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David Horovitz: Sharon Loses Israel

For more than two years -- through his first term as prime minister, and into his second -- Ariel Sharon led the national consensus. Few Israelis blamed him for the relentless suicide bombings, regarding him as having inherited an intolerable security situation from the failed government of Ehud Barak. Most approved of his actions -- from bans on Palestinian workers entering Israel, to curfews and closures, incursions into the territories, the killings of bombers en route, and the wider "targeted strikes" on the Hamas hard core and other intifada kingpins -- despite the fact that they were failing to thwart attacks. And his intermittent talk of a readiness to make "painful concessions," along with his continuing support for settlement expansion, combined to convince the mainstream -- from center right to center left -- that he represented them.

But in the last few weeks, especially since the bombings at Tsrifin army base and Jerusalem�s Caf� Hillel that brought him rushing home from his India visit, Sharon has lost Israel. His insistence that he knows what he is doing, and that what he is doing will ensure the minimal loss of Israeli life and the maximal advancement of Israeli interests, is no longer credible. He never said he had a vision, but he said he had a plan. Few still believe him. His policies are simply too inconsistent.

Take the "Arafat issue." The Sharon cabinet�s decision-in-principle to "remove" the elected leader of the Palestinians after the twin bombings

boosted Palestinian support for Arafat, and reversed the "marginalization" that Sharon had sought. Many Israelis wondered why Arafat�s removal was now deemed beneficial when Sharon had, for so long, endorsed the intelligence community�s advice that it would be counterproductive. In any case, why did Sharon not just quietly have Arafat deported or killed, rather than making declarations? The prime minister did maintain the approval of some on the right who, though disappointed that deportation was not immediate, were pleased that it was plainly imminent. But then came the Haifa restaurant bombing and still Sharon didn�t touch Arafat, who condemned the outrage in English even as his PA TV station aired video clips calling Palestinian youth to martyrdom. And after that, with Arafat�s health failing in early October, the government intimated that the Palestinian leader might be allowed to leave Ramallah for hospitalization overseas and then to return -- for humanitarian reasons. Is this a vicious enemy whose presence can no longer be tolerated? Or an ailing senior citizen, to be treated with kid gloves?

Then there are the prisoner releases. This summer, when the Palestinian Authority had a prime minister, Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who declared his determination to end the armed intifada and in whom Sharon evinced confidence, the government refused to sanction a large-scale release of Palestinian security prisoners. Abu Mazen pleaded, telling Sharon that a dramatic return home of intifada offenders would hugely boost his credibility -- and thus give weight to his calls to stop the bombings. But Israel�s government said there was too high a risk that freed prisoners would go straight back to shooting and bombing. This decision was far from the sole cause of Abu Mazen�s resignation, but it was a factor. Yet, in recent weeks, a mass prisoner release has been contemplated -- and supported by Sharon -- in return for three soldiers

whom the army has proclaimed dead and a businessman held by Hizballah in Lebanon. In other words, the prime minister is prepared to breach the principle of "no negotiations with terrorists" and release hundreds of dangerous men to an organization dedicated to Israel�s elimination, giving it a boost by having extorted their freedom. But he was not prepared to free them to strengthen a man he trusted and who hoped their release would advance prospects for an end to the intifada.

There are, sadly, other examples increasingly perceived by Israelis as evidence of a government whose policies don�t make sense. The raid on an empty training base in Syria was condemned not just in most international capitals but by the Israeli right, as a transparent diversionary tactic ordered because Sharon felt he needed to do "something" after the Haifa blast. There was a time when, if Israel believed arch-terrorists were plotting mass murder from a "safe haven" in enemy territory, the Mossad would be quietly dispatched and a deterrent lesson taught. Nowadays, F-16s strike thunderously at empty targets, and the international community forgets the suicide-bombing that prompted the raid and castigates Israel for aggression.

To the despair of the left, Sharon is delaying completion of the security fence -- and planning to leave a "Bombers, this way please" gap in the barrier, parallel with Ariel, to avoid antagonizing the settlers -- but has spurned new PA Prime Minister Abu Ala�s overtures for a permanent cease-fire. To the fury of the right, he is proving indecisive over Arafat, and still failing to fight the bombers with the necessary ruthlessness. To many, the fact that Sheikh Yassin and the rest of the Hamas leadership, the notorious bomb-maker Muhammad Deif included, were allowed to walk free from a lightly bombed Gaza apartment building a few weeks ago to plot new atrocities -- because Israel feared dozens of civilian fatalities if it used heavier explosives -- was testament to a lack of clear purpose and a mistaken conception of morality.

Israeli prime ministers can fall in any number of ways, including seemingly marginal domestic disputes (the current row between Shinui and the National Religious Party over dismantling the Religious Affairs Ministry?) and financial scandals (Sharon is allegedly involved in several). But whatever the specific cause turns out to be, the countdown has begun. The Israeli public has lost faith in Ariel Sharon. His critics regard him as vulnerable. And that is all it takes to embolden the rivals.