Sharon Swamps Barak in Israeli Vote for Premier

Ariel Sharon, the ironfisted warrior-turned-politician whose name is associated with some of the bloodiest chapters of Israeli history, was elected prime minister in a crushing landslide Tuesday with a promise to drastically change the way Israel pursues peace.

Sharon’s defeat of Ehud Barak was absolute: Just 20 months after his own lopsided victory in a prime minister’s race, Barak stunned even his closest advisors late Tuesday by announcing his resignation as head of the left-of-center Labor Party. He also relinquished his seat in parliament.

It was a breathtaking reversal of the Israeli political scene that gives power to the hard-line right wing and hurls the troubled Middle East peace process deeper into an abyss of uncertainty. Israelis voted out of anger and fear, bereft of hope and traumatized by the worst Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed in years.

The official count of most returns gave Sharon, a 72-year-old former army general, a 25-percentage-point lead over Barak, also a former army commander. It was one of the largest, and most humiliating, defeats in Israeli politics.

At the very least, Sharon’s sweeping victory was expected to slow the peace process further--and at most, paralyze it. He must first woo support from within Israel’s fragmented political spectrum, however, in an effort to build a coalition and ensure the survival of his government beyond a mere few months. But Barak’s resignation from the Labor leadership complicates Sharon’s future.

Early today, at the end of a long election night, Sharon went before a crowd of jubilant supporters popping champagne corks to call for the unity needed in a clearly divided country. He was flanked by top leaders of his right-wing Likud Party and the major ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

“Today, the state of Israel has set out on a new path,” he said, mopping sweat from his face. “My government will act to restore the security to the citizens of Israel,” he continued, to boisterous cheers, “and to achieve a real peace and stability in the area.”

He vowed to reverse the concessions that Barak had been willing to make to the Palestinians, declaring that disputed Jerusalem will remain the eternal undivided capital of the Jewish people. But, striking a more conciliatory note, he said he understands that “peace requires painful concession from both sides.”

Sharon also called on “our neighbors the Palestinians” to “abandon the path of violence and to return to the path of dialogue.”

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, in Gaza City, said he hopes to work with the new Israeli leader to “continue the peace of the brave.” In Washington, President Bush, who recently inherited a role in the peace process, said in a statement that he looks forward to working with Sharon.

Without question, Sharon’s election marked a stunning comeback for a man forced from his defense minister’s post in disgrace after the government held him indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon during Israel’s 1982 invasion of that country.

Although he continued to hold various public offices, it had seemed that the opportunity to reach the highest office in the land had passed him by.

With a reputation for recklessly ignoring his superiors’ orders, Sharon fought in all of Israel’s wars and directed Israel’s disastrous invasion of Lebanon. He was known for heroic exploits, such as crossing the Suez Canal to gain a decisive advantage in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and for egregious excesses, such as the 1953 raid on a West Bank village in which 69 civilians were killed.

Sharon’s election was seen by many here as a rejection of the way peace has been pursued for the last eight years, since the launching of the landmark Oslo land-for-peace process, and especially Barak’s handling of the fateful Camp David summit last summer.

Uzi Landau, a senior legislator from Sharon’s Likud Party, said the vote represented “the collapse of a vision that appeasement can bring peace.”

“The peace process is in the deep freeze,” Barak’s deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, allowed, “but not forever.”

Sharon advocates a harder line against Palestinians and has already said he won’t grant the same territorial concessions that Barak promised. He has said he won’t dismantle a single Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, won’t give Palestinians a foothold in the disputed capital of Jerusalem and will yield to the Palestinians essentially no more land than what they have now.

No negotiations will resume, Sharon said, until violence that has swept the West Bank and Gaza for the last four months and claimed nearly 400 lives stops. Although most of the dead have been Palestinian, Arafat has not been able--or willing--to halt the regular gun battles and clashes.

Palestinian and other Arab leaders are predicting that Sharon’s rise to power will freeze efforts to make peace for some time to come. Nabil Shaath, a senior Arafat aide, said that, based on Sharon’s past and his statements, “there is no way we can make any progress.”

Turnout was the lowest in any Israeli election, and nowhere was it lower than in Israeli Arab towns, where residents staged a successful boycott to punish Barak. Some polling stations there reported not a single voter.

Israeli Arabs were protesting the killing of 13 Arabs when Israeli police opened fire on demonstrators inside Israel in October. In the closing days of the campaign, Barak expressed his sorrow for the deaths, and Labor Party activists implored Arabs to vote. In 1999, Israeli Arabs voted almost unanimously for Barak, a key component in his triumph over the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The Arab sector has been Labor’s ‘mistress’ since 1967,” political analyst Hanan Kristal told Israeli radio Tuesday night. “Today is the day of the divorce. The split is a very deep one.”

Jews were punishing Barak in similar numbers. In fact, a large part of the vote was against Barak rather than for Sharon, analysts said. His core supporters accused him of failing to make peace with the Palestinians and then bungling during months of violence.

He also lost support with his arrogant style, poor political skills and inability to communicate well to constituents.

Some voters did turn out for Barak. In Modiin, a new, secular city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv where a main access road has come under Palestinian gunfire, Sharon Zehavi was among them.

Voting for Barak “is a way to say: ‘Thank you Barak. Thank you for trying, and I’m sorry we didn’t give you a chance to finish,’ ” said Zehavi, 33.

But in the end, the gap was canyon-like, and Barak was ousted from power. One hour and 45 minutes after the polls closed, a subdued Barak went before hundreds of Labor Party supporters at a kibbutz just north of Tel Aviv and conceded.

“My friends,” Barak said, “we have lost the battle, but we will win the war.”

Aware that the results undermined any effectiveness he would have as party leader, Barak then quit his Labor post. This will send the party into a bruising internal power struggle over who should succeed him, and it will make it less likely that the party will join a Sharon-led unity government.

Barak had been the chief advocate for forming a unity government, against considerable opposition inside the party that had threatened it with a historic split. Yossi Beilin, who served as Barak’s justice minister and was one of the minds behind the 1993 Oslo accords, said joining would let Sharon use Labor as a “fig leaf” while he fomented violence in the region.

Barak’s reelection was probably doomed by the continuing violence. As one Labor official put it, having to campaign while burying Jews every day is an impossible situation.

To understand the anger and fear of Jewish voters, one only had to look at Gilo, a neighborhood on the southern edge of Jerusalem that Israelis consider to be part of the city. Palestinians consider it a settlement.

Gilo was built on land confiscated or purchased from Arabs after the 1967 Middle East War. It has been subjected to regular gunfire from the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, just across a wide valley.

Although no Israeli has been killed in Gilo--several Palestinians have been killed in Beit Jala in retaliatory fire--the community became a symbol for an outraged sense of vulnerability shared by many Israelis.

Voting in Gilo was heavy for Sharon.

“We tried to make peace, and Arafat didn’t want it. What does he want? To send us into the sea? Back to Europe or to Africa?” said Eli Aviv, 39.

Like other residents of Gilo, he was forced to listen, night after night, to the shooting.

“Sharon is strong, and because the Arabs think he’s a danger, and the whole world thinks he’ll make war, then that is the way he will be able to make peace,” Aviv said. “First of all, Sharon will tell the Palestinians, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Aviv suggested that Sharon invade Beit Jala, conduct house-to-house searches for terrorists and then tell Arafat that he can have the village back if he stops all violence.

Sharon made a stop in Gilo on Tuesday afternoon to greet voters. He pledged “to those of you living in the line of fire” that he would restore a sense of security.

“Arik Sharon,” they chanted, using his nickname. “King of Israel!”

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More Inside

Peace Prospects: The coalition formed by the new prime minister may be the key to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, A16

Local Reaction: Jewish leaders in the area say the need for Israel’s security swayed the vote, A17