U.S. Overtures for a Coalition Alarm Sharon

With increasing alarm, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is watching the Bush administration reach out to some of his nation’s worst enemies as potential partners in the war against global terrorism.

Sharon initially welcomed the U.S. declaration of war on terror as vindication of his government’s view that the problem is a worldwide scourge, not just an Israeli one. But the sense of satisfaction quickly gave way to trepidation as the United States began making overtures to the Palestine Liberation Organization, Syria, Lebanon and even Iran in its coalition-building campaign. Sharon had hoped that all four would be high on the administration’s target list, not among its allies.

In interviews and speeches, Sharon has repeated what has become almost a mantra for him since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: “There is no good terror and bad terror; there is only terror.”

He has warned the administration that Israel will not allow its interests to be sacrificed to the cause of hunting down Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden, who has been labeled by President Bush as the prime suspect in the attacks on the U.S. Sharon has referred to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat as “our Osama bin Laden,” despite administration objections to the characterization.

Driving home the point, Sharon has defied U.S. requests that he allow a meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Arafat to take place. Unless the Palestinian leader meets Sharon’s demand for 48 hours of no violence, the prime minister told Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, no such talks will happen.

Three times Sharon has canceled the sessions after Palestinian attacks occurred, shrugging off Peres’ warning that doing so cast Israel in the role of spoiler in the U.S. effort. It took intense pressure from Powell to win Sharon’s agreement Tuesday that a Peres-Arafat meeting could take place today if the recent calm in the West Bank and Gaza Strip holds.

In another gesture of defiance, Sharon initially canceled a meeting Tuesday with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is in the region drumming up support for the anti-terror coalition. Sharon reportedly was infuriated by Straw’s published remarks that “one of the factors contributing to the growth of terror is the anger of many people in the region about the incidents in recent years in Palestine.”

In Britain, Straw’s comments were widely viewed as an effort to offset criticism of his visit from hard-liners in Tehran. But Sharon and other Israeli leaders and commentators said the remarks came dangerously close to justifying Palestinian attacks that in the last year have claimed the lives of nearly 180 Israelis.

The British official’s statement fed fears here that the West may see Israel as part of the problem rather than part of the solution, and that Israelis will be pressured into making concessions to the Palestinians in the West’s haste to remove their conflict from the table.

It took a call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to persuade Sharon to see Straw late Tuesday.

“This is Israel trying to make sure that its legitimate interests are understood,” said Joseph Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst. “It is Israel asking the United States and the international community to be honest about what they are doing. It would be an extremely cynical move for the West, in order to get one terrorist, to climb into bed with other countries that support terrorism.”

Israel’s dilemma, Alpher said, is how to make clear its concerns without straining relations with its most important ally.

“Sharon put the fight against terrorism at the top of his agenda from the beginning,” Alpher said. “He feels that what happened in New York justified his position. Of course, he’s dismayed when, rather than being embraced now, we’re being treated as a problematic state.”

Israeli President Moshe Katsav said Tuesday that throughout his nation’s yearlong conflict with the Palestinians, and even after the attack on the U.S., “the majority of European countries have failed to learn the lesson.”

The Sept. 11 attacks “proved to the world that terrorism and cruelty have no border, that no one is immune to terrorism and that those who succeed in perpetrating terrorist attacks encourage and stimulate other terrorist organizations around the world to perpetrate more terrorist attacks,” Katsav said.

More alarming to Sharon and his security establishment was Straw’s visit Tuesday to Tehran, the first by a British foreign secretary since Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979. For most Israelis, a rapprochement between the West and the Islamic regime, the sponsor of the Islamic militant organization Hezbollah, is a nightmarish scenario. But Israel has been able to do little more than publicize Iranian connections with terrorism and fume.

“Israel is having a difficult time adjusting to the new regional reality created by the terrorist assault on America,” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper observed Tuesday.

The Israelis are still hoping that the Bush administration’s fight will expand to include groups dedicated to striking the Jewish state, such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Sharon is sending a close advisor, Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the U.S., to Washington on Oct. 6 to determine what the American agenda is. Shoval will meet with administration officials and congressional leaders.

Shoval said he will also deliver the message that “compared to Iran, Iraq and arguably also Syria, Afghanistan is an also-ran when it comes to nations who harbor or support terrorism.”