Israel Braces For Political Battle

WASHINGTON – With doctors prepared to bring Prime Minister Sharon out of his coma today, Israel is bracing for a political battle to determine the fate of their fallen premier’s policy of disengagement.On one side is a coterie of aides to Mr. Sharon who have hinted in recent days that he secretly intended to draw final borders for the Jewish state if he had won the election scheduled for March 28. But at the same time, much of the Israeli leader’s base insists that he promised that the Gaza withdrawal was the last unilateral disengagement and that the security fence that runs roughly along the 1967 armistice lines was never meant as a permanent border.The struggle for Mr. Sharon’s legacy is likely to pit even his two sons against each other, both of whom have been tainted in recent years by a real estate and election fraud scandal that briefly threatened to dissolve their father’s government. It is said that Omri Sharon favors a disengagement plan, whereas Gilad Sharon veers to the right.Yesterday, Mr. Sharon’s Kadima party began raising support for the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, with Shimon Peres, the last sentient founding father of Israel, announcing that he would support Mr. Olmert’s bid for prime minister in March. At yesterday’s Cabinet meeting Mr. Olmert said he would “carry out the wishes” of Mr. Sharon, and urged the government to return to minding the economy and the state’s security.Mr. Olmert, however, has yet to say whether or not he would allow Palestinian Arabs living in East Jerusalem to vote in the January 25 parliamentary elections. As mayor of Jerusalem in 1996, he won praise from his country’s hawks for building a tunnel through the city that emptied out in Palestinian East Jerusalem, a construction that at the time was criticized for prejudging peace negotiations.For now it looks as if the Israeli government is on cruise control with regard to its dealings with the Palestinian Arabs. An Israeli diplomat yesterday told The New York Sun that both Israel and America were resigned to allowing elections for the Palestinian Authority’s parliament to go ahead on January 25. Israeli polls show Hamas winning at least 40% of the seats in the contest, a sign that the group is gaining support just as it allowed a temporary cease-fire with Israel to expire.“Gaza is total anarchy now,” the diplomat said. “Young men, in God knows what militia, are brandishing rockets to Europeans and Westerners.”One factor likely to determine the fate of any future withdrawal of settlers and troops is the reaction from terrorists inside the territories and adjacent countries. Over the weekend, Britain closed its embassy in Amman, Jordan, indefinitely, citing threats from Al Qaeda’s Iraq operation led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. On December 27, that group claimed credit for launching Katyusha rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel. On January 6, a videotape from Ayman Zawahiri pledged victory in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, suggesting increased commingling with terrorists who have traditionally been closer to Tehran than the organization of Osama bin Laden.The director of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Dore Gold, yesterday said he believed that Al Qaeda’s increased terror activity near Israel was a strong reason to suspend any possible plans for withdrawing soldiers from the West Bank of the Jordan River. “Iraqi Sunni militants are exporting the jihad to neighboring states. The debate now is about the future of the Jordan valley. More than ever Israel needs to retain the Jordan valley as a strategic buffer on its eastern front,” Mr. Gold, who is a former ambassador to the United Nations, said.An expert on Israeli politics at the Hudson Institute, Meyrav Wurmser, yesterday said she did not think it was difficult to divine what Mr. Sharon would have wanted if he could continue to lead Israel. “It’s not controversial. Everyone knew he was planning a broader round of disengagement with or without a Palestinian partner,” she said.The research director for the Institute for Zionist Studies in Jerusalem, Max Singer, yesterday concurred that Mr. Sharon, while short on details, was committed to more disengagement. But he said the prospects of the policy would weaken in his absence. “Without someone strong like Sharon to sell it, with the practical case for it now so weakened, it’s going to be very hard to sell disengagement,” Mr. Singer said.

Israel Braces For Political Battle

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