General Sharon on the Ground

This week Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was reminded of an officer by the name of Amnon Schwartzburg, a member of Kibbutz Beit Alpha, whom he had recommended for a favorable citation after the paratrooper raid of Syrian outposts on the Sea of Galilee in 1955. Schwartzburg won Sharon’s praise by meticulously fulfilling his orders: first capture the target, and only later care for the wounded.

The wounded man Schwartzburg left being was Rafael (Raful) Eitan, then a company commander in Brigade 890 who had been hit by fire from a machine-gun stationed on one of the sides. Schwartzburg passed the bleeding Raful and continued charging the target, running in the trenches, and did not stop until he had cleared out the furthermost Syrian position.

Forty-six years later, Schwartzburg’s determination is a model for Sharon. He views himself as a fighter in the trenches, ignoring the shells landing around him and persisting in striving to capture the fortified target. His increasing difficulties at the Likud Central Committee and Binyamin Netanyahu’s attempts to move in are, according to Sharon, merely a “bothersome machine-gun” which can be dealt with later, after the mission is accomplished.

Sharon’s command for operating was completely clear: force Arafat to cease fire, without being dragged into an all-out war, but without conceding a single comma to the Palestinians in the political realm. The prime minister believes his policy, with the assassination of terrorist activists at its core, is beginning to bear fruit.

Sharon does not accept the definition of the assassination at the Hamas headquarters in Nablus as a “step up.” He scorns the idea of Hamas “political echelons,” and makes it clear that the people killed in Nablus were directly involved in organizing terrorism, including the terror attack at the Dolphinarium. Sharon cites intelligence assessments saying that the assassination policy is already showing “results on the ground,” that the terrorists are spending more time hiding from the long arm of the IDF than preparing new terror attacks. We have not yet eradicated the terrorist organizations, Sharon says, but we have significantly damaged their capabilities.

It seems Sharon is not impressed by the flaring of tempers on the Palestinian street, of the calls for revenge, of the uniting of forces by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Tanzim. He says that anyway the information collected from terrorists Israel has captured shows that 42% of the Israelis killed since the Intifada started were killed by PA men. This week Sharon emphasized to the American Secretary of State Colin Powell that senior level officials in the PA are involved up to their necks in organizing the terror attacks, and Powell could have understood, by inference, that these officials too may become a legitimate target for assassination by Israel.

Sharon said that he will not “cave in to the cries on the street which are meant to serve “personal interests,” code words meant to say that as far as he knows the public campaign for a general offensive against the Palestinian Authority is being run mainly by his rival, Netanyahu. He says he is not worried by the polls which show a clear weakening in his position among right wing voters, nor by the report of a majority formed against him in the Likud Central Committee, because “panic is not my thing.” He believes that his way will hold sway, also in the party’s institutions, but even if not, it is a matter of “a mosquito biting here and there,” and eventually nothing will come of it. He says, the elections will take place exactly on time, on October 28, 2003.

Sharon does not intend to be dragged into an uncontrollable escalation, which he believes would be the result of Netanyahu’s recommendations but, at the same time, he is strictly opposed to the proposal of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to begin a channel of political talks with Arafat. He defines the distinction Peres makes between “negotiations under fire” and “negotiations for achieving a cease-fire” as naivety. “Anything like that is a reward for terrorism” Sharon said of his partner’s proposals, while continuing to shower him with respect. “Arafat should absolutely not be given the feeling that there is a reward for terrorism, just as the Americans and the world should not be allowed to get used to an idea that there is a level of terrorism that can be lived with.”

Sharon might not have spoken like Minister Uzi Landau who said this week, “In this conflict Arafat has to lose in a clear-cut fashion,” but that is what he means. Sharon wants to push Arafat into a corner, cut off his escape routes, tighten the noose about his neck, among other things, by stepping up the level of assassinations perhaps even to Arafat’s very doorstep. “Arafat has to understand that he has nowhere to go any longer,” Sharon said, “that he will not gain anything until he takes action against terrorism.”

On the other hand, a senior political figure believes that Sharon’s assassination policy is simultaneously destroying even the slim remaining chance of Arafat taking action against terrorism. Sharon, says the official, is ignoring the effect the assassinations are having on the feeling in the Palestinian street and is not giving them the importance they deserve. Now, when the revenge becomes a unified battle cry and the central test of the leadership of the Palestinian organizations, it is truly only a matter of time until the big terror attack comes along, with a casualty toll which will force a massive Israeli reaction, which will in turn cause a general escalation.

“Sharon is correct in principle in trying to prove that violence does not pay,” said the official, “but now we have been caught in a catch in which insisting on this principle could entail far more dire results than if we displayed some flexibility. The question is whether we have to continue insisting on this, even when it is clear it is leading to a disaster.”

This week Sharon did not sound like someone who understands reason. He is set on the political and security tactic he has chosen. As in a battle in the trenches, he is prepared for a long struggle, filled with obstacles and surprises, and his major weapon is perseverance.

Like Officer Schwartzburg, Sharon believes this is the trait that is the tried and true recipe for capturing the target.

P.S. Sharon said that the raid on the Syrian outposts was “One of the most successful things that paratroopers have ever done.” In his book, Does Not Stop on Red, the journalist Uzi Benziman confirms that the raid on the Syrian outposts in December 1955 was considered “an impressive success.” Fifty six Syrian soldiers were killed and 32 captured, whereas the IDF lost six men and twelve were wounded.

However, Benziman adds that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, though he supported an aggressive line against the Arabs, was taken aback by the large number of losses the Syrian’s suffered. Ben-Gurion had not forgotten the 69 people killed in the Kibya Operation two years earlier. Sharon did try to convince “the old man” but Ben-Gurion maintained that “the operation was too good.”

When Sharon left the room, then chief of staff Moshe Dayan turned to Ben-Gurion and said to him: “Arik’s quota in these kinds of operation is dozens. He does not finish an operation without the enemy having at least dozens killed.” Peres

Sharon’s strongly worded statements against Peres’s initiatives might signal a near clash between the two men. What Sharon describe as “a reward for terrorism” is viewed by Peres as a final rescue option before the catastrophe. If it were up to Peres, he would start uninterrupted and intensive contacts with Yasser Arafat in an attempt to achieve a cease-fire and political negotiations, not necessarily in that order.

Peres supports deploying American or international observers, and he does not really care when they come, because he wants Arafat to earn some sort of “achievement” which will spur him to begin changing his ways. However, Peres is doubtful as to whether the Americans are prepared to risk having their observers getting caught in the cross-fire between Israelis and Palestinians, just as he doubts whether the Americans want to or can mediate between the sides in any significant way.

What is left is Peres’s classic motto: If I do not work for myself, who will? His schedule is filled with “secret meetings” in Israel and abroad, and he is continuously working behind the scenes. This week Peres was barely back from an enjoyable but arduous trip to Peru, and is already calling everyone, a foreign minister here, a foreign minister there, trying to get Arafat to give him just the barest of leads, just one day of quiet, and he [Peres] will already get the world to move.

After his meetings with Arafat in Lisbon and Cairo, Peres has been demonstrating greater understanding of the Palestinian distress and is more critical of the IDF which he feels has not done enough to make things less difficult for the population. He does not accept the version that sees Arafat as the guiding hand over everything and doubts Arafat’s ability to confront the terrorist organizations. In response to the claim that Arafat himself is setting the level of the flames, Peres says: “He is a chairman, not a flame-thrower.”

Peres claims he is not getting involved in his party’s primary elections, though he is completely in favor of postponing them. He is concerned that the primaries might ignite a process which will eventually lead to the dissolution of the government and earlier general elections. Peres believes that, in the better case scenario, Sharon will win, and in a worse scenario, Netanyahu will win, with a Likud faction which will have doubled its size in the Knesset.

The concern over Netanyahu is the glue holding Sharon and Peres together. This means that this Catholic wedding between the two could hold up despite their increasing controversies, even though very soon Peres might find himself with his political hands tied, or Sharon might find that Peres has felt completely at liberty to do whatever he wants to, with or without a mandate.

This feature ran in Maariv, August 3, 2001