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Arafat: ?I am not afraid of Sharon?s threats?
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Arafat: ?I am not afraid of Sharon?s threats?
PALESTINIAN President Yasser Arafat said in an interview published on Wednesday that he did not fear Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threats to assassinate him. ?I am not afraid of Sharon's threats,? Arafat told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. ?Do you know me as a person who is afraid? I fear only Allah.?
Sharon has been slapped down twice by Washington in recent days for speaking of his longtime foe in a series of media interviews as a possible future target after Israel's March 22 assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza. Israel says Arafat has fomented violence during 3-1/2 years of conflict, an accusation he denies.
?Whoever kills Jews or orders Jews and Israeli citizens to be killed...is a marked man,? Sharon told Ynet, Yedioth's website, in an interview published on Monday.
Sharon acknowledged that he had promised US President George W. Bush not to harm Arafat physically. But he said: ?There have been changes since then,? including a U.S. decision to adopt Israel's refusal to negotiate with Arafat.
?At the time I made that undertaking, not to harm him physically...he still went around on red carpets,? Sharon told the Maariv daily. ?Today, even these people (who honoured him) know exactly the extent of the damage he has caused.?
But any move against Arafat would likely anger Washington, Israel's main ally, which said it opposed harming him.
?We have made it clear that sending him into exile or otherwise dealing with him is not part of the solution to the situation in the Middle East,? White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
Israel's government declared in September that Arafat ? confined to his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah for more than two years ? should be ?removed?.
But the Palestinian president, regarded by Palestinians as a symbol of their struggle for statehood, has scoffed at such threats, saying he would welcome martyrdom.
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