Sharon Is Moving, Though Slowly

By Gershom Gorenberg
December 23, 2003

'The size of the disappointment matches the size of the expectations," goes a Hebrew saying. That near-mathematic formula describes much of the reaction in Israel to Ariel Sharon's speech last week, billed beforehand as heralding a whole new policy on the conflict with the Palestinians.

And yet the speech does give some cause for cautious hope - and creates a challenge for both the Palestinians and the U.S. administration. While Sharon gave very little ground, he demonstrated that he faces growing public pressure for compromise instead of holding tough.

Sharon addressed an annual meeting of policymakers, in what's become an unofficial "state of the nation" talk. Based on advance leaks from the usual unreliable sources, there was even betting in the press corps that the hard-line prime minister would announce plans to dismantle Netzarim, in Gaza, the most isolated - and unpopular - of Israeli settlements in the first step toward disentanglement from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Instead, Sharon appeared more interested in buying time. For the U.S.-backed "road map" for peace to work, he said, the Palestinian Authority has to clamp down on terror. Otherwise, Israel will unilaterally pull out of part of the occupied territories, to lines it will set itself. When will that happen? "In a few months," Sharon said, a pledge so vague as to be meaningless.

The pullback will require moving some settlements, he said - but he refused to say which ones. Taking action on that promise would push two hard-right parties out of Sharon's ruling coalition and could crack his own Likud party in half - a political meltdown Sharon is hardly eager to set off.

Sharon promised, yet again, to meet his own road-map obligations by removing "outposts" - tiny settlements established in recent years in violation of Israeli law. It's a promise he has broken so many times already that one can only say, "I'll believe it when I see it."

Sharon's aim, it appears, was to convince his public that he has adopted a new direction, while putting off the need to act. Indirectly, he acknowledged growing domestic unhappiness with his policies. Despite his promises to end terror by military means, the average Israeli still has to suppress fear to get on a city bus. While Sharon spoke of the need to reach a per-capita income on par with developed European countries, every citizen knows the conflict with the Palestinians has shattered the economy.

Most telling was Sharon's mention of a "Jewish and democratic Israel." That was lip service to intense concern in recent weeks of the risk that Arabs are on the verge of becoming a majority in the combined territory of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. For years, the left has warned that Israel can't hold occupied land and remain both Jewish and democratic.

Suddenly, the message has seized public attention. Even Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a second-generation right-wing politico, has called for an Israeli pullback in order to maintain a Jewish majority.

So that's the first cause for optimism: Three years after the collapse of the Oslo process, a year after the intransigent Sharon's landslide election victory, intransigence is losing popularity. Sharon's parliamentary majority is showing fractures.

Even among his core right-wing constituency, more people recognize that Israel must choose pragmatism over the fantasy of the "Complete Land of Israel." That public shift is the essential first condition for ending the occupation and for renewed efforts to make peace with the Palestinians. And, despite his hard-line inclinations, Sharon finds it necessary to pay lip service to pragmatism.

In doing so, Sharon is likely to hasten the process. Having spoken of the need to cede land and move settlements, he has further legitimated withdrawal. Willingly or not, he has helped shift the debate: Now the question is how far to pull back, and whether to do so unilaterally or in a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Here lies the challenge: A unilateral pullout to an unnegotiated line might ensure Israel's Jewish majority, but will also ensure continued conflict in the Middle East. Many Israelis see that as an option only because the Palestinians have shown too little willingness to stop terror, too little readiness to make their own hard concessions.

And the one potential broker for a peace deal, the United States, dropped out of diplomacy when George W. Bush moved into the White House. Just when America was needed most as facilitator, it vanished for all practical purposes. Bush's diplomatic efforts have been too sporadic even to be noticeable.

Sharon, despite himself, has shown that the political pendulum is swinging in Israel. There's a potential for peacemaking. Whether that potential is exploited depends not only on Israelis but on Palestinians as well - and on Washington.

Gershom Gorenberg is associate editor of the The Jerusalem Report and the author of "The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount."