February 2001 World Headlines

Friday, February 2, 2001 - Web posted at 10:10:38 AM GMT

Barak resists pressure to quit Israel election race
ALISTAIR LYON

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Barak resisted pressure yesterday to drop out of Israel's leadership race so that elder statesman Shimon Peres could step in to challenge right-wing frontrunner Ariel Sharon.

Barak, 58, still hoped to confound opinion polls which show him trailing Sharon five days before the prime ministerial election, his popularity dented by his failure to end a four-month-old Palestinian uprising.

In fresh violence, the Israeli army said an Israeli had been shot in the chest in the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town of Jenin.

Hospital officials later said he had died of his wounds.

A senior Palestinian security source in Jenin denied that the shooting had occurred in Palestinian territory.

The source said unidentified gunmen had fired at an Israeli driving on a bypass road near Jenin in Israeli-ruled territory.

The death raised the toll to at least 378 killed since the Palestinian revolt began in late September.

Among the dead were at least 315 Palestinians, 50 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs.

On Wednesday evening Barak ruled out the idea of stepping aside in favour of fellow Labour Party member Peres, who opinion polls suggest would have a fighting chance against Sharon.

Any such swap would have to take place by midnight on Thursday."

"No one dared to approach me (to step aside) and rightly so," Barak told Channel One Television.

"People who know me understand that there is no issue here, no chance."

" Cabinet minister Matan Vilnai rallied behind Barak on Thursday and said demands for him to quit the race must stop."

"This is one of the most unfair things to do at the moment to a prime minister from the Labour Party who believes in the peace process, who invested his entire agenda....in the peace process," Vilnai told Israel Radio.

He said opinion polls showed Peres close to Sharon but there was no guarantee he could beat the Likud party leader.

"For this, we are going to divide the party?

" he asked.

Sharon held a 19-percentage-point lead over Barak in the latest opinion poll.

Of 673 Israelis questioned on Wednesday, 46 per cent favoured Sharon against 27 pe rcent for Barak.

Pollster Rafi Smith told Israel's Army Radio that 20 to 25 per cent said they would not vote or were undecided.

More than 50 per cent of Israeli Arabs surveyed said they would not vote.

Barak portrays himself as a peacemaker who will not give up vital Israeli interests.

Sharon, like his rival a tough former general, accuses him of making concessions that endanger the Jewish state."

"This is perhaps one of the most difficult situations that Israel has been thrust into, and by one man and that is unfortunately Mr Barak, and Mr Shimon Peres at his side," Sharon told an election rally on Wednesday night.

Barak suspended peace contacts with the Palestinians on Sunday until after the election, but he has confirmed that international mediators are working to bring him and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat together before the ballot."

"Yes, there are efforts to convene a meeting and this might not take place before Sunday or Monday," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior aide to Arafat, told Reuters.

Arafat met Israeli cabinet minister Amnon Lipkin Shahak on Wednesday night for talks that officials on both sides said covered security issues.

Palestinian officials said the two men had also discussed a possible Arafat-Barak summit.

The Palestinian leader also met the European Union's Middle East envoy, Miguel Moratinos.

Sharon said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo published on Thursday that he would not shake Arafat's hand until the Palestinian leadership gave up "terrorism"."

"The day the Palestinian leadership desists from terrorism and chooses the path of reconciliation, recognising the historic right of the Jewish people in its land, then a handshake will have real meaning," Sharon told El Mundo."

"Israel has recognised the rights of Arabs and Palestinians to self-determination.

Now is the time they recognised the same right for Israel, and not just its military power," he added.

Sharon said he would not make "the same mistakes" that Barak had made by announcing beforehand "what he was prepared to concede".

Sharon said he would keep Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, dismissing one of the Palestinians' key demands.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

- Nampa-Reuters

•  Angolan president sees big win and promises new constitution
•  India's Nano car threatened
•  Zimbabwe's opposition says lost faith in talks
•  Nato raids home of Mladic supporter
•  Russian actions in Georgian Republic 'illegitimate'
•  Israeli Police to recommend Olmert's indictment
•  Cosatu may become friend of court in Zuma case
•  India court orders security for Christians
•  Palin provides 'perfect populist pitch'
•  Poll: Media partisan
•  East Congo risks plunging back into war