made the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty possible. At a crucial moment at Camp David, the negotiations were on the verge of collapse over Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's insistence that all Israeli settlements in the Sinai be dismantled. Begin called Sharon and asked if he should give up the settlements; Sharon not only advised him to do so, but ultimately was the one who implemented the decision to remove the settlers, some by force (Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America's Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986, p. 358; Ariel Sharon, Warrior, NY: Touchstone Books, 2001, pp. 400-401). Sharon's views have also evolved over time. While he was once fiercely opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, as Prime Minister he has endorsed the idea, in opposition to members of his own party. Since taking office, Sharon has repeatedly offered to negotiate with the Palestinians on condition only that they end the violence. He asked for only seven days of peace a demand some found onerous despite the fact that the Palestinians had promised at Oslo eight years of peace and later even dropped that demand. When he did, the Palestinians answered his gesture with the Passover massacre, the suicide bombing of a religious observance in a Netanya hotel in which 29 people were killed. Sharon subsequently proposed a peace conference, an idea the Bush Administration endorsed. Even when Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah proposed a peace initiative that was filled with provisions the Saudi knew Israel could never accept, Sharon did not reject the plan, and called for direct negotiations to discuss it. Now, Sharon has agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians according to the road map formula devised by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, despite serious reservations about many elements of the plan. If the Arabs doubt Sharon's commitment to peace, all they need do is put him to the test end the violence and begin negotiations. So long as the Palestinians keep up their terrorist attacks, no Israeli Prime Minister can offer them concessions.
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