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From
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Saturday, February 09, 2002 Shvat 27, 5762
Israel Time: 05:57 (GMT+2)
Last update - 08:54 07/02/2002
Iran is top worry, Sharon to tell Bush
By Nathan Guttman
WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet tonight (after
midnight Israel time) with U.S. President George W. Bush for the
fourth time since taking over the reins of power in Israel. From
Sharon's point of view, the meeting is expected to focus on efforts
to convince the United States that Iran constitutes a strategic
threat to Israel. The prime minister will also ask Bush to keep up
the pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat and
force him to take action against terrorism.
The talks yesterday between Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and U.S.
Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell served as a preparation
for Sharon's scheduled meetings in Washington. In his talks
with Cheney, the defense minister stressed that Iran, which was expected to be
equipped with nuclear weapons by 2005, represented a far greater threat to Israel than
did Iraq.
Ben-Eliezer also noted that the Shihab 3 Iranian missiles were capable of striking at
any point in Israel.
In his talks with the U.S. vice-president, Ben-Eliezer also charged that Iran
constituted a regional threat and a danger to the stability of the Middle East. "The
danger, as I see it," the defense minister said after the
meeting, "is from a Hezbollah-Iran-Palestinian triangle, with Iran leading this
triangle and putting together a coalition of terror."
Sharon will also emphasize the Iranian threat in his talks with the U.S. leadership,
making it clear to the president that from Israel's point of view, Iran is the
principal threat in the region. This threat, Sharon will
say, has become even more concrete in the wake of the Karine A weapons ship affair,
which exposed Tehran's involvement in efforts to exacerbate the situation in the
territories.
On the Palestinian issue, Sharon foresees Washington's willingness to continue to
pressure Arafat. Appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of
Representatives yesterday, Powell said that Arafat mus
t choose, once and for all, the path of peace, rather than war: "Arafat must act
decisively against the hotbeds of terrorism," he said.
Powell did promise, however, that the United States had not given up on its vision of
an independent Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. "The process was
suspended because of the violence and the Karine A
affair, which showed that the Palestinians are not serious in their desire for a
cease-fire."
In his talks in Washington, Ben-Eliezer said that there was no point in speaking now
about "a political horizon" for the future of the relations between Israel and the
Palestinians. First and foremost, he said, there was
a need to work toward a cease-fire and the resumption of a dialogue, rather than
trying to implement more complex plans.
Ben-Eliezer will meet today at the Pentagon with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Among other issues on the agenda, the two will discuss
possible scenarios in the event of an American attack on
Iraq. Yesterday, Ben-Eliezer asked Powell to give Israel ample forewarning of such an
attack.
Speaking at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy yesterday, Ben- Eliezer
revealed that he had passed on messages recently to Syrian President Bashar Assad, via
the leaders of Egypt and Turkey. In his messages, th
e defense minister said, he had asked Assad to restrain Hezbollah and to return to the
negotiating table with Israel.
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