ajc.com
Complete sports scores
| 7day file |
A full week of the AJC is available free of charge.
 Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Search for staff-written stories back to 1985 in our fee-based Stacks archive.
|
| weekly sections |
MONDAY
- Horizon
TUESDAY
- Healthy Living
WEDNESDAY
- Atlanta Tech
THURSDAY
- Home & Garden
- Food
- Buyer's Edge
FRIDAY
- Preview
- Wheels
SATURDAY
- Wheels
- Faith & Values
|
| sunday sections |
- Arts
- Travel
- Dixie Living
- Sunday Reader
- Perspective
- Homefinder
- Personal Tech
- Jobs
- TV Listings
|
| communities |
DAILY
- Gwinnett
THURSDAY
- City Life
- Cherokee
- Clayton/Henry
- Cobb
- Coweta
- DeKalb
- Fayette
- North Fulton
- Rockdale
- South Fulton
ON ACCESSATLANTA
Get close to home with news and forums from Your Town.
|
 |
|
| | PAGE 1/A SECTION |
TODAY o February 8, 2001
|
|
City's Jews hoping Sharon will give peace a chance
Newly elected Israeli prime minister has shown resistance to concessions.
Saeed Ahmed - Staff
Thursday, February 8, 2001
The election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's new prime minister has members of Atlanta's Jewish community
taking a wait-and-see approach while expressing cautious optimism that the Middle East peace process
won't completely unravel with the tough-talking right-wing politician at the helm.
"Obviously, Sharon has a different style than (prime minister Ehud) Barak," Jay Kaiman, southeast
director of Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith, said Wednesday, "but we've got to allow him an
opportunity to develop his own policies, to listen to the mandate given him by the Israeli community and
hopefully move the peace process forward."
Sharon, who rode a wave of national anxiety in Israel to a landslide victory Tuesday over Barak, the
embattled incumbent, is the antithesis of his vanquished rival. While Barak offered Palestinians the
broadest concessions of any previous Israeli leader, Sharon has already indicated he won't dismantle any
Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or give Palestinians a foothold in the disputed capital
of Jerusalem.
Some Jewish Atlantans believe Sharon's resistance to making concessions will provoke Palestinians to
new heights of violence and alienate Israel from its greatest ally, the United States, which has generally
preferred moderation in Israelis' dealings with the Palestinians.
But Jacob Rosen, the Israeli consul general in Atlanta, disagrees.
"The U.S. knows that even when concessions were on the agenda, (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat
didn't accept them," Rosen said. "So perhaps it's time for someone with Sharon's tone to try a different
approach."
Dona Stewart, associate director of the Middle East Center for Peace, Culture and Development at
Georgia State University, says she's not "laying any money" on peace negotiations being a central issue
in Sharon's administration. But should the decorated warrior-turned-politician try to make peace, he
might achieve more than Barak did, she said.
"Because of his background and the tremendous support he enjoys among Israel's hard-liners, any
peace initiative Sharon undertakes will be a lot more meaningful and legitimate in the eyes of those
groups who are outside of the liberal left in Israel," said Stewart. "That could be the silver lining of
Sharon's election."
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Atlanta --- who hold Sharon responsible for the massacre of hundreds of
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon during Israel's 1982 invasion, and who also blame him for igniting the
current round of fighting with his visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque four months ago --- says his election
makes no difference to them at all.
"They're using Sharon to scare us into giving up our demands," said Pat El-Nazer, president of
Atlanta-based Palestine Human Rights Campaign. "But we've been through hell and there isn't much else
that can shock us into submission."
|
Yellow Pages
