Maof

I'm a shtarker. This Yiddish word, rooted in the German stark, "strong," is defined by the lexicographer Sol Steinmetz as "a strong-minded person willing to wield power."

This week, 300,000 members of Israel's hard-line Likud Party will choose as their candidate one of two shtarkers: Prime Minister Ariel (Arik) Sharon and Foreign Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu.

The dovish Labor Party last week swung far left: its candidate, Amram Mitzna, promises to divide Jerusalem, uproot all settlers and re-offer all other concessions Yasir Arafat spurned two years ago. Likudniks scorn him as "Yossi Beilin with a beard," a reference to the ever-hopeful architect of the Oslo disaster.

That means that the party of the shtarkers will win the parliamentary election in January. But which shtarker will be in charge, and does it matter? Bibi launched his bid to seize the reins from Arik by concentrating on rebuilding the economy of Israel, now staggered by the worldwide dot-com collapse and the reluctance of tourists to enter a war zone. That economic pitch got nowhere; in Israel as in the U.S., voters are primarily concerned with winning the war on terrorists. Swiftly changing his emphasis, Bibi proceeded to out-Sharon Sharon; that is, by taking positions more uncompromising than the hawkish prime minister. Accordingly, Bibi pledges not only to deport Arafat but to reject Sharon's vision of a Palestinian state after the terror ends.

Bibi's stance would not help Likud in the general election in January because most Israelis approve of Arik's readiness to make "painful compromises," but in the primary this week, Bibi is counting on its appeal to the Likud Party's majority of hard-liners.

His fallback strategy doesn't seem to be working yet. The media polls (notoriously inaccurate in primaries there and here) have Bibi falling far behind, but internal polls show only a six-point edge for Arik and it ain't over till it's over.

Wherein lies Arik's strength? For practical Likudniks, there is the hope that the center-right, hawk-for-peace Sharon will bring along a greater plurality in the Knesset. Others are loath to reject a sitting prime minister, one of the last of the nation's patriarchs, in the midst of war. Then there is the element of trust. Israelis of all stripes know his word is good, and that he means what he says about peace with security. Despite all the ritual denunciation, Palestinians who want a viable democratic state know that if Sharon makes an agreement, he will be able to make it stick in an Israeli referendum.

President Bush trusts him, too. Never has the Israeli-American connection been closer at the top. This administration is well aware that Sharon runs political risk with every act of restraint under bloody provocation, and Bush has given assurances to Israel of protection when we finally move on Saddam.

Although free-enterpriser Bibi has powerful friends here, and is far more articulate and persuasive in English on television than Arik, the older man has the advantage of gravitas and trustworthiness. Bush is properly taking no sides in this internal struggle, but few in Washington doubt that the hope in the White House is "Arik now, Bibi later."

My judgment (undoubtedly colored by long friendship) is that Arik would be more effective in going over our State Department's head on its misbegotten notion of a "quartet" of overseers forcing a deadline for statehood. He knows that only when Arabs fight and win their civil war against terror groups like Hamas can the Palestinian majority rule. At that point, side-by-side democracies could strike a historic bargain. So I'm rooting for Arik to win his party's nomination this week and for Likud to win seats from Labor and from Shas, the fading religious party, in January. Then I'd like to see Bibi take the finance ministry and be given a free hand to yank Israel out of its slump, while the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky adds his moral force to the foreign ministry. When a peacemaking Arik shakes the hand of independent Palestine's prime minister, let Bibi and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and Education Minister Limor Livnat (the next Golda) fight it out for Likud leadership.

Overseas kibbitzers rarely get all they root for, but I stand foursquare with my fellow shtarkers.

"NEW YORK TIMES" 25.11.2002

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