The Distance Israel Has Traveled

...In his drift toward the Center Sharon has benefited from being identified in the public's mind with Israel's founders, who placed the public good above their egoism...

...Two factors appear to account for Sharon's success in defying the popular wisdom...

...The public remains eager for peace, but no longer thinks that is readily attainable, certainly not with the existing Palestinian leadership...

...But few want to see the troops pulled out until the security fence being constructed is completed...

...But before long Shas thought better of its action...

...To appreciate the sea change of Israeli public opinion, one has to recall the perception of "Arik' Sharon just two years ago...

...Since his election in February 2001, Sharon has consistently expressed a willingness to make painful concessions when the time is right...

...In short, Sharon was long viewed as an extremist who could never win the country's highest office...

...It finally crowned Ben-Eliezer the party head earlier this year, following a fractious election that pitted the Defense Minister against Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg...

...The violence has burst the dream of an Israel integrated into the Middle East...

...A poll published July 5 in the daily Ma'ariv gives Sharon an astounding 61 per cent approval rating...

...Consequently, they see it as a clear affirmation that the man who uprooted settlements in Sinai to implement the Camp David accords with Egypt is, after all, very much a pragmatist...

...Shortly afterward he turned down the budgetary demands of the powerful ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, and it promptly quit his Cabinet...

...As a result, Labor lacks a fully accepted leader...

...He was the bulldozer who "does not stop on red" (to borrow from the title of a book about him) and readily tramples truth and law in the pursuit of his objectives...

...Barak's defeat was a strong vote against his handling of the crisis, but it was not a total rejection of Arafat as a peace partner...

...Perhaps nothing better illustrates how Sharon's image has been changing than the reaction to a diplomatic plan he reportedly presented in Washington recently...

...After letting Netanyahu win the vote against a Palestinian state, Sharon responded vigorously that the committee can say what it wants, but he—the Prime Minister—will make the final decision based on what is best for the country...

...As for the Labor Party, it seems bent on self-destruction...

...Among the latter Sharon outscored Netanyahu 44 to 23 per cent, and Ben-Eliezer 48 to 20 per cent...

...But the President's words were merely seen by the majority here as confirmation that the Prime Minister is handling the crisis well...

...European leaders, meanwhile, barely hide their contempt for the country...

...the symbol of the new mood is the fence, and the radar and barbed wire that will accompany it...

...It was Arik, too, who sowed settlements in the middle of densely populated Arab areas, and who tried to popularize the "Jordan is Palestine" concept...

...And the occasional missile still rains down from the Lebanese sky on Israel's northern border...

...Herb Keinon, a new contributor to The New Leader, is the diplomatic correspondent of the Jerusalem Post...

...But no sooner had Ben-Eliezer emerged victorious than another Labor candidate, Chaim Ramon, launched a new campaign for the leadership, sapping the party of much of its energy...

...The object was to keep the missiles at a distance from Ben-Gurion Airport, not to have Jews live where Abraham walked...

...Now all most Israelis believe they can realistically hope for is an end to the terror—an armistice of sorts built around a fence...

...On May 12, for instance, he refused to knuckle under when Likud's Central Committee, in a vote self-servingly engineered by Netanyahu, ruled out the possibility of a Palestinian state...

...Even the governing bodyofthe world soccer federation—FIFA—has decided that because of the security situation, international soccer matches will not be held in Israel until further notice...

...By this summer, though, only a relatively few diehards still believed in Oslo, and even fewer believed Arafat merely wants a Palestinian state...

...If he says more settlements have to be dismantled, most Likud voters are likely to go along out of the belief that they need not be more Catholic than the Pope...

...We have neither peace nor security...

...Moreover, as the party that brought Israel Oslo and Camp David, it does not have much of a message...

...Many Israelis felt the violence was a nightmare both sides would soon awaken from...

...It calls for further withdrawals by Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, the acceptance of a provisional Palestinian state on some 50 per cent of those territories, and the determination of permanent borders in final-settlement negotiations with the Palestinians...

...For the public itself has changed dramatically since Sharon's election, roughly four months after the outbreak of Palestinian violence...

...The vast majority of Israelis, sobered by the suicide bombings and the failure of incremental efforts to stop them, today agree with Ehud Ya'ari, the doyen of Israel's Arab affairs commentators, that "The Palestinian national movement is about the right of return...

...Not only is tourism nonexistent, but Israeli goods are being boy cotted in Scandinavia...

...Things look different from the Prime Minister's office, he has told the Israeli press on a number of occasions...

...Sharon's passion for placing settlements in the West Bank was always security driven, not religiously based...

...But almost two years of Palestinian violence have led most Israelis to conclude that the only way to keep their kids from being blown up at pizza parlors is to deploy the Army inside the Palestinian cities...

...Nor was the Oslo process thought to be beyond revival...

...Indeed, in a normal country, as Israelis are self-deprecatingly wont to put it, such a situation would produce a mass movement calling for a new leader...

...The feeling that Sharon would, and could, make the tough decisions that are necessary to reach an agreement with the Palestinians in large part explains his increasing attraction to the Israeli Center...

...On the Right, there is an inclination to let Sharon "get away" with policies that would be militantly rejected from any other politician...

...If his opponent on Election Day is Labor Party head and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Sharon trounces him by a whopping 57 per cent to 17 per cent...

...These numbers are especially remarkable when one considers that they can hardly reflect the wonderful time had by all during Sharon's 17 months in office...

...it is not about the West Bank and Gaza...

...Over the years this security strategy was chiseled away by the peace camp, which argued that holding on to the West Bank reduced security because of all the soldiers needed to protect the settlers...

...Nevertheless, he now seems poised to easily win a second term in elections that will probably be held before the mandatory date in November 2003...

...Yet despite his not fulfilling the pledge that won him the prime ministership, Sharon continues to ride a wave of popularity...

...The same poll shows that on the question of who would be the preferable Likud candidate in the next elections, he enjoys a 10 per cent edge over his party rival, Binyamin Netanyahu...

...The telegenic younger politicians tend to be regarded as ready to do anything to achieve power, including practically abandoning their own party's historic interests...

...But the stinging slap in the face delivered by some 120 suicide bombers over the last 22 months has given strength to the notion that if the country is to survive, it will have no choice but to rely on the sword...

...Although this is far less than the offer made by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak that the Palestinians turned down at Camp David and Taba, it is far more than most Israelis believed Sharon would ever put on the table...

...Sharon, by contrast, has effectively given the public the impression that at this point in his storied career re-election is a mere afterthought...

...the issues are more complicated, the overall responsibility is greater...

...Polls show consistent support for doing away with isolated settlements and returning to roughly the 1967 borders...

...The death toll then was much lower than it is at present, the fear in the streets far less palpable...

...And when it comes to settlement issues, Sharon is widely perceived as the Pope...

...AvigdorLieberman, the head of the Right-wing National Union/Yisrael Beitenu Party, declared late this past June: "The state's leaders have to stand up and say, 'We failed...

...Netanyahu, who nips at Sharon's heels from the Right, ended up looking like a petty, overly-ambitious politician willing to make a power play even in an hour of dire national distress...

...He was the architect of the Lebanon War, who deceived then Prime Minister Menachem Begin about his goals there...

...Nor are they attributable to some external event, like President George W. Bush's June 24 Mideast policy speech...

...An Israeli commission of inquiry also found him indirectly responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres, because he should have realized what would happen if the Christian Phalange was allowed into those Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut...

...A mantra of pre-Oslo Israel was that the country cannot live by the sword forever, that eventually the compromises must be made that will assure peace...

...Netanyahu, who somewhat ironically tops the weak field of Sharon challengers, was also artfully outmaneuvered by the Prime Minister at Likud's Central Committee meeting...

...According to a recent poll in another daily, Yediot Achronot, the Labor Party's Knesset representation will drop in the next balloting from 24 seats to 18, and Likud's will rocket from 19 seats to 30...

...Sudden, gruesome death is on everyone's mind, even though "life goes on...

...One of the symbols of the Oslo accords was open borders and Palestinian-Israeli industrial zones...

...One is the distance he personally has traveled since taking office on March 7,2001, and the extraordinary distance the country has traveled since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000...

...In the Ma'ariv poll, while an expected 77 per cent of those who consider themselves Rightists said they are happy with his overall performance, a surprising 60 per cent who identify themselves as Centrists said the same thing...

...Inflation, moving at a constant trot, is expected to reach an annual rate of 6-8 per cent by year's end, and interest rates have doubled over the past few months...

...Not an ideal existence, but existence nonetheless...

...The other is the dearth of challengers who have a strong appeal across the political spectrum...

...As if all that were not enough, the shekel, worth about 25 cents a half year ago, is now down to a little more than 20 cents...

...In early July, virtually overnight, the value-added tax went from 17 to 18 per cent, the cost of electricity jumped 7 per cent, and water prices rose 15 per cent...

...Numbing terrorism has made it frightening to ride a bus, nerve-racking to let your kids go bowling, harrowing to walk in an outdoor market...

...Once he did, the consensus was that his instincts would get the best of him and prevent his winning again...

...The country's sons and fathers are once again patrolling the heart of Palestinian cities in the West Bank...

...We failed in our economic policy, we failed with our foreign policy, and we failed in the most important thing—we were unable to ensure the personal security of the citizens.' When [Ariel] Sharon sought election he promised security and peace...

...The violence has fostered the concept of Fortress Israel...

...True, Bush agreed with Sharon that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat has to go, and that the Authority has to be completely overhauled if there is to be a diplomatic resolution of the current conflict...

...With its return, Sharon looked like a man who genuinely has the country's interests, not his own narrow political ones, at heart...

...One can hew to an ideological line while in the opposition or even as a Cabinet minister, he has observed, but the Prime Minister cannot avoid recognizing the importance of certain compromises for the welfare of the country...

...Hence its rather astonishingly quiet acceptance of having its sons and fathers back in the Palestinian cities...

...Some think the existential quandary the country is facing matches those the founding fathers faced, and one senses a degree of comfort in knowing a member of the old school is in charge...

...Thus, notwithstanding the strong support they have received from the United States, Israelis feel isolated and afraid in a way they have not felt since the fear of destruction gripped them prior to the June 1967 Six-Day War...

...That does not mean the public wants the Army to stay there permanently...