Sharon wants 1 million new Jews for Israel

Sharon wants 1 million new Jews for Israel

Emma Brockes and Ewen MacAskill
Wednesday November 7, 2001
The Guardian

The Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, threatens to provoke a fresh row with the Palestinians today by warning that he has a plan to bring 1m more Jews to Israel.
Mr Sharon made the controversial remarks in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

A wave of Jewish immigration on that scale would be ve hemently opposed by the Palestinians, who fear many of the immigrants would be sent to reinforce Jewish settlers living illegally on Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli diplomats last night sought to play down the significance of Mr Sharon's comments at a time when the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians is at its lowest point for decades. Violence yesterday claimed the lives of five Palestinians and one Israeli.

One Israeli diplomat said the remark was a generational one, reflecting the prime minister's pioneering Zionist background.

But Mr Sharon was specific in the interview: "We are not waiting here until [the Palestinian leader, Yasser] Arafat decides to take steps against terror. First of all, we are taking steps against terror: steps that he could have avoided.

"The other thing is that we are building. We are planning now to bring another 1m Jews to Israel."

The population of Israel at present is 6m, of whom 5m are Jewish and the rest mainly Muslim.

Afif Safieh, head of the Palestinian delegation in London, last night condemned the plan: "Sharon believes what he says. It is a dangerous dream, a nightmare. He is a pyromaniac on a powder keg."

He added that such immigrants tended to be the most reactionary, trying to make up for their late arrival as Zionists. It was an especially inflammatory plan, given the millions of Palestinian refugees still waiting to return to their rightful homeland, Mr Safieh said.

Israel has attracted almost 1m immigrants over the last 10 years, mainly from the former Soviet Union. It is difficult to see where Mr Sharon will attract 1m more, though he could squeeze some from the former Soviet Union or try such countries as Argentina, which has 500,000 Jews.

The general tone of Mr Sharon's interview is uncompromising at a time when the US is desperately trying to per suade him to cool the Middle East conflict to avoid undermining the US-led coalition against terrorism.

Mr Sharon insisted that his relationship with the US president, George Bush, had not been strained over the last month and denied he had described him as an appeaser comparable to Neville Chamberlain.

Mr Sharon was unrepentant over the Israeli policy of assassinating Palestinian militants alleged to be plotting bombings and shootings or having been behind such attacks.

Following the assassination of an Israel cabinet minister, Israel re-occupied Palestinian territory, saying it wanted to root out Palestinian militants: "Some of them we managed to arrest, some of them are not any more with us. People don't like the word 'kill'. They were removed from our society."

The Israeli prime minister dashed Palestinian hopes that any renewal of peace negotiations would resume where they left off, with the offer on the table at Taba, Egypt, in January this year from the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak.

Mr Sharon said: "They will never get what he promised them." According to Mr Barak's team, there was a deal that would establish the boundaries for a Palestinian state, allow for the return of some refugees and divide Jerusalem between Israel and the Palestinians.

But Mr Sharon was adamant: "Jerusalem will be forever united and undivided as the capital of the state of Israel."

While the Israel foreign secretary, Shimon Peres, has twice met Mr Arafat in the last week, Mr Sharon has embarked on a strategy of trying to undermine the Palestinian leader. Some of Mr Sharon's circle privately believe that Israel would have a better chance of negotiating a deal with an alternative Palestinian leader