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Sharon Makes Sharp Right Turn |
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By Bradley Burston TEL AVIV, Apr 22, 2002 -- Dismissing any cabinet talk of compromise over settlements - a pivotal issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appears to have signaled an abrupt right-face in early preparations for a re-election campaign, stirring speculation that his coalition may be dismantled within two months. In recent weeks, buoyed by rising domestic popularity as a West Bank military onslaught appeared to have blunted a torrent of Palestinian suicide bombings, the Likud prime minister has marched to a tune decidedly to the right of the left-centrist Labor Party. Sharon shored up the government's hawkish flank by incorporating the settler-dominated National Religious Party, newly led by the rising star of the radical right, Effi Eitam, a former brigadier general viewed by many religious Israelis as the NRP's warrior-prophet. Adding to the atmosphere of a coalition on the wane, Sharon's longtime senior aide and confidante, Uri Shani, jumped ship at the weekend, resigning as the prime minister's right-hand man. The departure of close aides has often preceded the breakup of past Israeli governments. Observers have noted that, in embarking on a re-election campaign, Sharon has little option but to make a sharp turn to the right in order to cut off the bandwagon of his main Likud rival, hawkish former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, Israeli security analysts, among them large numbers of former generals, spymasters and police commanders, have publicly advocated taking apart sparsely populated remote settlements, a number of which are each guarded by a full battalion of Israel Defense Forces troops, who serve as frequent targets of attack by a host of Palestinian militant groups. Last Friday, Israel's Channel Two quoted unnamed senior army brass as recommending that isolated enclaves be evacuated, primarily in the Gaza Strip. It was this report, seconded by Labor secretary-general Ra'anan Cohen, that sparked Sharon's fury at the cabinet session. In a testy, fist-slamming exchange during the Sunday cabinet session, Sharon not only ruled out the idea of dismantling settlements as a gesture of compromise, but vetoed any further cabinet discussion on the subject - at least until he leaves office. If re-elected, Sharon could serve until the year 2007 and beyond. "If, in fact, he insists on maintaining this position of his, I think that he has shown us the exit door," said Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, whose father, slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, enraged the settler movement by agreeing to a freeze on new settlement construction when he signed the September, 1993 Oslo peace accords with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin-Pelossof is a close associate of Labor Party chairman Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who has served as Sharon's defense minister since the establishment of the unity coalition in March of last year. In the past, Sharon - who, as defense minister, personally oversaw the evacuation of settlements in Sinai in 1982 under a landmark peace treaty with Egypt - had pledged his willingness to make "painful compromises for peace," including agreement to an independent Palestinian state. But if inflexibility over the settlement issue is to be the watchword of the Sharon government, "the Labor Party no longer has a partnership with it," Rabin-Pelossof said. Labor leaders had been reluctant even to broach the possibility of a break-up in the midst of a war, fearing that the public would perceive the move as a betrayal of the military effort. Now, however, senior Labor figures have begun speaking of a timetable for their own withdrawal from power. Cohen said Monday that if the government continues to reject compromise and dismiss out of hand such peace initiatives as the Saudi land-for-peace proposal, Labor "must leave the government by the next party congress," which could be convened as early as June 11. "The Labor Party has no place in this government, if it has no influence," Cohen said. "This is a strong government that wants to show a diplomatic horizon, but to my regret, from the answers that I received, it's easy to understand that there is no diplomatic horizon on the horizon." Despite the growing restiveness of Labor moderates, reports that the Likud-Labor marriage was on the rocks were likely to prove premature, cautioned Ha'aretz commentator Akiva Eldar. "To be fair, Dalia's father never removed a single settlement, including the small Hebron enclave following the Goldstein massacre, even though there were those who recommended he do so at the time [of the February, 1994, incident in which Hebron-area settler Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Muslims while they were at prayer]." Then prime minister Rabin also turned down the request of his Labor colleague Shimon Peres to take apart Gaza's flash-point settlement of Netzarim, Eldar notes: "So the Labor Party did not set a precedent that was particularly marked in its generosity." Moreover, it was Ben-Eliezer's own ministry that recently approved the building of new settler structures in Hebron, "ground zero" of the settlement entity. In any case, Eldar says, even if Sharon wanted nothing better than to have Labor bolt his coalition, in order to position himself for re-election, the task may be much harder than it appears, especially since Ben-Eliezer is generally viewed as strongly devoted to his position as defense minister. Alluding to Sharon's bitter feuds with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, Eldar quipped, "to cause Ben-Eliezer to leave the government, Sharon will have to declare him persona non grata and expel him, otherwise it simply won't happen." © Ha'aretz, 2002. All rights reserved. Distributed in partnership with Globalvision News Network (www.gvnews.net). |
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