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January 31, 2003/Shevat 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 23
Sharon cements surprise political comeback
MICHAEL S. ARNOLD
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Israeli politics have seen few transformations as remarkable as Ariel Sharon's.
A little more than four years ago, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Sharon as foreign minister, many Israelis were outraged that the man they considered the villain of the 1982 Lebanon War was to be Israel's face abroad.
When Sharon was appointed interim Likud leader after Netanyahu lost to Ehud Barak, few thought the septuagenarian would be more than a caretaker. Yet Sharon solidified his hold on the party and in February 2001 swept Barak out of office, capping a two-decade climb from ignominy to power.
Now the former black sheep of Israeli politics has become the first prime minister to win reelection since Mena-chem Begin in 1981.
Sharon's success is attributed to his personal qualities, his performance during his first term and, paradoxically, voters' despair over the state of the nation, something that rarely redounds to the incumbent's credit.
In 2001, running for election during the nascent Palestinian intifada, Sharon promised voters peace and security. Two years later, Israel is further from peace, demonstrably less safe - and undergoing an economic meltdown.
Yet voters largely do not blame Sharon. He inherited the intifada from Barak.
It helps that Sharon is the last of the generation of the giants, warrior-statesmen like Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan whose history is synonymous with Israel's and who always have filled the breach at moments of crisis.
It is perhaps that aura that helped Sharon weather alleged vote-buying and financial scandals that cost Likud several Knesset seats in the election, but didn't sink Sharon's candidacy.
Unlike Barak and Netanyahu, both considered brilliant but arrogant, Sharon has surprised Cabinet colleagues and military officials with his willingness to solicit advice and follow it.
For someone nicknamed "the bulldozer," Sharon proved flexible and deliberate during his first term.
Much of the world accuses Sharon of brutality in his response to Palestinian terrorism, but many believe he moved rather slowly in intensifying Israel's military actions. Often he showed restraint when opponents expected Sharon to reveal his "true colors" as a warmonger.
Beyond the remarkable degree of unity he maintained at home, the greatest accomplishment of Sharon's first term surely was the rapport he established with Washington.
By his handling of the Karine-A arms smuggling affair and the trove of P.A. documents uncovered during Israeli raids in the West Bank, Sharon convinced President George W. Bush of Arafat's personal role as a sponsor of terrorism.
That led to Bush's landmark June 24 speech, when he effectively endorsed Sharon's position that peace with the Palestinians is not possible as long as Arafat remains in power.
But by promising Bush early in his term that he would not harm Arafat physically, Sharon set himself a daunting task: to effectively kill his long-time antagonist without actually doing so.
That leaves Sharon trying to calibrate the precise amount of military, economic and diplomatic pressure that will convince the world community, and the Palestinians themselves, that Arafat is detrimental to Palestinian welfare and must be replaced.
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