-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! US push for terror coalition sparks rift with Israel JERUSALEM, Sept 17 (AFP) - Washington's push to forge an international coalition to fight terrorism has caused a sharp split between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israel's closest ally, the United States. Sharon has warned he is unwilling to make any sacrifices to help the United States stitch together the coalition that would mean an easing of his campaign against the Palestinians, including military strikes. He has rejected US pressure to reopen direct talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, an initiative which Washington believes could attract the maximum number of Arab nations to sign on to the nascent US-led coalition. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has even mooted teaming up with Syria nd Iran, both considered pro-terrorist states by Washington, so that a hoped-for broad coalition against terrorism does not seem to be targetting Islam. Saudi-born dissident Islamist Osama bin Laden, being sheltered by the hardline Islamic Taliban militia in Afghanistan, is Washington's prime suspect in last week's suicide attacks on New York and Washington. But Sharon flatly ruled out taking part in any operation that involves Syria, which hosts nearly a dozen radical Palestinian groups largely opposed to any peace negotiations with the Jewish state. Israel also considers Islamic Iran -- whose supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls the Jewish state a "cancerous tumour" which must be destroyed -- as its principal threat to survival. Just as US President George W. Bush's father left Israel on the sidelines to win Arab participation in a coalition to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait in the Gulf War, the Jewish state looks again to be left out of the spotlight. "That's like in the Gulf War," says Israeli analyst Mark Heller from the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "Exactly the same thing." Israel provided only discreet intelligence help during the 1991 conflict. Now the Bush administration has been pressing the hardline Sharon to go ahead with talks with Arafat, which the premier has vowed will not go ahead without a prior 48 hours of "absolute calm" -- meaning no anti-Israeli attacks. The public announcement of Washington's request seems to be aimed at countering Sharon's bid to delegitimise Arafat through his comparison of the Palestinian leader with the suspected terrorist mastermind bin Laden. A close Arafat advisor who asked not to be named told AFP: "The Americans understand that to build such a coalition, they cannot exclude the Palestinians and they cannot ignore the Palestinian question." He said Bush's understanding of the need to include the Palestinians was a bit of "surprising wisdom." Sharon on Sunday slightly backed off from his tough stance, saying a meeting between Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres could happen after 48 hours of calm, after earlier ruling out such talks. He may have been keen not to appear to be snubbing the nation which gives Israel three billion dollars in aid every year, but few believe the talks have a chance because of the unlikelihood of two solid days without violence. "It's a way for him to say no, to say 'yes but' -- and the 'but' is the onus on Arafat," analyst Heller said. And, indeed, Sharon has not softened his stance all that much. 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