The Pressure On Sharon

By Matt Rees/Jerusalem

Ariel Sharon sat at the pine dining table in the big kitchen of Sycamore Farm, his sprawling cattle ranch in the Negev Desert, early last week. Dressed in casual khakis and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up, the Israeli Prime Minister dug in to a lunch of roast chicken with a friend who came to visit. The violence of the Aqsa intifadeh had interrupted Sharon's brief vacation, and the conversation turned to the wars that had threatened the country's existence, right back to the 1948 battle to establish the state, when Sharon first saw military action. "This now is a continuation of our War of Independence," he said.

As Sharon surveys the burning Palestinian territories and Israel's simmering border with Lebanon, every conflict looks existential. Sharon had a hand in each of Israel's wars, from the wound he received in the Battle of Latrun in 1948 through his controversial role as Defense Minister during the Lebanon War of 1982. In this decisive chapter of his life, the 73-year-old former general has to prepare for a kind of war and a kind of peace at the same time. The army, the right wing and his own Likud Party all want to hit the Palestinians harder; the few doves in his coalition, led by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, are desperately trying to steer Sharon away from military action. The Prime Minister himself is performing a balancing act in keeping his "national unity government" together. So far, he has fought hard and yet maintained the contacts that could lead to real negotiations; the combination has earned him a 70% approval rating. Driving it all, people close to him say, is Sharon's appreciation of the enormous challenges facing Israel.

Sharon may be overseeing a far-reaching review of Israel's entire defense policy. Sources close to the top-secret Knesset Subcommittee on Defense Planning and Policy tell TIME that plans are being considered to change Israel's defense structure in response to the intifadeh. One proposal would see the formation of something like a citizens' army--locally based reserve units, manned by townspeople who would quickly counter the threat of Palestinian guerrilla incursions inside Israel. At present, reserve soldiers report to units in bases distant from their homes. In the event of a war, small guerrilla attacks by Palestinians in the center of Israel, where the country is just eight miles wide, could prevent many soldiers from reaching their units for days. As the intifadeh rolls on, the Palestinian fighters who shoot guns and mortars across the Green Line have highlighted this very scenario. Lawmakers on the subcommittee are barred from commenting on the proposed reforms, but its chairman, Yuval Steinitz of the Likud Party, confirms that the intifadeh has forced a rethink. "When we see what the Palestinians have done in the last year, we see that it's an actual threat," says Steinitz. "We have to make preparations that are completely different."

Such preparations assume a constant state of war, or something so close to it that the precise term makes little difference. But to satisfy Israel's remaining doves, Sharon also has to contemplate a sort of peace with the Palestinians, albeit one very different from that bruited at the failed Camp David summit between Arafat and Ehud Barak last year. While Barak wanted to negotiate an end to the conflict, Sharon is looking for what his aides call a "long-term interim settlement." To counter Israel's vulnerability, Sharon's advisers say he intends to insist on buffer zones both along the inside of the West Bank where it borders Israel and in the Jordan Valley. Advisers say Sharon is convinced that ground forces are decisive in war, and for that you need to keep hold of territory.

If Sharon imagines a muscular sort of peace, Peres, despite all the setbacks, still dreams of something softer. Peres and Sharon go back more than a half-century; as a defense ministry official, Peres introduced the firebrand young officer to Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, in 1948. Now--sometimes comrades, sometimes rivals--the two are vying to see whose vision for peace will triumph. In his Tel Aviv office Friday morning, the 78-year-old Foreign Minister rubbed his lined face tiredly and hunched over a cup of strong, bitter black coffee that Israelis call botz, or mud. On the shelf behind his chair stood the parchment certifying his award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. Peres still yearns to live up to that legacy, but it's not easy. "It's been a hell of a week," he sighs.

Peres was instrumental in defusing the battle for Beit Jala last week--a battle that grew partially out of Sharon's need to ensure that Arafat doesn't view him as a weak leader. The Palestinian-controlled town has been the base for gunmen shooting at the Gilo neighborhood on the edge of Jerusalem. Two weeks ago, Sharon said the next time a Palestinian shot "a single bullet" at Gilo, he'd invade Beit Jala. On Monday, after an Israeli missile killed the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa, the bullets flew. Government ministers say Sharon felt he had put his credibility on the line. Israeli tanks and infantry dug in at the top of the hill where Beit Jala sits, overlooking Bethlehem. But the shooting continued. Sharon told Peres to call Arafat again. "If they stop the shooting, we'll leave the place," he said.

It took more than a day of feverish diplomacy for Peres to bring Arafat around. Sharon updated his ministers on Arafat's commitment Wednesday night. "Of course, our working assumption must be that Arafat's going to keep his word," Sharon said, then smiled, sardonically. The Cabinet burst into laughter. At 2 a.m., Sharon called Colin Powell to tell him the Israelis were out of Beit Jala and asked him to pass a message to the Palestinian leader. "If there's more shooting, it has to be clear to Arafat that we'll go back again to Beit Jala," he said. "With much more effective force."

Sharon knew the retreat risked the wrath of Israel's right wing. For on the world stage, Arafat gives no quarter; at the U.N. conference on racism in South Africa last week, he condemned what he called Israel's "colonial, racist plot" against the Palestinians. Settlers who live in Israeli outposts in the West Bank and Gaza have long considered the Prime Minister one of their champions. Almost three months ago, Sharon visited the hospital bedside of a five-month-old boy injured by a stone thrown at his parents' car as they drove to their home in the Shilo settlement. The baby died soon after, and Sharon was deeply affected by the tragedy. Still, though Sharon may sympathize with the settlers' plight, they chafe at what they consider his restraint. So do Likud activists, furious that their leader isn't taking a harder line. Sharon is doing his best to soothe his party rank and file, stopping in at their weddings and dinners. The army too wants the Prime Minister to do more; the generals would like Sharon officially to declare Arafat and his Palestinian Authority an enemy. "The army is pushing harder and harder to attack the Palestinians, all the time," says Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit. "Sharon's in very difficult circumstances."

Meanwhile, Israel's other old man goes about his business; searching for a cease-fire. Peres is trying to set up a meeting this week with Arafat. He has Sharon's blessing. But if the near war stops, the world will be waiting to see how Sharon builds a near peace. Arafat will demand all kinds of "confidence-building measures" like land transfers, let alone the big concessions on Jerusalem and refugees needed to ink a major deal. In Sharon's mind--and doubtless in that of many others who remember the War of Independence--such issues touch on the very nature of the state for whose birth they fought more than 50 years ago. These days, for Ariel Sharon, Israel's past isn't prologue; in fact, it isn't even the past.

--With reporting by Aharon Klein and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem

With reporting by Aharon Klein and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem