Sharon sworn in as Israeli Prime Minister

11:00 am

JERUSALEM - Ariel Sharon has been sworn in as Israeli Prime Minister after offering peace to the Palestinians provided they first end their uprising.

``I believe we can, if there is a will on both sides, take a detour from the bitter path of blood in which we are marching. Our hand is extended in peace,'' Sharon told Parliament shortly before it voted to approve his unity government.

The vote in the 120-member Knesset was 72 in favor to 21 against, with no abstentions, according to the official tally. Some members were absent.

Immediately after Sharon was sworn in, the White House announced that he would visit President George W. Bush on March 20.

The United States, Israel's main international supporter and aid donor, was closely involved in ultimately unsuccessful Middle East peacemaking under former President Clinton.

``We will conduct with the Palestinians negotiations for achieving political agreements but not under the pressure of terror and violence,'' the right-wing former general added in his speech at the start of a late-night session that ended with his swearing-in.

Sharon, 73, who leads the Likud party, has sewn together a coalition controlling at least 73 seats in the 120-member Knesset, linking the center-left Labor Party with ultra-nationalist blocs.

Left wingers have questioned the peacemaking ability of a coalition uniting advocates of a state for Palestinians with politicians who want to expel them from the West Bank and Gaza.

``The supreme mission of the new government is to anchor Israeli security and bring security to its citizens through a determined struggle against violence and terror,'' Sharon said.

Sharon became the 11th person to serve as Prime Minister since Israel was founded in 1948. The seven-party Government will have 26 ministers, one of the largest cabinets in the country's history.

An adviser to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said earlier in the day that Sharon could choose the path of dialogue or opt for confrontation certain to lead to more bloodshed.

Some 342 Palestinians, 65 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed since an uprising erupted in late September after peace negotiations stalled and Sharon angered Palestinians by visiting a Jerusalem site holy to Muslims and Jews.

``It's a moment of choice for the new Israeli government, a choice between a continuation of dialogue with the Palestinians or the continuation of a policy of siege, of threats and pushing this process into a new escalation,'' Arafat's adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said.

Israel has put up roadblocks and dug trenches to seal off Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank and Gaza, measures which the Palestinians call collective punishment strangling their economy. Israel says the ``closures'' are required for security.

A spokesman for the Muslim militant group Hamas said Palestinian resistance was legitimate and would go on with Sharon in power, as long as Israel occupied Palestinian lands.

Sharon, long reviled by Arabs over his military record of fighting guerrillas and his orchestration as defense minister of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, said he realized ``that peace entails painful compromises'' by both sides.

``Sadly, despite significant concessions on the road to peace by all Israeli governments in the past years, we have yet to discover a readiness on the other side for conciliation and true peace,'' he told parliament.

He forcefully restated Israel's commitment to Jerusalem, declaring: ``Jerusalem was and will be the eternal capital of the Jewish people.''

Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state. The international community does not recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, and most countries have their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Sharon's coalition agreement pledged the government would ''pursue interim peace deals with the Palestinians also based on painful compromises from both sides.''

But the accord made no mention of any halt in Israel's Jewish settlement construction on occupied lands in the West Bank and Gaza.

Sharon took power at a time when many Israelis feel powerless in the face of the Palestinian uprising and mounting attacks within Israel.

The country was on high alert for suicide bombings after a Palestinian blew himself up and killed three Israelis on Sunday.

Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the attack, has threatened to unleash 10 volunteers on suicide missions as soon as Sharon takes power.

It took Sharon a month to put together the broad coalition he promised to form after his landslide victory over the Labor Party's Ehud Barak in the February 6 prime ministerial election.

In a farewell-to-politics speech after Sharon spoke in the Knesset, Barak, who is resigning his parliamentary seat, wished his successor well from the podium and said past peace proposals were not binding on the new government.

Barak said it was not Sharon's visit to the Jerusalem shrine that touched off the uprising, but that the ``violence had been planned far in advance by the Palestinian Authority.''

Underscoring the challenges facing Sharon, Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian stone-throwers in the West Bank village of Teq'ua south of Jerusalem about the time he spoke, the army said.

Palestinian witnesses and doctors said two villagers were treated for rubber bullet wounds.

- REUTERS

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