- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Israel's
embattled prime minister Ehud Barak said on Saturday his country faced
a stark choice in looming elections -- re-elect him or face war.
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- In a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Russian state
television, Barak said forging a peace deal with the Palestinians was more
important than his personal destiny.
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- Polls show the Labor party leader trailing his hawkish
rival Ariel Sharon from the conservative Likud party ahead of a February
6 national vote on who should be prime minister.
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- Barak dismissed suggestions his only chance of victory
was to seal accord with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to end 52 years
of conflict in the Holy Land.
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- ``I will win this election,'' he told RTR television.
``The real choice is Barak and war. I don't want to put Sharon off peace,
but (it's) Barak or war.''
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- Deadlocked Mideast peace talks in mid-year left a political
vacuum that has been filled by a Palestinian uprising since late September.
So far, at least 346 people have died, mostly Palestinians and Israeli
Arabs. Forty-one Israelis have also perished.
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- The violence has undermined support for the peace process
on both sides. Recent polls show a narrow majority of Israelis oppose peace
ideas drafted by outgoing President Clinton.
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- The ideas would provide for a Palestinian state in Gaza
and about 95 percent of the West Bank, including parts of Arab East Jerusalem.
In return, Palestinian refugees would renounce their right to return to
homes in what is now Israeli territory.
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- Israel has conditionally accepted the plan but the Palestinians
have demurred and asked for more details.
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- Barak denied the chance for peace had been lost, and
likened the situation to the Camp David process in the 1970s, which ended
in an historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
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- Before those accords were signed, 70 percent of Israelis
opposed the deal but within three weeks most backed it, he said.
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- ``I believe that if there will be a peace agreement that
I will be ready to sign...the Israeli people will approve it by a landslide
majority.''
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- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, appearing on the
same program, said the two sides ``have never been closer to a mutual peace
accord'' to bring peace to the region.
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- Barak welcomed the more active role Russia, a co-sponsor
of the peace process with the United States, had assumed recently.
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