KNOWING WHEN TO WALK AWAY:

Hooked on winning: Sharon knows it's time to cash in his chips and claim the prize of Greater Israel, but his party wants to gamble on (Jonathan Freedland, August 25, 2004, The Guardian)

Sharon is on a winning streak: each spin brings more chips to his pile. He calmly stacks up his winnings, calculating the odds. His partner is not so cool: she's getting excited. Finally, Sharon decides he has hit his peak; the heap of chips before him is not going to get any bigger. He wants to cash in his winnings.

"You can't leave now!" insists his companion, firmly pushing him back into his seat. "We're winning. Let's keep playing! Who knows? We might take the lot!" Sharon is determined to quit while he's ahead; his Likud partner won't let him.

OK, so the bit about Sharon looking slim in his tux is a bit fanciful - but that, in essence, is the situation currently playing out in Israeli politics. Ariel Sharon has spent the best part of four decades gambling for the prize that is Greater Israel: a Jewish state in roomier, more spacious borders than those that confined it until 1967. Bit by bit his pile of chips - in the form of the network of settlements that dot the West Bank and Gaza - has got larger.

About a year ago he calculated that it was time to visit the cashier and realise his gains. Sure, he would have to leave behind the last prize on the table - the Gaza Strip - but, in return, he would be able to keep choice cuts of the West Bank. Not Greatest Israel, perhaps, but Greater Israel most definitely. What's more, he would do so with the explicit backing of the US president, defying all those who insisted that any gains Israel made after 1967 would eventually have to be handed back.

Sharon reached his assessment by looking around the table. He concluded that his Palestinian rival was weaker than ever before. Ostracised internationally, faulted for failing both to improve security and to reform the way the Palestinian Authority does business, Yasser Arafat now faces an internal revolt. Last month it came on the streets of Gaza, with anti-Arafat riots; yesterday it took the form of a vote of no-confidence, slated for a meeting of the Palestine Legislative Council. Hobbled by long-standing accusations of corruption, the only peace process Arafat is engaged in right now is between himself and the disaffected within his own ranks.

The Israeli prime minister also noticed a change in the demeanour of the dealer at the table. For years the US sought to be an honest broker, insisting it showed no favour to either of the competing players. But since George W Bush took up the job, that neutrality has been shelved. Washington won't so much as meet the Palestinian leader; meanwhile the White House's Middle East coordinator takes his summer holidays in Israel. With an election looming, and a Bush campaign determined to peel off at least some of the 80% of Jews who traditionally vote Democrat, Sharon gambled that this was the year when Washington would not dare refuse him.

Taken together, these amount to the most conducive circumstances advocates of Greater Israel are ever likely to enjoy. Wait around and the weather could change, Sharon reasons, bringing either a renewed Palestinian leadership or a John Kerry presidency - either of which could revive the old demand that Israel give up most of the territories it gained in 1967.

Interesting that even the Guardian recognizes a Kerry election as being bad for Israel.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 28, 2004 6:20 AM