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Talks bring first test as Sharon returns to Cabinet
LAURA KING
The Associated Press
It was a moment like so many in Ariel Sharon's storied military career: He marched straight in and took charge.
Sharon - aging ex-general, master political survivor, revered by some as a war hero and reviled by others as a war criminal - formally assumed control of Israel's foreign ministry Oct. 14, a day before his departure this week for a crucial Mideast summit outside Washington.
Sharon was named to the post Oct. 9 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the appointment was subsequently approved by the rest of the Cabinet. The appointment was seen as a bid by Netanyahu to neutralize right-wing critics in advance of this week's U.S. summit with President Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (Results of the summit were not known at Jewish News' press time on Oct. 14. See related analysis on page 9.)
The 70-year-old Sharon gave every indication of relishing his re-emergence in a leadership post after a decade and a half of disgrace and political exile. Even before he showed up to start work at the ministry, he made his first foray abroad as foreign minister - a quick trip to Jordan, in the company of Netanyahu, to brief leaders about the upcoming summit.
Later, meeting with top ministry officials - and, briefly, with reporters - the burly, white-haired Sharon turned on a typical mix of diplomatic formulations, unyielding doctrine and blunt-force charm. Asked about the powers of his new position, he laughed.
"I'm not the kind of man people give things to," he said in his trademark trumpeting voice. "I take them!"
Emphatic though his entry was, Sharon's ability to shape the ministry's agenda is likely tied to the success of the U.S. talks. After all, he got the job mainly because Netanyahu needs him to help quell right-wing opposition to any accord reached there.
Probably no other Israeli public figure arouses such conflicting passions. To his partisans, Sharon is the daring, brilliant tactician whose battlefield victories helped turn the tide of three of Israel's wars, the only politician with the force and stature to lead the rightist camp.
To detractors, he is a destroyer. The Israeli left despises him. Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erekat flatly describes him as a war criminal. Many Palestinians hold him responsible for Lebanese Christian militiamen's 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees, and angrily recall his aggressive promotion of Jewish settlement growth during a stint as housing minister.
Sharon returns the ill feeling: He has said publicly he won't shake Yasser Arafat's hand, even in his post as Israel's principal negotiator of peace with the Palestinians.
Perhaps to avoid any awkwardness over greeting Arafat, Sharon was scheduled to arrive late for the summit. While opening handshakes occurred in Washington, Sharon was planning to still be in Israel, attending a ceremony for soldiers slain in the 1973 war. Sharon was not planning to arrive until the talks' venue moved to the privacy of the conference center at Wye Plantation, Md.
Many of Sharon's allies on the right reacted with dismay to his appointment as foreign minister, considering him an opportunist who betrayed principles to fulfill his own political ambitions. His acceptance of the job, they believe, amounts to endorsement of a land deal with the Palestinians - something they bitterly oppose.
Even Sharon's own boss doesn't much care for him. Sharon has publicly disparaged Netanyahu in the past, and the prime minister repaid him by relegating him to the second-string post of infrastructure minister.
Some observers believe Sharon's desire to rise above past disgrace - he had not held a top government position for 15 years, since being held indirectly responsible for the massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla camps south of Beirut - could be the key to his stance at the summit and in months to come.
The word being used over and over by commentators is pragmatism. Sharon is viewed by friend and foe alike as hard-headed and hard-nosed, unlikely to sign on to an accord unless he really thought it would work on the ground. And his background gives him greater credibility than anyone else on questions of Israel's security, something on which any accord will hinge.
Sharon could play a role similar to that of the late Moshe Dayan, a lifelong military man who turned to statesmanship in his final years and participated in the Camp David process that brought peace between Israel and Egypt. For a tactician like Sharon, the unexpected is often a weapon of choice.
"Sharon is a man of surprises, and not only on the battlefield," commentator Avraham Tirosh wrote in the Maariv newspaper. "No one is able to assess what Sharon will really do."
Laura King writes from Jerusalem.
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