Sharon: Violence must stop before meeting Arafat

In this story: Controversial visit Labor divided RELATED STORIES, SITES

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday he is willing to talk peace with his Palestinian counterpart, but only at the end of a round of violence that began after his visit to a disputed Jerusalem shrine five months ago.

The ex-general said that meeting with Yasser Arafat requires "quiet and security."

Speaking at a short ceremony symbolically marking the transfer of power from outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Sharon noted that the issues facing Israel in the coming months were "far from simple."

"We're facing a period that's not going to be easy," the 73-year-old Sharon said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the man he soundly trounced at the polls last month.

VIDEO The formal handover of power by various parts of the Israeli government is shown by CNN's Fionnuala Sweeney (March 8) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Excerpt from Sharon's speech presenting the new government (March 7) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat reacts to Sharon's speech (March 7) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) CNN's Jerrold Kessel reports on what some call an Israeli policy of separation Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     AUDIO Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells CNN "bullets will not divide us" 950K/98 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Daniel Ben Simon, journalist: Sharon's priority is unity among Jews 785K/76 sec. AIFF or WAV sound    GALLERY Timeline gallery: Ariel Sharon    RESOURCES Profiles of members of the new Israeli government Composition of the Israeli parliament

Sharon, the 11th prime minister in Israel's 53-year history and the fifth in the last six years, inherited from Barak a five-month-old Palestinian intifada, a broken-down peace process and an anxiety-ridden Israel.

Introducing an eight-party coalition government -- including Barak's center-left Labor Party, his own right-wing Likud movement, and the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party -- to the Israeli Knesset on Wednesday, Sharon said he believed Palestinians and Israelis could "detour from the bitter path of blood" they were following.

"Our hand is extended in peace," said Sharon, who campaigned on the triple theme of unity, security and peace -- promising he would not negotiate with the Palestinians until the violence ended.

Controversial visit

More than 465 people have been killed in clashes, ambushes, bombings and shellings since September 28, the day Sharon visited the Temple Mount -- Haram al-Sharif to Muslims -- a site hosting both Judaism's holiest site and a pair of equally sacred Islamic mosques.

The Palestinians were outraged that Sharon, the man they blame for the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees by pro-Israeli Lebanese militia during Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon, would come to the site that has become a fault-line for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sharon denied Palestinian charges that his visit was a deliberate provocation, but Palestinians erupted into violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah after his departure.

More than 30 people were injured that day, most Israeli soldiers, who used tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets to subdue the crowd. The following day, Palestinians again clashed with Israeli soldiers as they left Friday prayers in east Jerusalem, and at least four Palestinians were killed and hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians injured.

The Palestinians and Israelis, frustrated that peace talks had collapsed just weeks before over the issue of who would control the holy sites, blamed each other for the violence.

Of the 465 people who have died in the violence, Israeli officials say that 62 were Israeli Jews, 13 were Israeli Arabs and one was a German citizen living in the Palestinian territories. The Palestine Red Crescent Society says that 380 Palestinians have been killed.

Labor divided

Sharon won February's election after Barak's last-minute attempt to negotiate a sweeping, comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians failed. He claimed that Barak, a former army chief who defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the race for prime minister in 1999, had tried to compromise too much and that the Palestinians had wanted still more.

Sharon told the Knesset on Wednesday that he would try for more limited agreements that were "realistic."

In the weeks following the election, Sharon negotiated with fellow Israelis and not Palestinians as he patched together a national unity government that include rival Barak's party as well as much more hard-line adherents.

A jagged crack formed in Barak's Labor Party over the idea of joining Sharon's government. Some party members decried the coalition, claiming that Labor's positions on peacemaking would serve only to mask Sharon's less conciliatory policies.

Shimon Peres, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Labor prime minister who will be Israel's foreign minister, has made clear that the compromises that Barak offered to the Palestinians are now "off the table."

But Peres has thrown his support into Sharon's multiparty cabinet.

"I believe that this government has the maturity and the need to bring peace to the land," he said.

Correspondent Jerrold Kessel contributed to this report.

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Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Israeli Prime Minister's Office
Israel Defense Forces
Palestinian National Authority

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