Although the Palestinian leadership has dismissed his "peace programme" as a surefire recipe for war, the Israeli opposition leader, Gen Ariel Sharon, who looks certain to become prime minister in elections next month, is attempting public and private diplomacy to try and create a more reassuring image.
Behind the scenes, he has been dispatching a close aide to various Arab capitals, to assure the region's leaders that he would seek compromise rather than confrontation. More publicly, yesterday, Gen Sharon told the Yediot Ahronot tabloid in Israel that he was being unfairly "demonised" in the Arab world. "I am known as someone who eats Arabs for breakfast," he said. "This is baseless. People are killed in wars, but I never allowed the mistreatment of a prisoner and I never humiliated anyone . . . I am not in favour of waging war with the Arab world. Get this straight, for once."
The Arab world's dim view of Gen Sharon originates with his leadership of an Israeli military commando unit in the 1950s, and centres on his role in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon - when hundreds of Palestinians were massacred by Christian gunmen whom Gen Sharon had allowed into Beirut's Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.
Gen Sharon's much-hyped visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount sparked the current Palestinian Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Intifada's latest victim - a 16year-old Israeli computer buff, Ofir Rahum - was buried yesterday, having been shot dead in Ramallah.