The Middle East peace process faced an uncertain future after arch-hawk Ariel Sharon stormed to an unprecedented landslide Israeli election win over Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who announced his resignation as Labor leader and MP, according to AFP.
A euphoric Sharon trounced a humiliated Barak by more than 25 points in a stunning turnaround for the 72-year-old former general who was almost written off because of his role in the bloody 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
In his victory speech in front of hundreds of supporters, the Likud party leader set the blueprint for his new government's policy with a call for the Palestinians to return to the path of peace and his political foes to rally behind him.
"Citizens, today the state of Israel has embarked on a new path of security and harmony," he said.
However, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said that the election of Sharon as prime minister did not automatically mean an end to the peace process, according to agencies.
"We respect the choice of the Israeli people, and hope the peace process will continue," Arafat told journalists Tuesday.
However, senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath was more pessimistic when he spoke with Israel's Channel 2 News, said Haaretz. He said that "judging from Sharon's past, there is no way we can make any progress."
Quoted by AFP, Palestinian cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman also cautioned that Sharon's policies presented during the campaign did not represent a basis for talks between the two sides.
Arab reactions to Sharon's election have ranged from scathing to cautious.
Egypt, which has been a key intermediary in trying to save the peace process, said Wednesday the Israeli people have shown they do not want peace by electing the "butcher" Ariel Sharon as prime minister, according to AFP.
Ahead of a reaction from government officials, the government daily Al-Akhbar said "the only interpretation of Sharon's victory is that the Israeli people do not want peace.
Perhaps the most extreme reactions were heard in Lebanon, where outraged Lebanese condemned Sharon's election, saying he should be tried for orchestrating the 1982 invasion of their country in 1982 and killing Palestinians, said Haaretz.
Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said Sharon's election shows that Israeli society was heading toward more "fanaticism and extremism."
He predicted a military adventure by Sharon against Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians. "This man is obsessive [about war] and he is full of hatred. He will end his life with revenge. He might carry certain military attacks against Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians, not a full-scale war but certain attacks," Aridi was quoted by the Israeli daily as saying Tuesday.
"These elections show that whoever kills more Palestinians wins," said Abdallah Salhani, 77, a survivor of the 1982 massacres carried out by Phalangist militiamen in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps near Beirut.
“In any decent country, this man should not become prime minister. He should be tried as a war criminal," said Kamal Ibrahim, 61, whose wife and three children died during Israel's 1982 bombardment of Beirut, according to Haaretz.
In Damascus, the official Syrian newspaper deplored Sharon’s victory. In their editorials, they reiterated Syria’s position that that peace with Israel depends on its full withdrawal of Israel occupied Arab lands.
On Wednesday, Emirati newspapers called for Arab solidarity and the continuation of the Palestinian uprising Wednesday , following Israel's election of Sharon, branded as a "torturer" by one newspaper, reported AFP.
"We now have to hasten to bring about Arab solidarity and reinforce the Intifada (uprising) to reply to the aggressive outlook" of hardliner Sharon, Al-Bayan said.
"Faced with the extreme side of Israeli society, which was strongly demonstrated with Sharon's election, the Intifada will remain a determining factor that will aggravate the impasse in which Sharon finds himself in forming a government coalition," it said.
"Israel has dropped (former premier) Ehud Barak's mask to show their real face in electing Sharon with all his aggressiveness, his terrorism and his covetousness," Al-Khaleej said.
"From now on, the initiative is in the hands of the Arabs, whose solidarity must move on from mere slogans to deeds," it said.
This solidarity must come in the from "an emergency Arab strategy that will transform Arab countries a unified force capable of facing up to all the dangers threatening the region."
Al-Ittihad, which ran the headline "Torturer Sharon elected Israeli prime minister,” promised the new leader of the Jewish state a "bitter failure in his plan to break the Intifada."
"The Palestinians have made their choice by choosing for the Intifada as an irreversible way of recovering their rights."
Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib said Tuesday that continuing the Middle East peace process would be the key test for Sharon. "The most important challenge facing the whole region is the achievement of peace," Khatib told reporters.
"We hope the efforts will continue as peace is an essential need for all peoples of the region, including and in particular the Israelis and Palestinians," he added.
King Abdullah has been trying to ease fears in Jordan that a Sharon victory could threaten the stability of the kingdom when he told a cabinet meeting earlier yesterday that Jordan would not be affected by the outcome of the election, according to Haaretz.
"We have heard plenty of talk recently on the climate in the region and I wanted to stress to everyone that we have seen a lot in the past and we survived the most difficult circumstances and what is happening in the region will not affect the future of Jordan," the King said.
Both the Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbollah, declared that as far as they were concerned, they saw no difference between Sharon and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"They are both butchers but the difference between them is that Sharon is a butcher in wolf's clothing and Barak is a butcher in sheep's clothing," Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Kassem said earlier this week.
Hamas spiritual leader Ahmad Yassin echoed the position in an interview with Al Jazira satellite channel Tuesday – Albawaba.com
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