I am not afraid of Sharon's threats, says Arafat

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2004

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat brushed off recent threats to his life by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, saying in an interview that he feared no one but God.

"I am not afraid of Sharon's threats," the 74-year-old Arafat told the top-selling Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot.

"Do you know me as a person who is afraid? I am afraid only of Allah.

"This is not the first time that Sharon has threatened my life, he forgets that he also threatened me in Beirut," added Arafat in reference to Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, where Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation was then based.

Sharon was slapped down last week by his allies in Washington after giving an interview in which he warned that Arafat was a "marked man".

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