THE HARD LINE AGAINST REALITY:

Ariel Sharon's new politics (Bob Zelnick, November 23, 2005, Boston Globe)

WHEN I heard that Ariel Sharon had decided to abandon his quest for support from his Likud Party and run instead on his new Party of National Responsibility, my first thought was that Tsipi Livni was wrong and Ehud Olmert was right.

Livni is the minister of justice, the daughter of a famous Irgun warrior, and perhaps the most powerful woman in Israel today. She supported Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and a handful of West Bank settlements. When I interviewed her at her office in East Jerusalem last Aug. 14, she insisted that except for the religious right, which opposes giving up any part of biblical Israel, the differences within Likud involved means and not ends. Some would have preferred an agreement, others resented concessions made in the face of terrorism, but anyone favoring a two-state solution would concede that Gaza could not be retained. ''So now we are talking about tactical issues," she said. ''It's not ideology." The rift in her party could heal.

Three days later I visited Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the gravel-voiced, cigar smoking former Jerusalem mayor who had become Sharon's closest confidant. Olmert had long been convinced that the failure of western Jews to immigrate in large numbers meant that the notion of Greater Israel must yield to the demographic necessity of a two-state solution.

The same sorts of folks who think Israel shouldn't give up any territory think the US should keep troops in Iraq in perpetuity.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 23, 2005 9:10 AM