Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suggested in an interview published on Monday that he no longer feels bound by a three-year-old pledge to US President George W. Bush not to harm Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, even though there is no immediate plan to this end. 

There is nothing new in his provocative remarks. Israel has wanted to eliminate Arafat for a long time.

In this sense, Sharon's statement amounts to political assassination. The Palestinian leader has been viewed by Israel as "a complete obstacle" to Middle East peace.

Israel accuses Arafat of fomenting violence in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that is now more than three years old. What's more, it has confined the Palestinian leader to his West Bank headquarters for most of the last 28 months.

Sharon's threatening remarks came as Israelis entered the Passover holiday and braced for threatened retaliation by Palestinian militant group Hamas after the assassination two weeks ago of its spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

Sharon appeared to be signaling that he felt new freedom to act against Arafat in the event of a future devastating attack.

"The important thing is to exert a stern warning," Sharon's spokesman, Raanan Gissin said. "It's more of a deterrent measure than an operational message."

Nevertheless, it is hard to say that the so-called "deterrent measure" -- virtually the spiraling of tit-for-tat vengeance -- will make Israel any safer.

Sharon's threat not only defies international law, but deals a hefty blow to efforts to resume progress toward peace.

Sowing more seeds of hatred among Palestinians, Israel's assassination of Yassin has already inflamed tensions in the region.

Threatening to remove Arafat, an icon to Palestinians, will only unleash a fresh wave of revenge attacks between the Israeli army and Palestine militants and, inevitably, drive the already desperate situation increasingly out of control.

Furthermore, Israel may choose to drive Arafat away from its negotiating table with Palestine, but it lacks the legal foundation for expelling him out of his own territory or killing him.

As the legitimately elected Palestinian leader, Arafat's future can only be decided by the Palestinian people.

More important, Arafat, who enjoys the strong support of the majority of the Palestinian people, has a tight rein on Palestinian political and military power, and thus has a key voice on Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

Israel's refusal to deal with Arafat as a negotiating partner for almost two years has complicated the Middle East peace process already in place.

If Israel removes Arafat, as it threatened to do, it is predictable that it will pay a higher price in the future.

More than three years of bloody conflict have yet to make both sides keenly aware of the fact that assassinations, suicide bombings are not the tools to bring them peace.

The decades-long conflict, which is now locked in a twisted logic of violence, only shows that neither party, Palestinian or Israeli, can attain what it dearly longs for.

That's feeding the sense of victimhood that is destroying both Israel's security and any future of a Palestinian state.

Israel's plan to remove Arafat and "disengage" from the Palestinians would rule out the possibility of a Palestinian state, at least for a few years. Even Sharon himself admitted that.

"These steps of ours will harm the Palestinians severely," he reiterated in his interviews.

"It will bring their dreams to an end. When you fence in regions and settlements, you end a lot of their dreams."

But by bringing Palestinians' dreams to an end, Israel is also ending its own dreams.

(China Daily April 8, 2004)