Ariel Sharon May Be Israel's Next Premier

J E R U S A L E M, Feb. 2, 2001 -- The commercials for the man who may be Israel's next leader show him the way he wants to be seen.

Ariel Sharon is portrayed as a doting grandfather and elder statesman, trailed by smiling children, walking in the fields to syrupy music.

In the days before Tuesday's Israeli election, Sharon has a seemingly unbeatable 20-percentage-point lead over incumbent Ehud Barak in opinion polls — and the advertisements for Sharon are still running.

In contrast, Sharon's place in the Israeli leadership has been solidified over the years by his military past — both his glorious victories and shameful debacles. That experience has also made him one of the most controversial figures in the country.

He was deeply involved in all of Israel's five wars, beginning in 1948. His most heralded hour came in the 1973 Mideast war, when he commanded 27,000 Israelis across the Suez Canal into Egypt, helping to turn the tide of the war in his nation's favor.

But that's not the Ariel Sharon the country is embracing.

"More than 50 percent of Israelis don't remember General Sharon, Minister of Defense Sharon from Lebanon. The 72, 73-year-old Sharon looks harmless," said Akiva Eldar of Israel's daily Ha'aretz newspaper.

A History of Offense

It was Sharon's visit to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem last Sept. 28 that many say provoked the latest Palestinian uprising, which has left more than 300 Palestinians and 60 Israelis dead. Sharon has always denied causing the violence.

Two decades ago, he also came up with the idea to build tens of thousands of homes for Jews on land Palestinians claim.

In a country where a majority has recently favored peace over security from the Palestinians, Sharon has always been a hawk.

In parliament, he has never voted in favor of any of Israel's peace agreements with its Arab neighbors.

Before he became a candidate for prime minister, he boasted that he had never shaken hands with Yasser Arafat, and in an interview with The New Yorker magazine, called the Palestinian leader "a liar and a murderer."

But the sorest point about Sharon for Israeli voters is probably his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon — which left Israel embroiled with its northern neighbor, its soldiers frequently killed there, until it voluntarily withdrew last year.

During this campaign, a schoolgirl confronted Sharon, and blamed him for her father's injuries in Lebanon. The confrontation left Sharon stammering — until he managed to tell her the war was not his fault.

For Arabs, it is his role in two mass killings of Arab civilians. He was found to be "indirectly responsible" for the massacre that took place in the Palestinian village of Qibya in 1953, and the slaughters at two Palestinian refugees camps in west Beirut in 1982.

Hundreds, many of them women and children, were killed.

As a further sign that he won't be cowed, Sharon keeps an apartment in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, draped with an Israeli flag.

Clouds on the Horizon?

Plenty of people in Israel and the Arab world are convinced that Sharon could do a lot of harm as prime minister.

"This will be a message to every Arab in the Middle East, to every Muslim: Israel is not ready for peace," said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator.

Sharon insists he does want peace with the Palestinians. He says Barak failed because he was willing to concede too much, and raised Palestinian expectations too high.

"Israel was humiliated by the prime minister and became weaker. When we're very clear that yes is yes and no is no and there are red lines, it will be a different story," he said.

Sharon acknowledges that he can't change the past, and accepts the peacemaking deals that have been made, including the ultimate formation of a Palestinian state.

But he rejects Barak's most recent proposal to give 95 percent of the West Bank and virtually all of Gaza to the Palestinians.

He says he doesn't intend to give them more land than they now control, which is about 42 percent of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip.

His supporters are more than willing to support another alternative, if peace talks fail. "If they want war, we have the man for war," said one Sharon supporter.

But others are more careful.

"Sharon is a loose cannon. He has proved it again and again," Ha'aretz's Eldar said. "Once he becomes prime minister, you never know where he will stop."

ABCNEWS’ Gillian Findlay in Jerusalem contributed to this report.