Unmaking Sharon

By Graham Usher
On 8 January tens of thousands of Israeli Jews gathered before the floodlit ramparts of the Old City to "pledge allegiance" to Jerusalem as the united, eternal capital of Israel. They danced alongside its walls, surged up Jaffa Street and down Road Number One, the highway that today marks the border where the Green Line used to run. But not a single one spilled over onto the eastern side of the city. For most Israeli Jews, Palestinian Jerusalem is instinctively off-limits. And this is because it is not "united". It is under occupation.
Not that such political and national realities were going to spoil this Jerusalem bash. Billed as a "non-partisan solidarity demonstration" against any division of Jerusalem, the party was actually the opening salvo in Ariel Sharon's campaign to become Israel's prime minister on 6 February. The gathering was peopled by his staunchest constituencies: Israeli nationalists from his Likud Party and National Religious Jews from the settler movements.
The fact that Sharon did not show at the rally is entirely in keeping with his campaign strategy. For that intends to erase from the Israeli collective memory such minor blemishes as his role in the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 and the recommendation by an Israeli Independent Commission that such a man should never be allowed to hold the post of defence minister. In those days the idea that Sharon could become prime minister was simply unimaginable. But times change.
And so to all electoral appearances has Sharon. Out on the stump he rarely speaks of war or even "security." He speaks of peace, but "a different peace, a safer peace, a better peace" than what either US President Bill Clinton has proposed or the Palestinians could possibly accept. On the contrary, the discourse of war belongs not to Sharon and Likud but to their main contenders, Ehud Barak and Labour.
Last week, Barak said that he had ordered his army to "shake out the dust from every corner to complete preparations" for war. This nightmare scenario was woven from a wholly idiosyncratic vision sketched by the Israeli leader. Under this, unless an agreement is signed with the Palestinians before the next Israeli elections, the Intifada will develop into a wholesale regional conflagration, burning away Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan in the blaze. The choice before the Israeli electorate on 6 February is therefore stark: vote for Barak or face the apocalypse.
Barak's warning sent shudders down the spines of the Israeli public (and a portion of the Arab public too). But it was news to the Israeli army. True, there had been an upgrade in strategic assessments that the likelihood of a regional conflict has increased due to the Palestinian uprising. But that assessment took place three months ago. Nothing since then has either heightened or lowered the chances of war. Nothing that is except Barak's desperate gamble to run head-to-head against Sharon in the race to be Israel's next prime minister.
The same cynical manipulation of the public mood can be seen in the "negative" campaign Barak and his team are waging against Sharon. The Likud leader -- who has long been a confidante of Barak -- is portrayed as the wolf who today dresses as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. It was Sharon -- intones Barak -- who took Israel into Lebanon. It was Sharon who built the "political" settlements in the West Bank and Gaza that today are proving such an "obstacle" to peace. And it was Sharon's reckless visit to the Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September that sparked the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
None of this is false by way of historical record. But coming from Barak it is utterly disingenuous. For as a then major general in the army, Barak supported Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. As prime minister, he also built more settlements in the occupied territories in his first (and probably only) year of office than Binyamin Netanyahu did in his last. And for the last three and a half months Barak has been telling all and sundry (including the Mitchell Committee established by the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit) that the Intifada had nothing to do with Sharon's visit. It was rather "orchestrated" by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to improve the Palestinians' position at the negotiating table.
Nor is he fooling anyone, least of all the Israeli electorate. The latest polls show him trailing Sharon by some 18 points. The sad truth is the more Barak bangs on about peace, war and Sharon, the fewer Israelis believe him.
In such circumstances Sharon could probably stay at home for the next month and still win the election. Instead he is preening himself as a dove and mouthing the words to Likud's campaign jingle that "Only Sharon can bring peace." But Sharon's peace is no less a fiction than is Barak's war.
In an interview last week with the Reka radio station for Israel's Russian immigrants, Sharon reminisced about the methods he had used as the head of the army's Southern Command to crush the Palestinian resistance in Gaza in 1970. He had ploughed through the camps, shot dead anyone suspected of nationalist activity and conquered the strip area by area. "I succeeded in bringing quiet to Gaza for 10 years," Sharon recalled. Would he use the same methods again? "Today the situation is different but", he added, "the principles are the same principles."
Related stories:
Talking peace, readying for war 4 - 10 January 2001
Killing as campaign strategy 4 - 10 January 2001
Barak takes the low road 14 - 20 December 2000
Facing facts 14 - 20 December 2000
Barak's last throw of the dice 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000
See Intifada in focus
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