- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon officially accepted on Sunday the task of forming
Israel's next government after a sweeping election victory fueled by support
for his tough response to a Palestinian uprising for statehood.
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- Sharon said the new government would have to remove what
he called the Palestinian "terrorist leadership," but stopped
short of threatening to expel Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
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- "Out of a sense of deep responsibility, I accept
the task of setting up a new government in Israel," Sharon said in
a broadcast ceremony after President Moshe Katzav asked him to put together
a ruling coalition in the next 42 days.
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- "The new government will have to complete the campaign
against terror, remove the terrorist leadership and create the conditions
for the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership with which it will be
possible to make real peace," he said.
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- Sharon has accused Arafat of funding and leading a "coalition
of terror" in the Palestinian uprising for statehood, but Arafat has
denied fomenting anti-Israeli violence.
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- "This reflects the true intention of the current
Israeli leadership of continuing the path of destruction and escalation,"
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said in response to Sharon's comments.
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- He called on a quartet of international mediators to
renew their efforts to get peacemaking, stalled since the uprising erupted
in September 2000, back on track.
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- Before the Israeli presidential ceremony, three Palestinians
blew up their explosives-laden car next to a Gaza Strip army post, killing
themselves and wounding four soldiers.
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- The militant Islamic Jihad group said three of its members
carried out a "heroic martyrdom operation against a Zionist military
checkpoint."
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- The apparent suicide bombing, in a bloc of Jewish settlements,
came two days after news emerged of secret truce talks between Sharon,
leader of the right-wing Likud Party, and Ahmed Korei, a top Palestinian
official close to Arafat.
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- The two met on Wednesday for the first high-level talks
in nearly a year. A source in Sharon's office said Washington, which has
appealed for calm in Israeli-Palestinian violence as it prepares for possible
war on Iraq, encouraged the meeting.
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- NO RUSH TO FORM GOVERNMENT
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- Political commentators predicted that Sharon, a 74-year-old
former general, would not rush into a coalition, but would await conflict
in the Gulf that could draw Iraqi missile attacks on Israel and bolster
his call for a broad government.
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- Likud won one-third of parliament's 120 seats in last
month's poll and could form a narrow coalition with a combination of right-wing,
religious and secular parties.
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- But Sharon has his sights on a so-called unity government
that would include his main rival, the center-left Labor Party that quit
his coalition three months ago in a dispute over funding for Jewish settlements
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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- "No one can escape the obligation to give up on
immediate political petty interests in favor of national interest,"
Sharon said in remarks directed at Labor.
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- "Whoever wants peace must join the government or
bear responsibility for his refusal," he said.
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- Labor lauded the Sharon-Korei meeting but repeated its
refusal to join a new Sharon-led coalition. The party, led by Amram Mitzna,
has called for an immediate renewal of talks on Palestinian statehood.
Sharon has refused to restart such talks until anti-Israeli violence ends.
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- "I promise you that if the government takes the
proper steps, it will receive support for them from the Labor Party even
as it sits in the opposition," Mitzna wrote in a letter to Sharon
explaining the party's refusal to attend coalition talks.
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- The Palestinian cabinet issued a statement on Sunday
repeating its call for militants to cease attacks against civilians in
Israel and any other action "that draws Israeli crimes of revenge
against Palestinian civilians."
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- The type of security deal mooted by Israel has been shattered
in the past by fresh cycles of violence.
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- It calls on Palestinian security forces to thwart militant
attacks, in return for an Israeli pullout from Palestinian areas where
violence has come to a halt.
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- Israeli forces reoccupied most of the West Bank in the
middle of last year following suicide attacks in Israel. The Palestinian
Authority has said the incursions have paralyzed its security forces.
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- At least 1,823 Palestinians and 700 Israelis have been
killed since the uprising began after peace talks stalled.
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