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Sharon Faces a Home-Front War over Palestine Card |
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By Bradley Burston TEL AVIV, May 2, 2002 -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hopes to meet U.S. President George Bush armed with a fresh peace plan during a scheduled Washington visit next week, but rivals in his hawkish Likud hope to deprive him of a key bargaining chip in future talks with the Palestinians: the prospect of Israeli endorsement of an independent Palestine. The Bush administration has repeatedly underscored its support for a Palestinian state, established alongside Israel and established with Israeli consent. Sharon himself shocked Likud colleagues early in his premiership by stating that Israel was willing to grant the Palestinians what no other ruler in the Holy Land had ever given them: a state of their own. Sharon told ABC Television's "Nightline" this week that "I'll be presenting a plan, a serious plan, maybe the most serious that has been presented by now, how to reach peace in the Middle East, how to reach peace between us and the Palestinians." At the same time, hardline Likud forces hoping to stage a palace revolt and depose Sharon in favor of former Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, made it plain Thursday that the statehood issue would be a central weapon in their campaign to unseat the prime minister. Sharon has kept mum of late on the statehood question, as ex-prime minister and fellow hawk Netanyahu maintained a drumbeat of criticism of all conciliatory government moves regarding the Palestinians. The right-wing backlash comes amid recent polls showing unprecedented Israeli public support for Sharon. Bolstered by a lull in terror attacks in the wake of his recent West Bank offensive, Sharon's popularity has lately risen to levels unseen in past Israeli premiership polls, hitting a 70-percent approval rating in a poll released last week. Moreover, surveys indicate that as the electorate has become steadily more pessimistic in the months of fighting with the Palestinians, Israeli grass-roots support for a Palestinian state under a future peace treaty has grown to an all-time high. Nonetheless, before Sharon can hope to win re-election in a national vote slated for no later than next year, he must first win an internal primary vote among Likud rank-and-file - a group in which Sharon's support is ironically weak. In the latest internal Likud poll commissioned by Netanyahu's forces and leaked to Army Radio, the former prime minister would defeat Sharon by a margin of 50-24 percent if the primaries had been held this week. In a bid to corner Sharon on the issue, the Likud Central Committee, scheduled to convene in the middle of this month, may vote on a resolution condemning an independent Palestinian state. The wording of the resolution, which rules out "any Palestinian state between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean," is viewed as a direct dig at Sharon, who once railed against Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, declaring that "Jordan is [the real] Palestine." Hardline Likud cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi on Thursday sent a strong if indirect hint to the prime minister, signalling him to get aboard the anti-statehood express before it left the station. The present Israeli political constellation made it an effective impossibility for Sharon to raise the issue of a Palestinian state or to endorse it publicly, Hanegbi cautioned. "The great majority of the [rightist] camp that the prime minister represents, the overwhelming majority of the Likud and the parties that are its partner in the coalition are certainly unwilling to raise the issue [an offer of statehood]," Hanegbi said. Yisrael Katz, Netanyahu's point man in the Knesset and in the party, foresaw an "enormous majority" in the Central Committee for the anti-statehood plank. Katz said Sharon's support within the party was already hit hard this week, after the prime minister accepted a Bush administration compromise under which Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was freed Thursday from the IDF-enforced house arrest that the prime minister imposed on the Palestinian leader a month ago. Prior to his reversal, Sharon had said Arafat would remained caged in his Ramallah office until the murderers of slain tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi were handed over to Israel. Katz said that most Likud members wanted Arafat's regime "gotten rid of," and that the moment that Sharon freed the Palestinian leader, the situation had returned to square one. "Once again we'll get incitement, and the terror that derives from it, and therefore there is disappointment, and support for Netanyahu's line." Netanyahu took to the airwaves himself Thursday, indirectly but unmistakably blasting Sharon for initially agreeing to the "farce" of a UN probe into IDF operations in the Jenin refugee camp, and bowing to the Washington-mediated Arafat release. He also said Sharon began his West Bank operation much too late, and ended it much too early. "What has [Sharon done recently] that is good for the country?" Netanyahu asked. "Making Arafat a hero? That we'll need to mobilizing more reservists, that more of our people will need to die in more massacres?" As the expected intraparty dogfight neared, senior Likud cabinet ministers, speaking under condition of anonymity, told Ha'aretz correspondent Yossi Verter that in the end, the statehood vote could prove a "political disaster" for Israel as well as Sharon. "The world could interpret it as an unequivocal statement by a ruling party against any chance for peace with the Palestinians in the present and future," said one minister. "Because if the proposal is accepted, none of Sharon's statement's about agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian state or 'painful concessions' for peace, will have any meaning." © Ha'aretz, 2002. All rights reserved. Distributed in partnership with Globalvision News Network (www.gvnews.net). |
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