In an interview with the CNN Tuesday, leader of Israeli opposition Likud party Ariel Sharon said he, as an Israeli member of parliament, had the right to visit the Aqsa Mosque Compound, and although he “felt sorry for the victims”, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is to blame for the bloody events that have been raging for the sixth day in a row.
“Believe me, I saw all the horrors…and I’m sorry for the people who lost their lives, but there is one person to blame, that is, Yasser Arafat,” he told the news network.
Sharon claimed in the live interview that he was pro-peace, “but peace means security. Israel needs peace for generations, the true peace.”
Asked how such peace would be achieved if there is no compromise, the hawkish opposition leader said there has to be negotiations, and that he was one of the first people who went to the peace talks when he was a foreign minister.
Sharon’s visit to the holy site Thursday was blamed worldwide for the bloodbath where more than 50 Palestinians and Israeli Arabs lost their lives, and thousands were injured. However, the notorious politician and veteran general did not show remorse, but insisted that it was his “right” to go to any part of Israel, although the holy site has been a subject of dispute in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
In the interview, Sharon, deemed by the Arabs as a war criminal, insisted that Jerusalem should be under Israeli sovereignty.
Sharon was also blamed by an Israeli investigation committee for his part in the 1982 massacres of Sabra and Shatila Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where hundreds of people were slaughtered at the hands of pro-Israel Christian militias – Albawaba.com
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