Why Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza [Archive]

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August 25th, 2005, 04:42 PM

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Pullout leaves Sharon on slippery political ground By Andrea Stone, USA TODAYThu Aug 25, 7:29 AM ET

Ariel Sharon once exhorted his country's youth to "grab the hilltops" to expand Israel's settlements on Palestinian land. Last week, he gave back hilltops and sand dunes as part of Israel's unprecedented withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

Now, the first Israeli prime minister to give up territory for a future Palestinian state is working to make sure his political career isn't left in the dust as he prepares for possible elections next year.

"Sharon is in a very unusual position for any politician," Hebrew University political scientist Shlomo Avineri says. "He doesn't have a majority in his own (Likud) party, but he's more popular in the general electorate than any other Israeli leader in living memory."

The prime minister enraged members of Likud when he announced his controversial "disengagement" plan in December 2003. For the secular, right-wing party, it was a betrayal of its cherished notion of a "Greater Israel" - the idea that Israel should annex all the land captured from Arabs in 1967 between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

How could the father of the settler movement send bulldozers to knock down Jewish houses?

Sharon "had a moment of truth, a reality check," Avineri says. If Israel didn't leave Gaza, Palestinians would soon outnumber Jews in Israel and the territories under its control. The world's only Jewish state would be a demographic time bomb that Sharon helped light, Avineri says.

The pullout means "Greater Israel is no longer relevant," says historian Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center here. "The whole Israeli political system is in upheaval, and Sharon is riding the wave of that upheaval."

At 77, Sharon has been at the crest of every major milestone in Israeli history. He started as an infantry officer in Israel's 1948 war of independence and fought in the country's 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars. As defense minister in 1982, he ignored orders and widened Israel's incursion into Lebanon, resulting in a costly and unpopular 18-year occupation.

Sharon was forced to resign in 1983 after an Israeli commission found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of Palestinian refugees by Christian militiamen at camps in Israeli-occupied Lebanon.

Sharon, a larger-than-life figure whose girth has grown with his power, gradually worked his way back to the top.

His September 2000 visit to Jerusalem's holy Temple Mount helped spark the Palestinian uprising. Even so, Sharon rode a tough-on-terrorism platform to the prime minister's office four months later.

To Israel's dovish left, Sharon "was the villain of Israeli politics," says Uzi Benziman, author of a Sharon biography. But he says the about-face on settlements was "classic Sharon. He's a man who really has no inhibitions."

Israelis are still reeling from their own Nixon-goes-to-China moment. "No other politician had the toughness and the determination to do what he did in the face of the kind of opposition and criticism he faced," said Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak. "He's a tough guy."

It's too early to know whether he is tough enough to win elections that could be held as early as spring. Sharon's pullout policy split Likud. Security around the prime minister is tight even by Israeli standards.

Last month, radical religious Zionists prayed for his death. The group held a similar ritual in 1995 a few weeks before a right-wing extremist assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Sharon is "a political dead man," says Yisrael Medad, a West Bank settler leader. "He's without a heart and without a god."

The incumbent faces an intraparty challenge from former finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who quit the Cabinet days before the pullout last week. Netanyahu says Israel rewarded Palestinian terrorism by giving away territory.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, dismisses speculation Sharon will abandon Likud and jump to a Labor-led coalition if it looks like he will lose the party leadership.

He is "not going to give up the Likud without a fight," Indyk says.

Already, Sharon is courting voters on the right by calling for expansion of West Bank settlements.

Most worrisome for Sharon is the possibility Palestinians will launch a new wave of rockets and suicide bombers, which would shred his promise of more security.

"If there is violence, Sharon's chances are diminished," Avineri says. "If it's quiet, he will be vindicated" for the pullout.

Oren predicts Sharon will run on an ambiguous platform. "He will say Israel has to make painful concessions for peace and he'll leave it like that" - letting voters and the world guess at specifics.

"The secret to success in Israeli politics is in identifying the Israeli center and sticking with it," Oren says, "and Sharon is a master at identifying the center."