Pragmatist or Hawk? New Premier Not Tipping His Hand

The inauguration Wednesday of Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel caps one of the most remarkable comebacks in Israeli political history.

Written off as an unelectable, extremist has-been, Sharon was catapulted to power by a despairing and fearful public traumatized by the deadliest violence here in years, who gave the septuagenarian former army general a vote of confidence of unprecedented size.

Now, as he is confronted with the challenge of halting the bloodshed, Israelis are wondering which lessons from his own history will guide the new prime minister. Will Sharon’s hawkish military instincts take over, or will his well-honed political survival skills hold him to a more pragmatic course?

Many Israelis want Sharon to hit the Palestinians hard. Many in the international community, however, are urging restraint.

Sharon’s past shows he knows how to hit hard. In fact, as a career army officer, he was occasionally cited for exceeding his orders. In one infamous 1953 operation carried out in reprisal for the slaying of an Israeli woman and her two children, Sharon’s troops blew up 45 houses in a village in the West Bank, then under Jordanian rule. Sixty-nine Arabs were killed. As a commander in the Gaza Strip in the ‘70s, he “quieted” violence by demolishing entire neighborhoods.

Cautious While Forming Coalition

His aides have long spoken of a “new Sharon” whose underlying desire is ultimately to make peace, not war.

It is not yet clear whether today’s Sharon is new, but he is certainly more careful: He has generally kept to a moderate script while navigating the choppy political waters of putting together a ruling coalition. And his speech Wednesday night as he presented his new administration shed no new light on his plans.

Whatever steps Sharon takes in the weeks to come, the seating of the “national unity” government Wednesday marks a decisive shift to the right and a formal end to the pursuit of a comprehensive peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Sharon has said--and reiterated Wednesday--that he won’t resume negotiations with the Palestinians until the violence subsides. And if and when talks reopen, Sharon will seek a limited “interim” agreement of partial steps, such as the Israeli withdrawal from small parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He vehemently opposes major concessions.

Sharon and many other Israelis have concluded that a definitive peace is not possible right now with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who is widely blamed by Israelis for failing to end the bloody confrontations.

Most Israelis believe that their country’s offerings to Arafat in negotiations last year were more than generous, and his rejection of them alienated even the pro-peace left. Other Israelis in the center and on the right claim that Israel has looked weak in the face of the Palestinian uprising--despite a much higher death toll among Palestinians--and are demanding revenge.

Some analysts think Arafat will be testing and provoking the Israeli leader, trying to draw out the “old Sharon.”

Security issues aren’t the only barometer of the new government’s rightward tilt.

The Cabinet will contain veteran peacemaker Shimon Peres, elder statesman of the center-left Labor Party, heading the Foreign Ministry. He will undoubtedly serve as a key link to Arafat, but some Israeli analysts believe that Sharon will marginalize him.

Hard-liners control nearly all other important ministries, including Public Security, Interior, Defense, Communications and Infrastructure--the last one key in the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, a practice considered illegal by the world community and one of the sorest points with the Palestinians.

At the Education Ministry, Sharon appointed Limor Livnat, from his own right-wing Likud Party. She promised Wednesday to restore “the values of Judaism and Zionism” to Israeli education--a slap at outgoing Education Minister Yossi Sarid, a leftist who won both praise and scorn for revamping Israeli curricula to teach Jewish children about slayings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the early years of the state.

Sharon also included in his Cabinet one of Israel’s most controversial politicians, Rehavam Zeevi, a right-wing ideologue who advocates a harsh crackdown on Palestinians--as well as the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories.

“The term ‘can’t be done’ does not exist for the Israeli army,” Zeevi said Wednesday. “Everything can be done. But everything has a price.”

Landslide Win Gives Government a Mandate

Sharon comes to power with modest goals--in contrast to his predecessor, the now disgraced Ehud Barak, who took office promising to end decades of Arab-Israeli conflict, with both the Palestinians and Syrians, in about a year’s time.

At least initially, the white-haired, heftily built Sharon will have a relative free hand to do what he chooses, given the size of his electoral mandate and wide support in parliament.

“He is the boss,” said a U.S. diplomatic official. “He knows it and will exercise his authority, perhaps with less of the hubris we saw with the last two prime ministers,” he said, referring to Barak and the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

Despite the controversies that dogged his career, Sharon was also a military hero whose crossing of the Suez Canal turned the tide of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. But in the darkest chapter of his history, an Israeli tribunal held him indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by an allied Christian militia in Lebanon in 1982. The refugee camps were under Israeli control at the time, and Sharon lost his job as defense minister.

Gradually, he managed to rehabilitate himself, serving in other Cabinet posts through the years and wresting control of the Likud Party leadership in 1999.

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Milestones for Sharon

The major events in the life of Ariel Sharon:

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1928: Born to Russian immigrants in a farming community outside Tel Aviv on Feb. 26.

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1948: After fighting in a Jewish militia opposed to British control, serves with distinction in Israel’s War of Independence against Arab states.

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1953: Heads Unit 101, a force carrying out reprisals for the slaying of an Israeli woman and her two children. In October, Sharon’s troops blow up 45 houses in Kibya, a village in the West Bank, then ruled by Jordan. Sixty-nine Arabs die, about half of them women and children. Sharon says later that he thought the houses were empty.

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1967: Praised for his command of an armored division in the Middle East War, in which Israel captures the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai peninsula.

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1970s, ‘80s, early ‘90s: As government minister, leads the push to build dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, despite Palestinian and international protests.

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1982: As defense minister, engineers Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. An Israeli-allied Christian militia kills hundreds of Palestinians at refugee camps in West Beirut, sparking international outrage that leads to Sharon’s firing.

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2000: Sharon visits the disputed Temple Mount on Sept. 28 to emphasize Israel’s claim of sovereignty over Jerusalem. Muslims, who call the site the Noble Sanctuary, are outraged, and widespread violence breaks out a day later. The bloodshed sparks a political crisis in Israel, leading to Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s resignation. Sharon defeats Barak on Feb. 6, 2001.

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Source: Times wire reports