Military

DATE=11/1/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=ISRAEL / SHARON (L-O)

NUMBER=2-268709

BYLINE=MEREDITH BUEL

DATELINE=JERUSALEM

CONTENT=

VOICE AT:

INTRO: At a news conference in Jerusalem, opposition leader Ariel Sharon predicted the government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak will be brought down in the coming months and there will be new elections. Mr. Sharon also accused Palestinian-leader Yasser Arafat of waging a war of attrition against Israel to win more concessions in the peace process. Correspondent Meredith Buel reports from Jerusalem.

TEXT: After more than a month of Israeli-Palestinian violence and weeks of unsuccessful negotiations to form a national emergency coalition, opposition leader Ariel Sharon says it is only a matter of time before Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government will fall.

/// SHARON ACT #1 ///

This government is coming to its end. It may take another month, it may take another three-months or five-months, but the government is coming to its end.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Sharon, the head of the opposition Likud party, says he does not believe the peace process with the Palestinians is dead. He says peace negotiations should be taken step by step, and a permanent agreement should not be reached until many years in the future.

Mr. Sharon believes Prime Minister Barak offered too many concessions to the Palestinians during the U-S sponsored Camp David summit last July. He says the current violence raging in the Palestinian territories is a strategic move to weaken Israel's resolve and achieve more concessions when peace talks resume.

/// SHARON ACT #2 ///

One of the targets of Arafat, who conducts a war of attrition against us, is to weaken Israel. That is the strategy. It is a war of attrition against Israel and the goal is to weaken Israel until Israel will make all the concessions and will give up everything, even the small things that were left. Because Barak was very generous, no one has gone so far.

/// END ACT ///

The recent wave of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers began in late September when Mr. Sharon visited a sensitive Jerusalem site that is sacred to Muslims and Jews. Palestinians called the move provocative, and say the uprising that followed came from the grassroots.

Mr. Sharon defiantly defends that visit, saying the Palestinian leadership used it as a pretext for violence.

/// SHARON ACT #3 ///

They decided, as a strategy, to use violence. They, as a matter of fact, they took advantage of that. But that was not the reason for that and everything was, I would say, orchestrated and preplanned by them and by Arafat.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Sharon left the door open on forming a unity government with Mr. Barak, saying he has not given up on the idea.

He says he does not believe early elections should be held while clashes are continuing, and suggested Israel apply more economic pressure on the Palestinians to bring about an end to the violence. (SIGNED)

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