The Pressure On Sharon

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Sharon knew the retreat risked the wrath of Israel's right wing. For on the world stage, Arafat gives no quarter; at the U.N. conference on racism in South Africa last week, he condemned what he called Israel's "colonial, racist plot" against the Palestinians. Settlers who live in Israeli outposts in the West Bank and Gaza have long considered the Prime Minister one of their champions. Almost three months ago, Sharon visited the hospital bedside of a five-month-old boy injured by a stone thrown at his parents' car as they drove to their home in the Shilo settlement. The baby died soon after, and Sharon was deeply affected by the tragedy. Still, though Sharon may sympathize with the settlers' plight, they chafe at what they consider his restraint. So do Likud activists, furious that their leader isn't taking a harder line. Sharon is doing his best to soothe his party rank and file, stopping in at their weddings and dinners. The army too wants the Prime Minister to do more; the generals would like Sharon officially to declare Arafat and his Palestinian Authority an enemy. "The army is pushing harder and harder to attack the Palestinians, all the time," says Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit. "Sharon's in very difficult circumstances."

Meanwhile, Israel's other old man goes about his business; searching for a cease-fire. Peres is trying to set up a meeting this week with Arafat. He has Sharon's blessing. But if the near war stops, the world will be waiting to see how Sharon builds a near peace. Arafat will demand all kinds of "confidence-building measures" like land transfers, let alone the big concessions on Jerusalem and refugees needed to ink a major deal. In Sharon's mind--and doubtless in that of many others who remember the War of Independence--such issues touch on the very nature of the state for whose birth they fought more than 50 years ago. These days, for Ariel Sharon, Israel's past isn't prologue; in fact, it isn't even the past.

--With reporting by Aharon Klein and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem