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Israel: Why Ruby Lost His Sparkle
Leslie Susser
One of the get-well telegrams Prime Minister Ariel Sharon got when being treated for gallstones on February 10 was from a former political ally, Knesset Speaker Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin. It read: "Wishing you a speedy recovery -- from Nehama and Ruby Rivlin, one of whom doesn�t think you are right."
Rivlin -- with trademark light humor masking a far deeper sense of dismay, even betrayal -- was referring to Sharon�s plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Sharon is trumpeting it as the first stage in Israeli separation from the Palestinians. Rivlin, and many others in Sharon�s Likud, see the plan as a huge blunder and as abandonment of the party�s sacred principles.
Interviewed in his Knesset bureau the next day, Rivlin keeps up a mix of nonstop political patter and irreverent wit, lacing even the gravest life and death issues with humor -- a reminder of his days as a regular on a TV humor show. But he pulls no punches: If Sharon tries to implement his plan, Rivlin predicts, the government will collapse, there will be new elections, and the Likud may go into them with a new leader. (If separation proceeds nevertheless, Rivlin says he�ll quit politics.)
Few in politics are better placed to make such judgments. Rivlin was close to Sharon; he�s a diehard Complete-Land-of-Israel ideologue, and he is a seasoned campaigner with sharp political antennae.
During Sharon�s days in the political wilderness as opposition leader, from May 1999 through most of 2000, Rivlin was virtually the only Likud Knesset member to stick by him. Before the February 2001 election, when ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to retake the party helm, Rivlin was instrumental in blocking his return. In those days, Rivlin was Sharon�s closest confidant. "If only we�d got together 20 years ago, I could have been prime minister already," Sharon once cracked.
But the easy back-and-forth banter goes only so far in covering up deep political differences. "No one ever suspected Sharon of having an ideological bone in his body," Rivlin quips wryly. For the prime minister, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, settlements "are not holy," he says -- even though Sharon was the architect of settlement policy for a series of Likud governments.
All Sharon cares about, says Rivlin, is whether settlements serve Israeli security. And despite skepticism on the left, Rivlin is convinced that Sharon is sincere about seeking separation from the Palestinians and paying the price in abandonment of some settlements. Sharon, he says, "has long crossed the point of no return."
Rivlin says Sharon first started talking about disengagement in October 2000. In talks with then-prime minister Ehud Barak on a unity government, Sharon agreed that Israel would have to reduce points of contact with the Palestinians. "When I asked what that meant," Rivlin continues, "he said straight out that we�d have to evacuate some settlements. I passed this on to the Americans and told some Israeli journalists. No one paid much attention."
Rivlin claims that, even then, Sharon was considering evacuation of 17 relatively isolated West Bank settlements. But most of the ideologues -- himself included -- tended to dismiss the strategy as mere talk.
Two years later, Rivlin says, things had changed dramatically. Sharon was prime minister and had accepted in principle the road map. Now there was an internationally backed plan, accepted by Israel�s government, based on separation and establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
"In October 2002, Sharon called me into his office and showed me a draft of the road map," recalls Rivlin, who was then communications minister and one of Sharon�s representatives in talks with the Palestinians. "I realized the moment of truth had arrived. We argued over the plan for two long nights, and I told him he was making a big mistake in approving it." At this point, Rivlin says, their paths diverged. "I told him I�d no longer be able to be a minister and would prefer to help him as Knesset Speaker" -- outside the decision-making loop -- "because I knew he was embarking on a course from which there is no return."
Still, Rivlin acknowledges that Sharon�s plan for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, announced in early February, took him by surprise. Sharon used to speak of holding Gaza as a chip for final-status talks.
But pulling out of Gaza fits the prime minister�s overall strategy, Rivlin says. For strategic reasons, he says, Sharon is determined to hold the Jordan Rift -- the strip of the West Bank along the Jordan River. "Sharon has always said Israel needs strategic depth in the Jordan Rift, enough for three divisions to fight a tank battle, about 25 kilometers. Along the Dead Sea, he wants another strip about 12 kilometers wide." That�s something no Palestinian leadership will accept. Therefore, there can be no final peace deal in the near future.
Instead, says Rivlin, Sharon seeks an attractive interim solution that will put off final-status talks for up to 20 years. Unilateral disengagement would leave the Palestinians with contiguous territory, without settlements or soldiers, in Gaza. They�ll get the same in a swathe of the West Bank between Israel�s security fence on the west and the Jordan Valley on the east.
But for Rivlin, evacuation of settlements is the top of a slippery slope. He sees Sharon�s move as reopening the "Oslo liquidation sale." "Ever since Oslo, whenever I�m interviewed on radio or TV, I say, �Good morning from Jerusalem,� because I knew once we started with Oslo, we�d end up giving away [Arab East] Jerusalem too," he says ruefully. Not that Sharon will do this, he hastens to add. But his successors will.
Rivlin envisages moves by Likud members to stop Sharon resulting in early elections, because there�s no viable alternative. The far-right parties will leave Sharon�s government if disengagement goes ahead, he notes. Ultra-Orthodox parties can�t take their place, as they and the secular Shinui party won�t join the same coalition.
In the current Knesset, he says, that leaves two other possible coalitions. A more dovish coalition of the Likud, Shinui and Labor would be unstable: left-wingers in Labor and right-wingers in the Likud would not be reliable allies.
Or there�s a more hawkish option, of the Likud with the ultra-Orthodox and hard-right parties. For that, says Rivlin, Finance Minister Netanyahu would have to lead a rebellion of Likud right-wingers and call a vote of "constructive no-confidence" in Sharon, meaning that he�d offer the Knesset an alternative government with himself as its head. But he wouldn�t do that, says Rivlin, because the minor parties in the resulting coalition would demand funding for purposes such as settlements and yeshivot, and torpedo the tight fiscal policy on which Netanyahu has staked his political future.
"Therefore," Rivlin declares, "I believe that sometime this year, we�ll set a date for elections in 2005." Then the battle for the Likud leadership will begin in earnest.
Sharon and Rivlin often used to conclude their political arguments with Rivlin calling Sharon "a Mapainik" and "Ben-Gurion�s best pupil" -- references to the first prime minister and his party�s political pragmatism. Sharon would dub Rivlin, raised on the fervent nationalism of Menachem Begin�s Herut party, "the ideologue."
Rivlin says he has seen how much Sharon loves the settlers. "But Arik," he adds pointedly, "doesn�t see concessions as sacrilege, the way we [born-and-bred rightists] do." Rather, "Sharon is a pragmatist who understands that America is the global sheriff and that he needs American help, and that to end the economic crisis, he needs to open Israel up to Europe and the rest of the world." The secular Rivlin is often drawn to religious terms. "Asking an ideologue like myself to give up settlements to improve Israel�s standing in the world is like asking a religious Jew to eat pork. He�ll say I�d rather eat grass or die." To follow Sharon, Rivlin says he�d need to undergo a "religious conversion," and he just can�t do it.
The Rivlin family came to Jerusalem in 1809, on the say-so of the Vilna Gaon. For generations, they lived in a milieu in which Jews and Arabs mingled naturally. Rivlin�s father, Yosef Yoel Rivlin, a professor of Arabic who translated the Koran into Hebrew, had many close Arab friends.
Rivlin argues that separation between Israelis and Palestinians is simply not possible. The economy won�t allow it, nor will the geography. Instead, he proposes a confederation with Jordan, in which Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza have Jordanian citizenship and voting rights, while the settlements stay in place. There will be three entities in a single condominium: "Israel, Jordan and the territories. And we will all live together with open borders," he says, albeit without much apparent conviction.
But even if he realizes that his proposal isn�t realistic, he clings to the idea, because he believes the strands of Israeli and Palestinian life can�t be unraveled. "For every guest who comes to my office," says Rivlin, rising from his chair to illustrate, "I open this curtain, point and say those are the heights of Bethlehem, a Palestinian entity. Then cross to the other side and open the curtain and say those are the heights of Ramallah, a Palestinian entity. Everything is within machine gun range. Separations and fences won�t work," he concludes. "We need a political solution that will enable us all to live together."
And if his old ally continues to pursue the separation option, it will mean their final divorce.
March 8, 2004
Israel
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