[ QUOTE ]
Sharon refused negotiations altogether, well before the suicide bombings began, and continued to refuse them whenever they stopped
This is a lie. Arafat and Barghouti announced the intifada and suicide bombings became commonplace before the election that put Sharon in power. How do we know this? Because it was the bombings that put a right wing government in power.
[/ QUOTE ]
The first suicide bombing in Israel occurred in 1994, but it didn't become commonplace until the summer of 2001. The intifada began in September 2000. During it's first three weeks, the Israeli army fired a million rounds at Palestinians throughout the occupied territories (700,000 in the W. Bank; 300,000 in Gaza, according to Ma'ariv, citing official Israeli sources). By the end of the month, the death ratio of Palestinians to Israelis was ten to one.
Sharon was elected on February 6, 2001. The first fatal suicide bombing in Israel since the beginning of the intifada occurred on May 18, 2001, according to this
BBC chronology.
The last-minute attempts to obtain a deal with Barak government and Sharon's outright refusal to negotiate or offer any plan for peace are matters of public record.
[ QUOTE ]
"concessions (however large or small) like Oslo . . . allowed Palestinian terrorist groups to arm themselves without Israeli supervision"
[/ QUOTE ]
Palestinian suicide bombers "armed themselves" with items found in any hardware store. You're probably referring to the excuses offered for Isreal's practice of gunning down PA policemen, like the five killed "by mistake" a few days before the first suicide bomb went off.