Mustapha Karkouti: Assad must continue to bombard Israel with peace threats.

(From Gulf News)

We will not rush to make peace with Syria in order to get the American pressure and the economic sanctions (on Syria) lifted," Israel's prime minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying, while commenting on Syria's recent call for resuming peace negotiations.

This was not a man of peace talking. Peace between Israel and its neighbours has always been the declared dream of its leaders, including the hard-line former Likud leader, Menachem Begin, and the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by a Jewish extremist.

Sharon's rival and predecessor, Israel's hawkish finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrogantly disregarded the Syrian offer. Apparently thrilled by the quick American victory in Iraq, he reacted by declaring: "Syria has become a remote village where the leaders are fighting to …