Sharon’s record says it is. After two years in office, the former war hero has managed to erase any evidence of a peace deal that once heralded–some would say naively–the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He’s been helped by Palestinian suicide bombers and by his nemesis, Yasir Arafat. But Sharon–who now looks strong enough to stave off corruption scandals and lead his Likud Party to victory in elections later this month–has pressed his agenda with stealth, strategy and the military power that Palestinians lack. The first time he sent troops into Palestinian-controlled territory, two months after he formed his government, U.S. objections triggered a quick withdrawal. Today, Israeli soldiers control nearly all of the West Bank, while Washington quietly acquiesces. Some Israelis believe the reoccupation was Sharon’s plan from the outset. “I have no doubt that he had this goal when he came to power,” says political analyst Yossi Alpher.
In the waning days of a typically bitter campaign, Sharon’s associates insist he’s thinking about his place in history and wants peace to be his crowning achievement. Yet no one can explain how he intends to bridge the gap between his meager idea of peace and the Palestinians’ broad demands. He has offered statehood to the Palestinians–but on just a fraction of the West Bank, chiefly the area Palestinians already controlled before troops reinvaded. With both sides locked in a violent cycle of attack and retaliation, and with the U.S. poised to invade Iraq, there is virtually no chance of a settlement any time soon.
In fact, Sharon shows no interest in substantive talks. Last week the United Kingdom held a conference in London to try to jump-start the moribund peace process, but Israel prevented top Palestinian leaders from attending after suicide bombers killed 23 people in Tel Aviv. The United States has crafted a “road map” toward a Palestinian state, but at the urging of the Israeli government, has not yet released the details. “If there were any hidden designs to make peace with the Palestinians, why hasn’t Sharon moved already?” says Yael Dayan, a lawmaker from the leftist Meretz Party who has a long acquaintance with the Israeli leader. “I don’t think he has the desire. That’s the obstacle. And I don’t believe he will after the election.”
So what is Sharon prepared to offer? He says he’s ready to gerrymander the territory to give Palestinians more mobility, and he believes that once Arafat is gone, moderates will be willing to listen. “It would be an interim agreement,” says Roni Milo, a member of Sharon’s Likud Party who serves in his cabinet. “The two sides would keep negotiating even after the Palestinian state is established.” Milo says Sharon, long viewed as a hard-liner in his own party, has wrestled hawks in Likud to keep the door open to Palestinian statehood. He’s consistently preferred partnering with the centrist Labor Party rather than forming a coalition with the far right. Even now, after Labor bolted and brought down his administration, Sharon vows to form another “national unity” government. “He doesn’t want to be locked in by the extremists,” Milo says.
But the very Palestinian moderates Sharon is counting on assert that his offer is not serious. A year ago, Sharon held talks with Ahmed Korei and Mahmoud Abbas, two of Arafat’s closest deputies. It was the only official meeting Sharon, as prime minister, has had with Palestinian officials. The 64-year-old Korei, who serves as speaker of the Palestinian Parliament, says they ate dinner with Sharon and then talked into the night. “Sharon was very polite and very warm. But if he thinks any Palestinian can accept his plan for the West Bank, he’s foolish.” Korei believes Sharon wants an agreement without paying the price–an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders. Israelis would counter that Palestinians already turned down an offer close to that two years ago. Saeb Erekat, a member of Arafat’s administration and a former peace negotiator, puts it another way: “What Sharon really wants is a local leadership that will be in charge of garbage collection, nothing else.”
Sharon skeptics point to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many of which the former general helped build, as further evidence that peace is not a priority for the prime minister. Though Sharon has talked about making “painful concessions” to Palestinians, he has never suggested that he would dismantle even one settlement. Alpher, the Israeli analyst, says that’s because Sharon views settlements not only as strategic positions Israel needs for its security, but also as a means of blocking Palestinian sovereignty.
Sharon wants to lure Labor back into the government so that he can preside over a center-right coalition. But corruption scandals swirling around his Likud Party, and around his own family, have weakened his bargaining position. Last week Labor Party leader Amram Mitzna vowed not to engage at all with the Israeli leader. Unless Mitzna changes his mind, Sharon will be left with a shaky coalition of far-right and religious parties. One of those parties, Herut, is campaigning on the slogan “only by force.” Another, the National Union, rules out any compromise with the Palestinians. “If he wins by only a small margin, he’ll have serious coalition problems, there’s no doubt about that,” says Zalman Shoval, a diplomatic adviser to Sharon.
Shoval says a stronger Sharon might actually have the mandate to make a dramatic gesture to the Palestinians. And he believes only the de Gaulle model–a right-wing leader making peace–can succeed in Israel. There is a precedent: Menachem Begin, a right-wing Israeli leader, signed a peace deal with Egypt in 1979. Israeli polls show a wide majority of people supporting Palestinian independence and even the dismantling of many settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. They just want a hawkish prime minister to lead them through it–one like Sharon, if he can muster the will.
But that’s unlikely to happen unless the United States takes a more aggressive role in ending the conflict. Aluf Benn, the diplomatic correspondent for the daily newspaper Haaretz, says that Sharon’s biggest achievement has been cultivating the support of the Bush administration, which has led to Arafat’s isolation in Ramallah and Israel’s reoccupation of the West Bank. “To maintain American backing, Sharon has never said no to any peace proposal,” says Benn. “Instead, he’s always said, ‘yes, but’–counting on the Palestinians to reject his ever-growing list of reform conditions.”
Given American support, Sharon has little incentive to make any radical concessions. Ilan Greilsammer, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and an expert on French history, says there are “some similarities” between de Gaulle and Sharon, “but also many differences between the two men and the two situations.” The biggest, of course, was that de Gaulle eventually decided that France’s occupation of Algeria was a losing proposition. Sharon hasn’t yet reached that conclusion about the Palestinian territories.
