ISRAEL

Toronto Star: For Israel's old warrior Sharon, any concession seems `painful'

JERUSALEM—Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not a man of his word. This hardly makes him unique in either politics or the crucible of the Middle East.

By comparison, Palestinian militants have stood true to their vow — a blanket renunciation of the Washington-promoted road map for peace, designed to provide for a two-state solution and a sovereign Palestine by 2005.

It took less than 24 hours for Israel to reverse itself on the meagre concessions Sharon had made on Sunday during his half of Colin Powell's diplomatic visit, intended to at least kick-start the road map vision by eliciting itsy-bitsy conciliatory gestures. Of course, there are no itsy-bitsies in this conflict because every gesture is fraught with complications and guaranteed to make some faction crazy

All foreigners (excluding diplomats and people with "special humanitarian needs") are for the moment — and this is an open-ended policy — barred from either entering or exiting Gaza