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Sharon

Continued from preceding page

ning, and this new Sharon is
a far more formidable crea-
ture — complex and creative,
intelligent and paradoxical.
Yoel Marcus, senior polit-
ical analyst for the Hebrew-
language daily Ha'aretz and
one of Israel's most astute
.observers, compares Sharon
with the legendary Moshe
Dayan. "Both," he notes, "had
sharp ups and downs. Sharon,
like Dayan, is more of a
pragmatist than an ideo-
logical fanatic. Sharon, like
Dayan, is always spinning off
original ideas, some of them
incomplete, some of them bad,
but with him there's never
zilch. "And like Dayan,
Sharon has charisma. When
Sharon enters a public place
there is electricity in the air."
One difference between the
two men is that Dayan did not
want to be prime minister
while Sharon does. Another is
that while Dayan was always
surrounded by powerful per-
sonalities, Sharon is staring
into a leadership vacuum that
seems to be drawing him in-
exorably upwards.
Likud Party leader Yitzhak
Shamir, now 72, will almost
certainly retire at the end of
this government's term late
next year, and the struggle to
inherit his mantle is certain
to be bitter and bloody.
Deputy Prime Minister
David Levy, darling of Israel's
substantial Moroccan com-
munity, has made no secret of
his ambition to rise to the top
of his party.; but it is Sharon,
aged 59, who is reckoned to be
the man most likely to suc-
ceed — not only as party
leader but also, quite possibly,
as prime minister of Israel.
The very. idea of "Prime
Minister Sharon" is enough
to cause an acute bout of col-
lective heartburn among a
large section of the Israeli
public, not to mention senior
officials in Washington and
practically every other
Western capital on the globe.
Yet here is the paradox: the
man who has shown a disdain
for the slow, painstaking
diplomatic process, who
dragged Israel into its
disastrous adventure in
Lebanon, may yet turn out to
be the one Israeli leader who
can break the cycle of Arab-
Israeli hostility. A replay of
Richard Nixon opening doors
to China; of Menachem Begin
cutting a deal with Egypt.
Nobody is seriously sug-
gesting that Sharon is about
to embrace the liberal left. In-
deed, one of his strengths is
that he is unshackled by
political ideology in a country
that has been brought to a
state of paralysis by slavish
adherence to party dogma.
There are persistent voices

.among Israeli political
analysts which suggest,
almost reluctantly, that
Sharon may possess that rare
combination of qualities —
pragmatism, flexibility and
charisma — which could pro-
duce a real breakthrough.
Moreover, it is precisely
because of his tough, super-
patriot. image that he might
be trusted by Israelis not to
strike a deal that would leave
their country weak and vul-
nerable.
It was, after all, Sharon —
arch-champion of the Jewish
settlement movement — who
ignored the vociferous de-
fiance of the Jewish settlers
in Yamit and brutally dis-
mantled the Sinai town when
Israel handed the peninsula
back to Egypt in the wake the
1979 peace treaty.
In fact, Sharon may have
more in common with Labor
leader Shimon Peres in his

Israel's most
feared political
leader appears to
be seeking a new
image in hopes of
becoming prime
minister.

vigorous efforts to make
peace with Jordan and the
Palestinians than with his
own party leader, who has
made an art form of sitting on
his hands.
There has been speculation
recently of a secret meeting
between Sharon and Peres at
which the two men discussed
ways of accommodating Jor-
danian demands without
alienating Shamir.
Sharon has shown other
signs of flexibility; of being
willing to ditch old ideas the
moment they becorfie imprac-
tical.
He has, for example, backed
away from the "instant" solu-
tion he once offered to the
Palestinian problem — that
Israel should simply topple
the Hashemite throne and
convert Jordan into a Palesti-
nian state.
His approach now is more
muted, less interventionist.
Israel, he believes, can afford
to wait until Jordan, with its
large Palestinian majority,
falls naturally into the
Palestinian lap. In the mean-
time, King Hussein rules Jor-
dan and if King Hussein
wants peace, Israel should try
to meet him halfway.
When Ariel Sharon deli-
vered his marathon apologia
on the Lebanon war at Tel
Aviv University several
weeks ago, he knew that he
was unlikely to persuade his