After three years of saying he was prepared to make "painful concessions" to the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has convulsed Israeli politics by revealing, at least partly, what he has in mind: evacuating most or all settlers from the Gaza Strip and a small number from the West Bank.
In doing so he has undermined ideological pillars he himself helped put in place for the settlement movement: that settlements protect Israel rather than weaken it, and that to evacuate any of them under fire would only reward and encourage terrorists.
PHOTO: AP
That helps explain settlers' furious reaction.
"It's a disaster," said Shaul Goldstein, a settler leader from the relatively moderate Gush Etzion settlement bloc, a community south of Jerusalem. "I think Sharon is old and tired, and this is very sad to say."
Since winning office in a landslide over Ehud Barak in February 2001, Sharon labored to keep all of his options open and to keep even his allies guessing about his plans, if, indeed, he had any. But after his startling announcement on Monday that he assumes that some day "there will be no Jews in Gaza," his priorities and fears are coming into focus.
Sharon's disclosures imply that he does not foresee any end to the conflict with Arabs whom one way or another he has fought his whole life.
He has been careful not to offend the US administration by giving up on its peace initiative, known as the road map, with its commitment to negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
But unlike Barak, who tried and failed to reach a final settlement of the dispute, Sharon is preparing to establish unilaterally what he considers demographically and militarily defensible lines to safeguard Israel as a Jewish state.
Sharon on Tuesday defended his plans as necessary for Israel, implicitly invoking his credentials as a visionary of the settlement movement.
"Except for the settlers, I allow myself to say, this hurts me personally more than anyone else in the state of Israel," he said at a groundbreaking ceremony for a desalinization plant in the city of Ashkelon on the Mediterranean. "This thing pains me greatly."
But he continued: "It is necessary to take this step. I am looking forward on this issue. This is my responsibility."
Sharon has yet to set a timetable, let alone take any action. He says he will move only when he judges that the US administration's peace initiative has failed.
It is possible that he will not get the chance, if he loses his governing coalition or is severely weakened by a continuing bribery investigation. Several Israeli politicians said they believed that Sharon was acting now out of fear that he might soon be indicted, though he denied any such motive.
In January an Israeli court indicted a real-estate developer on charges of paying roughly US$700,000 to Sharon's son Gilad in the hope of bribing Sharon. Justice officials are looking into whether there is evidence to indict the prime minister and his son.
In keeping with Sharon's own approach so far to evacuating settlements, there has been quite a lot of political talk but no action since his announcement on Monday. Two ultranationalist parties threatened to quit his governing coalition if he moves ahead, while leaders of the left-of-center Labor Party offered to support him if he does so.
"Everybody now is waiting eagerly to see if Sharon is going to deliver," said Yuli Tamir, a Labor legislator.
Asher Arian, an Israeli political scientist, said that for the last 10 or 15 years a stable majority of about 60 percent of Israelis has supported the basic positions outlined by Sharon.
"What we've lacked is a legitimate political leader to express these," he said. "Barak tried, but did not have the political coalition or the skill to pull it off. Sharon does, but he has to stay in power."
Where Barak sought a negotiated peace, Sharon, because of circumstance or design, is preparing for something else. "Peace is the wrong word here," Arian said. "It's some kind of disengagement, of breaking away."
Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, reacted more positively on Tuesday to Sharon's comments than other Palestinian officials. Speaking to Voice of Palestine radio, he called Sharon's plan "good news," adding that he wanted "deeds, not words," and an Israeli departure from the West Bank after the departure from Gaza. "Then there will be a real peace," he said. "Otherwise the situation will remain as is."
But Sharon's disclosures indicate that he has something very different in mind. He is intent on preventing a withdrawal to Israel's pre-June 1967 borders, which he calls militarily indefensible, and he appears willing to give up almost all of Gaza to hold onto as much of the West Bank as he can.
Sharon, who helped develop the settlement strategy in Gaza, told the daily Yediot Ahronot that evacuating settlements was like "having to decide between one son and the other." He has made clear which son he prefers.
The Palestinian leadership and public would almost certainly not be content with the limited territory Sharon is preparing to concede. That means the conflict would continue. It is also not clear whether the US or other major nations will accept this unilateral approach.
Sharon made clear that he feared that deeper international involvement here might impose a solution to the conflict. By acting on his own initiative and sacrificing some territory unilaterally, he hopes to avoid broader, mandated concessions, his allies say.
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