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January 12, 2001/Tevet 17, 5761, Vol. 53, No.15
Kinder, gentler Sharon forges huge lead at polls
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Once reviled as a dangerous warmonger, Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon has amassed a huge lead in public opinion polls before Israel's Feb. 6 elections on the strength of a remarkable image makeover.
Two decades ago, Sharon was forced to resign as defense minister for not preventing Israel's Lebanese Christian allies from massacring Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
Now, he is running as a kindly, avuncular figure, tough but sensitive, who will be more effective as a peacemaker than incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
The apparent transformation is galling to many Israeli leftists, who have no problem accepting that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has matured from terrorist to statesman but continue to demonize Sharon for leading Israel into the Lebanon War in 1982.
The mere suggestion this fall that Barak would invite Sharon into a unity government sparked a wave of hand-wringing among Israelis - and international observers - who portrayed such a union as a death knell for the peace process.
Right-wing and centrist Israelis, however, appear less troubled by Sharon's past, propelling him to leads of 20 to 30 percentage points over Barak in opinion polls.
Perhaps most remarkable - and most telling about the depth of popular dissatisfaction with Barak - is the fact that Sharon has amassed such support while revealing so little of what he would do in office.
"Only Sharon Will Bring Peace" is his campaign slogan. His campaign jingle, released on Jan. 8, sings of the peace he will bring.
The key to his success, according to friend and foe like, is the vagueness of his platform.
According to a report last week in the Jerusalem Post, Sharon's blueprint for peace remains the outline he presented to the Palestinians in 1999, when he was foreign minister under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
That plan - under which Israel refused to share Jerusalem, uproot Jewish settlements or withdraw from the Jordan Valley - includes far fewer Israeli concessions than those the Palestinians now reject as insufficient from Barak.
Sharon's overall strategy, like that of Netanyahu during his 1996 to 1999 term as premier, will be to keep a fine balance among a coalition of the center-right, far-right, Orthodox and Russians. Losing any component of this grouping could threaten his Knesset majority.
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