In days long gone the chachomim of Spain who held
official posts would employ a cabas whose job it was
to herald his planned arrival to ensure that he was received
with due honor.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not one of chachmei
Sfarad but he has a cabas of his own by the name
of Ehud Olmert. Everything Olmert has said or predicted,
Sharon has soon carried out.
Olmert spoke about the plan to withdraw from Gaza well before
Sharon ever mentioned it. Most observers did not attach much
significance to his remarks--"once a leftist, always a
leftist," they said to themselves--but those in the know paid
careful attention, realizing he was speaking for Sharon and
laying the public groundwork.
Last week Olmert said the Prime Minister might draw certain
conclusions regarding a few Likud ministers because of their
opposition to the Gaza disengagement plan. Olmert said the
Prime Minister is in charge of setting state policy and other
ministers--certainly ranking ministers, and most certainly
ranking ministers whose job it is to explain Israel's policy
to the world--should not oppose his stance.
Olmert was referring primarily to Finance Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu and even more to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
Instead of backing Sharon on his disengagement plan Shalom,
whose presents Israel's position to the world, is voicing
opposition to any unilateral move.
Sources close to Sharon say he would not have pursued the
disengagement plan if he were not convinced that a majority
of the government would approve it. They expect the plan will
win the support of the five Shinui ministers and all six
Likud ministers for a total of 11 supporters out of 23
ministers. All Sharon has to do is persuade one other
minister or induce two to abstain.
But if Netanyahu and Shalom stand united against him, and
definitely if Limor Livnat joins them, Sharon will have a
real problem on his hands.
Heavy Fog Over Gaza
Sharon is hard at work trying to secure a majority in the
government and the Knesset for his disengagement plan and to
guarantee an alternative to the present government in the
event the right-wing parties, the NRP and HaIchud HaLeumi,
resign.
According to a preliminary vote-count taken by the Prime
Minister's Office the plan will garner at least 70 MKs, but
still Sharon does not want to take any chances. After a year
of total severance and even rivalry following the coalition
with Shinui, the Prime Minister summoned Shas Chairman MK Eli
Yishai to ask him to support the disengagement plan, though
Sharon has no intentions of bringing Shas into the
coalition.
Meanwhile he continued wooing the Labor Party not just on the
Knesset vote, which Labor has already pledged to support, but
also towards the possibility of a unity government should the
right-wing parties resign.
Despite his wide-flung outreach efforts Sharon is laying a
heavy fog over the disengagement plan itself, taking every
measure to ensure that no details leak out.
Recently the Knesset forced Sharon to attend a meeting on the
disengagement plan through a special Knesset procedure that
requires the Prime Minister to take part in a meeting on any
issue if 40 MKs sign a demand for him to appear at the
meeting and speak on the issue. The media played up the
meeting for days, but the Prime Minister's Office just
chuckled over the reports, knowing Sharon would not reveal a
crumb of new information. Indeed when Sharon's turn came he
said nothing new, but when the incessant heckling from the
opposition benches began to annoy him Sharon turned to them
as if speaking to a small child and said, "I will not provide
details until I have briefed Likud members, coalition members
and the Opposition Chairman."
Although Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
Yuval Steinmetz is a Likud member, his curiosity apparently
got the best of him too, and he tried a trick of his own to
extract information. He summoned National Security Council
Chairman Giora Eiland, the man who has every detail of the
disengagement plan under his thumb, in an effort to induce
him to share some of what he knows. Eiland is not a seasoned
politician like Sharon, and the veteran MKs sitting on the
committee thought they could induce--with a bit of pressure
and a lot of cunning--a slip of the tongue.
But in the end Sharon outmaneuvered them. When he heard about
Eiland's scheduled appearance at the last minute, Sharon told
him to cancel saying he had been summoned to a special
meeting with the Prime Minister at exactly the same time.
Sharon could easily have planned the meeting just to provide
Giora an official reason for not being able to appear before
the committee, showing Sharon is prepared to do whatever it
takes to keep a lid on all the details of the disengagement
plan.
