Israel’s Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon called Monday Palestinian President Yasser Arafat "a habitual swindler who has never kept a single past agreement signed with him," reported Haaretz newspaper.
The paper quoted Sharon as telling Israel's chief rabbis that "Arafat could put a stop to the violence in the territories in a minute, but instead, the Authority continues its incitement" against Israel.
The hawkish leader held a meeting with Israel’s two powerful chief rabbis in Jerusalem, said Haaretz.
Sharon has set a drop in violence as a condition for easing the economic blockades that are crippling the Palestinian economy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He insists that the violence must cease altogether for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to resume.
Taking a far harder line, spokesman of the settlers’ council, Yehoshua Mor-Yossef, was quoted as saying that "Arafat is an enemy. Arafat is no partner. Enemies are to be fought, and, if necessary, also liquidated.”
Since Arafat dispatches the terrorists to us on a daily basis, Arafat must be liquidated," he added.
On Sunday, a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a gunfight and two Jewish settlers were injured in separate incidents in the West Bank.
A number of Palestinians were also injured in confrontations with Israeli troops.
Reports said that the violence came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited the West Bank and Jerusalem and urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to put an end to five months of bloodletting.
Mohammed al-Jilad, 45, was shot in the head while driving his car in the western part of Tulkarem and was not involved in a gunfight between Israeli soldiers and armed Palestinians, said AFP, citing witnesses and hospital officials.
Earlier, an Israeli was shot and seriously injured by Palestinians as he drove near the Jewish settlement of Ateret north of Ramallah in the West Bank, reported Haaretz newspaper in its internet edition.
The man, whose identity was not immediately released, was hit in the head and his condition was listed as "very serious," a military spokesman was quoted as telling Israel Radio.
An anonymous caller to AFP said the attack was the work of a group calling itself the "Thabet Thabet unit" of Arafat's Fateh faction.
Thabet Thabet was a local Fateh official who headed the Palestinian health ministry and was shot dead by the Israeli army in Tulkarem on December 31, in one of a series of "state executions" by Israel of suspected militants.
Quoting a military source, the agency also reported that a settler woman was injured in the legs and taken to a hospital after being shot as she drove near the Ofra settlement, said. The army listed her condition as "good."
Haaretz quoted Israel Radio as saying that the two settlers were attacked by members of Arafat’s Force 17 – Albawaba.com
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