‘Sharon’s hope of breakthrough to peace is nonsense’

Palestinians were already fuming over Israel’s deportation of the brother and sister of a Palestinian militant under a policy it said would deter suicide bombers, but which President Yasser Arafat called a ‘‘crime against humanity.’’

Sharon was asked on Israeli television whether there was any hope of reviving peace talks after 23 months of violence. And he said, ‘‘Now, for the first time, I see the possibility of a breakthrough for a political arrangement. It won’t be a simple thing or an easy thing, but there is a possibility.’’

Asked whom Israel could negotiate with after it had accused Arafat of being ‘‘irrelevant’’, Sharon said: ‘‘With Palestinians who have concluded that with terror they can’t achieve anything.’’

Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel-Razzak al-Yahya had urged Palestinians on Monday to switch to civil disobedience in their uprising, saying militant violence against Israelis had proved counter-productive. But militants spurned his appeal.

A senior Israeli official said Sharon did welcome the EU initiative, but not its readiness to deal with Arafat. ‘‘…With Arafat it won’t work. Every time you visit Arafat, it delays any kind of reforms you want to see carried out (to Palestinian institutions),’’ he said, citing a key Israeli condition for resuscitating talks on Palestinian statehood. (Reuters)