Ariel Sharon, Closet Dove?
ROSE, TOM
Ariel Sharon, Closet Dove? His unity government muddles through, less hardline than advertised. BY TOM ROSE Jerusalem NO ONE INSIDE ISRAEL wonders why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon abruptly...
...demands—but that he would likely capitulate to them...
...of that stain has been his abiding obsession ever since...
...Many who know him say that cleansing himself Tom Rose is publisher of the Jerusalem Post...
...Everyone here knows that Sharon, at the urging of advisers and allies, cancelled the trip to avoid facing an American president unhappy about Israel's continued presence in Palestinian towns and likely to demand new Israeli concessions to Yasser Arafat...
...Although Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001 in a historic landslide, few interpreted the win as a personal victory...
...In fact, Sharon was able to secure his conservative Likud party's nomination only because former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose not to seek it...
...BY TOM ROSE Jerusalem NO ONE INSIDE ISRAEL wonders why Prime Minister Ariel Sharon abruptly cancelled a trip to Washington long scheduled for November 11-13...
...Peres created Oslo and remains its most ardent advocate...
...The American media, undoubtedly the least hostile, regularly label him "right wing" or "hard-line...
...For the first time in more than a year, it finally looked like Israel had seized some momentum...
...But in less than a decade, he went from hero to goat when, as defense minister in 1982, he launched Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon to end PLO terrorist infiltration into northern Israel...
...If the government fell, the country would hold new elections, and Sharon's political career would end with his defeat in a nominating primary...
...Meanwhile, a Belgian court is pursuing a case that could lead to his indictment on war crimes charges for his "role" in the events at Sabra and Shatila...
...Israelis are accustomed to mediocre if not dysfunctional government, but they also know that they can change their leaders whenever they want— they've already done it four times in the last five years...
...If he has a strategy, he has arrived at it by default: Call it the "strategy of postponement...
...At the same time, he has allowed his security services to execute an impressive anti-terrorist campaign throughout the West Bank and Gaza...
...Sharon's public incoherence notwithstanding, Israelis seem willing to accept as a blessing his inability to chart a new course...
...But this time, it was not a left-wing Israeli who threw Arafat a lifeline, but rather the most potent embodiment of the Israeli right...
...A massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila by Lebanese Christian militias allied with Israel forced Sharon to resign...
...But if Sharon has indeed capitulated to demands for more negotiations with, or concessions to, Arafat, that is nothing new...
...Seventy-seven of the 120 Knesset members are part of the governing coalition, which includes parties from the far left to the far right...
...They dreaded the opposite...
...Just two weeks ago, Sharon promised family members of assassinated cabinet member Rehavam Zeevi that no one from his government would ever meet with Arafat again...
...The same evening, plans were leaked for the next Peres-Arafat meeting...
...And so, just when it seemed Arafat was about to be consigned to history's dustbin, the man who introduced the world to modern terrorism has once again been given new life by an Israeli leader...
...Sharon has been the most persistent critic of the Oslo peace process since it started in 1993...
...So Sharon hangs on, buying survival by the day, rather than planning for the future...
...His listlessness, both diplomatic and military, seems to have postponed, if not prevented, the wider war many fear...
...At the core are Sharon's Likud and the left-wing Labor party, formally leaderless but actually headed by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres...
...It wasn't fear of offending the president that worried Sharon's team, nor were they afraid the volatile former general might blow a gasket on American television...
...He's pursued it against heavy odds...
...Still, most Israelis are unwilling to dump Sharon and his unity government...
...This is because a national unity government is thought to be a crucial strategic asset in the nation's struggle for international approval and support...
...Sharon assembled the largest government in Israel's history...
...The man who had worked hardest to destroy Arafat is the very one responsible for granting him renewed legitimacy...
...When Sharon last "demanded" a period of "absolute quiet," it had shrunk to 48 hours—and less than 24 hours later, he had backed away from that...
...And every time Sharon has demanded anything of Peres or Arafat, he has quickly backed down...
...Sharon has been a national figure in Israel since his daring anti-terror raids of the 1950s...
...In two weeks, the IDF killed nearly two dozen terrorists, arrested more than 80, and destroyed up to a dozen terrorist cells...
...The unity government is essential to Sharon's political survival, and keeping the Labor party inside the government has become Sharon's abiding preoccupation...
...In 1973, his military exploits in the Yom Kippur War made him a national hero...
...The price Peres appears to have demanded is Sharon's agreement to resurrect Arafat and revive Oslo...
...And it has been very good to Ariel Sharon...
...Israelis were so desperate to end the disastrous tenure of Prime Minister Ehud Barak that they dealt him one of the most resounding defeats of any modern democratic head of government, sweeping into office in his place the controversial and unpopular Sharon...
...Today nearly everyone in Israel views as a failure the attempt to appease Arafat by giving him dictatorial power over three million Palestinians and a 70,000-man army with which to suppress them and attack Israelis...
...As Sharon knows, Likud party regulars are clamoring to dump him in favor of the charismatic Netanyahu, who leads Sharon in party polls by about two to one...
...For now, it seems to most Israelis the least bad of the available alternatives...
...Those who know Sharon's history best worried not that he would reject U.S...
...It has also muted internecine political warfare and helped unite a fractious people...
...The world made up its mind about Sharon a long time ago...
...The official Arab press prefers "butcher" or "murderer...
...Sharon is so fixated on preventing Netanyahu's return that his critics charge he is willing to pay almost any price to keep Peres in power...
...Upon assuming office, Sharon "demanded" a six-week period of "absolute quiet" (free of violence) before he would authorize formal contact with Arafat...
...An Israeli commission of inquiry ruled that by not anticipating the massacre, Sharon had incurred indirect responsibility for it...
...But because Israel's parliament, the Knesset, had not been dissolved, Sharon was forced to cobble together a government from politicians elected on Barak's coattails...
...Following the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi by an Arafat-affiliated terrorist organization on October 17, Sharon, facing massive public pressure, authorized the Israel Defense Forces to enter Palestinian-controlled territory to destroy terrorist redoubts and detain wanted militants...
...Even so, it enhances Peres's power that he is the only member of the government still publicly committed to Oslo...
...Arafat has used Sharon's indecision and reversals deftly, to maneuver his way right back to center stage...
...On the contrary, it is typical...
Vol. 7 • November 2001 • No. 10
