What does victory portend?

Israel's Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon places his hand on Jerusalem's Western Wall Feb. 7, the day after defeating Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Photo by Brian Hendler/JTA

On Feb. 6, Ariel Sharon was elected 11th prime minister of Israel by a 62- to 37-percent margin over incumbent Ehud Barak. Pundits from across the political spectrum credited Sharon's victory to Barak's failure to deliver campaign promises on the peace process and social issues. Additionally, Israelis are looking to Sharon to curb the Al-Aksa Intifada violence and foster a greater sense of security. Philosopher Elie Wiesel, journalist Gary Rosenblatt and Israeli leftist author Amos Oz ponder what Sharon's victory may really mean.

Jerusalem in my heart - Yasser Arafat's gift - Bracing for Sharon

Jerusalem in my heart

ELIE WIESEL

As a Jew living in the United States, I have long denied myself the right to intervene in Israel's internal debates.

I consider Israel's destiny mine as well, since my own memory is bound up with its history. I find its electoral vagaries interesting, its blunders embarrassing, but as I am not an Israeli citizen, I am not directly involved. I may have more sympathy for a particular politician or greater reservations about another, but that's my personal business; I don't talk about it.

This behavior at times results in "open letters" and acerbic articles scolding me for not protesting whenever Israeli police or soldiers react excessively to violence from Palestinian soldiers or civilians. I rarely answer. My critics have their conception of social and individual ethics; I have mine. But while I grant them their right to criticize, they sometimes deny mine to abstain.

Now, though, the topic is Jerusalem. Its fate affects not only Israelis, but also Diaspora Jews like myself. The fact that I do not live in Jerusalem is secondary; Jerusalem lives within me.

Jerusalem, for me, is above politics. Mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible, Jerusalem, anchored in Jewish tradition, is the national landmark of that tradition. It represents our collective soul. It is Jerusalem that binds one Jew to another. There is not a prayer more beautiful or nostalgic than the one which evokes the splendor of its past and the shattering and enduring memory of its destruction.

Each time I revisit the city, it is always for the first time. What I feel and experience there I feel nowhere else. I return to the house of my ancestors; King David and Jeremiah await me there.

In the political division recently being considered, the greater part of the Old City of Jerusalem would come under Palestinian authority. The Temple Mount, beneath which lie the vestiges of the temples of Solomon and Herod, would thereafter be controlled by the new Palestinian state.

That Muslims might wish to maintain close ties with this city unlike any other is understandable. Although its name does not appear in the Koran, Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam. But for Jews, it remains the first. Not just the first - the only.

How can we forget that between 1948 and 1967, while Jordan occupied the Old City, Jews were denied access to the Western Wall in spite of a signed agreement between the two governments? At that time Arabs, who were asking for an Arab state, never mentioned Jerusalem.

Why are the Palestinians now so anxious to make Jerusalem their capital? Anxious enough to jeopardize the Oslo accords? We are told that Israel's unprecedented concessions, including those on Jerusalem, were made for a good cause. For peace. This is a weighty argument. Peace is the noblest of aspirations; it is worth the sacrifice of that which is most precious to us. I agree. But is it appropriate in all circumstances? Can one always say, "Peace at any price"? To compromise on territory might seem, under certain conditions, imperative or at least politically expedient. But to compromise on history is impossible.

You may ask me, what about peace in all this? I continue to believe in peace with all my heart. I am wary, though, of anything that amounts to appeasement. Would giving most of the Old City of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat and the extremists be a reward for their actions?

The Palestinians also insist on "the right of return" for more than 3 million refugees. On this question, Israel is united in its refusal. It may be necessary to recall the history of this Palestinian tragedy. In 1947 Israel accepted the plan for the division of Palestine; the Arabs rejected it.

In 1948, David Ben-Gurion reached out to what was to be the Palestinian state. Not only did the Arabs reject the proffered hand; they sent six armies to strangle the newly born Jewish state. Incited by their leaders, 600,000 Palestinians left the country convinced that, once Israel was vanquished, they would be able to return home.

I have seen their children in the Gaza refugee camps; their fate can leave none of us indifferent. It is imperative that we resolve this problem. But the solution of a mass return is unthinkable. To many Israelis, that would be tantamount to suicide, just as cutting Jerusalem from its roots would be spiritual suicide.

What I am about to say I say with great sadness: After seeing on television, during the Intifada, the faces of young Palestinians twisted with hate, it is more difficult than ever before for me to believe in the Palestinians' will for peace. It is not that they want a smaller Israel; they want no Israel at all.

And yet. Though all options appear to have been exhausted, peace remains our single common hope; violence and war have filled too many cemeteries on both sides. This cannot and must not go on. Most Israelis feel as I do: Palestinians must have the right to live freely and with dignity, without fear and without shame. It is incumbent upon the world and Israel to do everything to help them and to do so in ways that do not make them lose face.

I am particularly concerned with the Israeli Arabs. They are citizens of Israel, and their civic rights must be protected at all costs.

As for Jerusalem, would it not be better to resolve all other pending questions first and defer until a later time decisions about the fate of the holiest of cities? I still believe human bridges can be built between the two communities, through reciprocal visits between students, teachers, musicians, writers, artists, business leaders and journalists. Perhaps in 20 years, the children of these people will be better equipped to approach that most burning of questions: Jerusalem.

Elie Wiesel, a professor of humanities at Boston University, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. This essay first appeared in The New York Times and is reprinted with permission.

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Yasser Arafat's gift

AMOS OZ
Yediot Aharanot

Ariel Sharon is Arafat's gift to the Israeli and the Palestinian people.

In the winter of 2001, Ehud Barak was voted out of office for the same reason that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in the autumn of 1995, and Shimon Peres was defeated in the spring of 1996: All three men were ahead of their time.

Like many other leaders in modern history, including Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Jordan's King Hussein, these three had qualities which Yasser Arafat lacks: the courage to compromise and make peace even while their people are calling them traitors.

Last August, in Camp David, in a framework of a peace agreement, Ehud Barak proposed the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with slight and reciprocal border modifications, including East Jerusalem as its capital. Barak also agreed, with great anxiety, to put the controversial Temple Mount under the auspices of the Muslim authorities.

Had the Palestinian agreed to this offer, Barak would have won indeed, though not in a landslide victory, a peace agreement referendum from the people of Israel. Had the Palestinians demanded to further narrow the border modifications, the bargaining would have continued until an agreement was reached.

But the Palestinians did not reply with "yea," nor did they reply with "nay." Rather, they replied with fire - with the Al Aqsa Intifada, a religious war with the declared goal of cleansing the disputed holy sites of Jewish presence. To this they added a demand for "the right of return," which is nothing but a codename for the destruction of Israel.

Ever since Camp David, the bitter picture is becoming clearer: While Barak's Israel seeks peace, Arafat demands justice. Arafat demands exclusive Palestinian justice, according to which Palestine belongs to the Palestinians and Israel does too; justice according to which the Islamic holy places belong to Islam while the Jewish holy places are nothing but a forgery.

Looking back, it seems that immediately following Camp David, part of the Palestinian leadership decided to initiate a wave of violence aiming to take Barak down and push Israel into the hands of the extremists. Barak's dramatic concessions won broad-based international support for Israel and brought international pressure on the Palestinians to reciprocate with compromises.

The Palestinian opponents of peace thought that violence would make Barak react forcefully and thereby terminate the international support he had gained. They thought the violence would bring despair on the Israelis, who would choose extremist leadership, who in turn would isolate Israel just as Milosevic isolated Serbia. This, they hoped, would impose on Israel a solution by outside powers, forcing Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza without the Palestinians having to pay by making peace.

Ehud Barak was ousted because he believed the pragmatic forces among the Palestinian people would consider his daring concessions a fair basis for the establishment of a permanent agreement. Then he was forced to react to the Palestinian wave of violence by force. He could not turn the other cheek.

When the Israeli voters fell into the Palestinian trap and voted for Sharon, they did so out of discontent with the peace process, out of anxiety, rage and fear of unyielding violent Palestinian extortion that will not stop until Israel's destruction.

It is too early to say whether Sharon will fall into the same trap and will adopt the scripted role that the Arab rejection front has written for him: the role of an Israeli Milosevic who will be dragged into unruly militant reactions that will tear the Israeli society apart and turn Israel into an international pariah. It could end up causing Israel to either collapse from within or give in to the dictates of the Arab world.

This article, which first appeared in the Hebrew in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, was translated and printed with permission of The Middle East Media and Research Institute, an independent, non-profit organization.

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Bracing for Sharon

GARY ROSENBLATT
The New York Jewish Week

Israelis are worried that Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister will be perceived as a vote against the peace process. That is not the case, but the concern is understandable. After all, Sharon has long been an outspoken hawk and opponent of Oslo while Ehud Barak, the man he soundly defeated, was a chief proponent of making peace with Syria and the Palestinians.

The truth is that the Feb. 6 vote was not so much for Sharon as against Barak, who lost trust among the population for seeming too eager to make major concessions to the Palestinians with little if anything in return. Even more, though, the vote was against Yasser Arafat and his style of seeking peace by making war.

Israelis are eager, if not desperate, for peace, but not at any price. That's what they were asserting at the polls. They do not want their government to abandon negotiations. Rather, they want those negotiations conducted from strength, not from fear or defensiveness. They are tired of having men, women and children murdered on a daily basis because they are Jews. They thought helplessness and lack of resolve to fight back against those who want them dead-ended with the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel.

Israelis are well aware of Sharon's past, his mix of military bravery and excessive force, his courage and his cockiness. They are concerned about his penchant for reckless decisions and defying authority, knowing such traits are hardly what the country needs at this critical moment.

Supporters of Sharon say he has learned from the past, that he knows how to deal with the Arabs, and understands that they respect strength. Moreover, friends say Sharon wants to ensure that his legacy is about solidifying Israel, not about the shame of his role in Sabra and Shatilla.

This was a strangely muted election campaign, particularly since it could determine if Israel is about to move closer to war or peace. The electorate never seemed fully engaged, but then neither did the candidates. Barak held out the hope that Israelis would trust him more than Sharon with their future, and he asserted that a vote for Sharon was a vote for war. But he seemed stoic about his fate.

Sharon, with his improbably large lead from the outset, tried to say as little as possible. He avoided discussing his peace plan, which calls for minimal changes in the status quo, causing Shimon Peres to observe that it was not designed to make peace with the Arabs but without them. Still, most Israelis felt that since the Palestinians went to war despite the promise of wholesale concessions from Barak, it was time for a different approach. The voters came to the conclusion that the issue is not really borders or settlements but the very existence of a Jewish state, and the Palestinians proved they are not ready for a permanent peace now. Let Sharon put a halt to the soft Israeli negotiating position, the electorate is saying, and a halt to the violence that cheapens Jewish blood. If there is no hope of a full peace now, let us work toward an interim agreement and the cessation of the Intifada.

Deep down, Israelis are hoping that Sharon has the sense - and the sense of the people - to govern reasonably and not provocatively, to move cautiously toward reconciliation and not swiftly toward war. The reconciliation required is not just with the Arabs but with the Jews of Israel, who are increasingly divided not only on the peace front but on an array of social and domestic issues that have largely been ignored the last several years, from secular-religious conflicts, to the Ashkenazi-Sephardic split, to the growing economic gap between rich and poor.

The only approach that would allow Sharon to move ahead on both fronts - with the Arabs and with the Jews - is to create a unity government. He has pledged to do so. Much depends on Sharon's persuasiveness and the willingness of Labor leaders to join a Sharon government, something they said they would not do. When the situation was reversed, a few months ago, Barak was unwilling or unable to bring Sharon into his government.

But at least Sharon is saying the right things, and what he says - and how he is perceived by Washington, the American media and American Jewry - is of vital importance. The organized Jewish community in this country is fearful of a Sharon government, not only because of his hawkish ideology and headstrong history, but because of his portrayal in the media, which is sure to be tough and unflattering.

But the Bush administration may be a blessing for Sharon. The new president and Secretary of State Colin Powell would like to put the Arab-Israeli conflict on the back burner, and a little benign neglect might be helpful at this point. With the U.S. stepping back, leaving the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate directly, there is a chance that reality will replace unrealistic expectations on the Arab side and that talks can continue, focused on an interim agreement to stop the bloodshed.

But I'm not holding my breath. More likely, the Palestinians will seek to test Sharon by stepping up the violence, hoping for an immoderate Israeli response that Arafat can use to show the world the government in Jerusalem is out for blood. That must not happen. For now, the best we can hope for is an indication that Sharon is moving toward the political center, creating as wide a coalition as possible and taking steps to tamp down the violence without exacerbating the conflict. A tall order, yes, but Sharon has spent his life preparing for this situation, assuring us he knows how to deal with the Arabs.

Now is his moment.

Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week. His e-mail address is Gary@jewishweek.org.

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