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April 18, 2003/Nisan 16 5763, Vol. 55, No. 34
Sharon interview: Truth or bluff?
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
It's customary for Israeli prime ministers to express their wishes for peace on the eve of the major Jewish holidays.
But with speculation rife about how the war in Iraq will affect the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, a mid-April interview with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - notable more for Sharon's inflection than for any startlingly original messages - has thrown Israel's political establishment into a frenzy.
After the initial furor, however, few on the left or right believed Sharon would be able to make significant progress toward peace with the Palestinians because of the list of tough demands he is making.
The most controversial is Sharon's new insistence that the Palestinians give up the "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, even before negotiations begin based on the "road map" toward peace.
In the interview with the daily newspaper Ha'aretz, Sharon injected a new time element: He said after the war in Iraq, new opportunities had opened up for a settlement with the Palestinians and that agreement could be reached "faster than people think."
He also expressed moral and economic concerns related to continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"I do not think we should rule over another people and run their lives," he declared. "I don't think we have the strength for that. It's a very heavy burden on the public, and it raises ethical problems and heavy economic problems."
Sharon's comments come as the U.S.-led coalition's success in toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq has changed regional dynamics and led some to speculate that a new opening has been created for diplomatic progress with the Pales-tinians.
At the same time, however, Sharon dispatched the director general of his office, Dov Weisglass, to Wash-ington with Israel's reser-vations about the road map. Weisglass met April 17 with Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and other Bush admini-stration officials.
Weisglass said the United States would take Israel's reservations into account.
But Ha'aretz reported April 18 that U.S. officials do not fully accept Israel's position on the order of events in the road map, preferring simultaneous movement from both sides. Israel has been demanding that the Palestinians prove their sincerity first, since Israel's projected concessions are irreversible.
The interview was notable because it marked the first time that Sharon, one of the fathers of the settlement movement, has mentioned names of settlements he might be willing to give up in a peace deal.
"Our whole history is bound up with some of these places: Bethlehem, Shiloh, Beit El," Sharon said. "And I know we will have to part with some of these places."
Some right-wingers threat-ened to leave the government over Sharon's comments. Left-wingers said that if the right-wingers jump ship, they would consider joining.
Arye Eldad of the far-right National Union said his party's executive would meet soon to table its red lines and then would present Sharon with a list of conditions for staying in the government.
"We intend to do all we can to stop Sharon from facilitating the establishment of a Palestinian state," Eldad said.
Housing Minister Effi Eitam, leader of the hawkish National Religious Party, was less apprehensive.
Sharon's statement was worrying, Eitam said, "because it is the first time he has talked about dismantling specific settlements like Shilo and Beit El." Yet Eitam implied that nothing along those lines was likely to happen, precisely because of the hawkish composition of the Sharon government.
Left-wingers questioned Sharon's sincerity. The secretary-general of the Labor Party, Ophir Pines, accused Sharon of putting on "his familiar mask of moderation," trying to please the Americans after the war in Iraq.
Legislators from the dovish Meretz Party were equally skeptical.
"For three years we've been hearing about painful concessions - and it really is painful, because during all these years not a single concession has been made," Meretz leader Yossi Sarid quipped.
Progress, Sharon said, "depends first and foremost on the Arabs."
Moreover, Sharon inti-mated, before Israel even started implementing the road map, the Palestinians would have to give up the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
Many Israelis feel the Palestinian insistence on the right of return - which could swamp Israel with millions of Arabs, ending Israel as a Jewish state - is code for the destruction of Israel.
Some Israeli pundits agreed.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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