Sharon censures European mediators

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that European members of a "quartet" of foreign mediators were biased against Israel and would stall peace efforts unless they backed the removal of Yasser Arafat.

In a meeting with foreign reporters, Sharon singled out the European Union for not taking a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for failing to understand that "to move things forward, (Palestinian President) Arafat should be removed from any influential position".

The quartet - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - has yet to release its final "road map" to ending more than two years of Middle East violence. Sharon's remarks could undermine its effectiveness.

Palestinians said the Israeli leader's comments showed he had no real plans to settle the conflict.

"We see eye-to-eye with the US and not always with the other members," Sharon said regarding the blueprint for peace. The US has called on Palestinians to replace Arafat as their leader in elections and carry out reforms.

"We don't underestimate Europe," Sharon said. "I would like to see very much more involvement on the European side in what's happening here, but I have one condition ... your attitude toward Israel and the Arabs and Palestinians should be balanced."

Sharon faces a general election on January 28 and tough talk against the Palestinians is proving popular among voters rattled by Palestinian suicide bombings.

In other developments:

* Jewish settlers incensed at the killing of a comrade by Palestinian militants turned his funeral on Sunday into a revenge rampage and ended up in a tug-of-war over his body with Israeli security forces.

Blood seeped through Nathanel Ozeri's shroud as he was manhandled outside the West Bank city of Hebron by settlers who wanted to bury him in the illegal outpost where he was shot dead on Friday night as he ate a Sabbath supper with his family.

However, police blocked the way to Har Harsina outpost, and the hundreds of mourners - many armed - headed towards Hebron, the resting place of the biblical patriarchs and a flashpoint in Middle East unrest.

The procession turned around again, making a short-lived bid to reach Jerusalem, 24km to the north.

Ozeri's widow apparently planned for his body to be part of an impromptu demonstration in the Holy City before burial, but she was overruled by rabbis worried about the dignity of the deceased.

Earlier, settlers smashed windows of Palestinian homes and set cars ablaze in Hebron. * An Israeli court rejected jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi's appeal to dismiss charges of orchestrating political killings and ordered his trial to begin on April 6.

Barghouthi, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction who is widely viewed as worthy to succeed the Palestinian President, appeared in the Tel Aviv District Court without counsel, which had filed pre-trial appeals to stop the proceedings.

"Israel has no right to try me ... This court represents the power of the occupation," he said.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: The Middle East