THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE:

Sharon ‘will pull out’ of Gaza Strip: Israel’s prime minister is unbowed by Likud’s rejection of his peace plan (Robert Tait, 09 May 2004, Sunday Herald)

The main criticism in the aftermath of the debacle was of Sharon’s “frivolous” decision to put a question of such national importance to an internal party vote in the first place, rather than either rely on the support of his coalition Cabinet or call a nationwide plebiscite.

In an editorial headlined “An Unnecessary Crisis”, the liberal-leaning Haaretz newspaper wrote of Sharon’s strategy: “Going to a party referendum created the false impression that a relevant majority rejected disen gagement. Now [Sharon] must take action to erase that impression. It has harmed the proper administration of government which, on such matters of national importance, a majority in favour or opposed must reflect the complete political landscape.”

Sharon, in the view of some commentators, has little alternative but to stay the course. The most recent international peace plan, the so-called “road map”, has scant support in Israel, while in Washington, Bush has little desire to re-visit the Israeli-Palestinian issue during the throes of a difficult re-election campaign and the deepening crisis of the Iraqi occupation.

The question now is what domestic political tactics Sharon deploys to re-establish his policy’s credibility. “Either he changes his coalition by bringing in Labour and kicking out the right wing, or he goes for a national referendum. In the end, I think he will opt for the latter,” said Professor Shmuel Sandler, an analyst at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University.

“Originally, he rejected the national referendum idea as time-consuming when he wanted to push ahead – he saw the Likud referendum as a short-cut and thought he could squeeze through. Now he’s going to have to take the long way round. Assuming Bush gets re-elected in November, Sharon has probably six months to come up with something.”

As long as he recognizes that he has to ignore the recent vote and Likud along with it he can still do the right thing. Meanwhile, if you're over forty, you can turn to the person next to you and marvel at having lived long enough to see the day when Ariel Sharon became the very vision of an Israeli moderate.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2004 5:13 PM