Sharon warns West against appeasing Arabs

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN), OCT. 5. While clarification is still awaited on the circumstances in which the Siberian Airlines plane crashed into the Black Sea yesterday, Israel is most anxious to learn whether it was due to an act of terrorism or not.

Most of the 65 passengers on board the flight from Tel Aviv to a city in Siberia were Israeli citizens or relatives of citizens. In another development that was unrelated except in that it took place on the same day, the Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Ariel Sharon warned the West that his country would not allow its interests to be sacrificed in order to ``appease the Arabs''.

Most passengers on the flight were either recent immigrants to Israel from Russia or relatives of those who had recently immigrated. While the plane exploded in mid-air over the Black Sea it was unclear whether it was because of an explosive device on board or because the aircraft had been hit by a Ukrainian missile in a horrible mistake during an exercise. U.S. officials, who apparently made their judgment on satellite evidence, were the first to state that the aircraft had been hit by a missile. Ukrainian forces were known to be conducting exercises in the area and some of the missile types being tested were believed to have the range to hit aircraft flying up to 30,000 feet high and at maximum distance of 300 km. The Siberian Airlines plane was said to have been flying within 250 km of the exercise zone.

Ukrainian officials have denied the missile strike theory and Russia appears to be still holding back its verdict. Israel has rushed rescue teams to the area but there has yet been no official word on what they think is the cause of the crash. It is unlikely that any explosive device could have been planted aboard the plane in Ben Gurion airport which has one of the most stringent and effective security arrangements in the world.

In an unrelated development, Mr. Sharon compared Israel's current situation to that of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of World War II. In the late 1930s, Britain and France had allowed Germany to annex a part of Czechoslovakia in the hope that such appeasement of Germany would make it refrain from further aggression. Mr. Sharon warned the West that Israel would not permit it to ``appease'' the Arab world at the cost of Israel's interests. The Israelis are sore that the U.S. is not addressing what they describe as ``terrorism emanating from Syria and Iran'' in its current campaign against international terrorism.

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Section  : International
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