In most of the Arab world, Arik is a four letter word. Sharon has an image that would make Attila the Hun look like Ralph Bunche. His name is synonymous with the massacres in Sabra and Shatilla and with bloody reprisal raids carried out in the 1950s.

The appointment of Arik as Foreign Minister does not inspire optimism about the peace process, as indicated in our cartoon below. As the PM prepared to go to the Wye plantation summit, which he initiated, with the intention of agreeing on a 13% redeployment, Arik said he would vote against the redeployment. Today (October 14), after visiting Jordan, he is hinting at much broader generosity. He believes we can make peace based on understandings that are "good for us, and good for the other side." He reiterated that his views concerning the size of the redeployment are well known, and that while it is possible and necessary to achieve peace, the process will be a long one." He also reemphasized the need for Palestinians to fulfill their commitments. But he evaded a question about whether or not he would vote against a 13% redeployment. Clear as mud.

But the appointment is shrewd politics. The vicissitudes of the peace process must be understood in terms of the internal politics of each country and party involved. In the U.S., President Clinton has already reaped his peace dividend. The smiling pictures of Al Rais, Big Bill, Merry Maddy and Bibi did their work. About two-thirds of adult USAns think Clinton is doing a good job now, and about half will express their displeasure with the Republican impeachment farce by voting for Democrats in the congressional elections in November.

In Israel, Bibi Baby had to solve an insoluble equation. If he did not go through with redeployment, he would lose the next elections, which may be close at hand. If he did, he would lose them anyway, because the National Religious Party and the right wing of the Likud would desert him and run a third party candidate. Ariel Sharon was the unknown. PM Netanyahu understood that the only thing Arik wants more than territories is political power. By trying to make the chief opponent of Oslo and most vociferous opponent of the 13% redeployment responsible for carrying it out, Bibi co-opted and neutralized the opposition. The way to solve an impossible equation is to use an irrational number.

Now that all concerned have job security, we can consider the entirely incidental question of what this all means for peace. There are several possibilities. Purged Likud stalwart Dan Meridor said on the Israel Radio talk show this morning that the peace process negotiations with the Palestinians are a long term strategic issue that should not be decided by momentary considerations of internal politics. He wishes he knew where the government is going, he said. Don’t we all. Former PM Shamir, an opponent of the peace process, said of Sharon that "He has never stood on principles. He has considerations of his own that are incomprehensible." The first part of this evaluation is certainly accurate. Arik’s considerations however, are certainly comprehensible to Arik Sharon: "Does it get the job done? Is it good for Arik or Bad for Arik?"

Taken at face value, the appointment of Ariel Sharon is a terminal blow to the peace process. He advocates the Sharon plan of course. The philosophy behind this plan is roughly as follows:

In principle, Arik might say we can return all of the conquered territories. However, he would add, cannot uproot settlements in Eretz Yisrael. Of course, he would say cannot return Jerusalem and that we need the hills for security reasons. Arik reminds us that we need to control the water supply too, so we cannot give back the Jordan valley, nor any of the land over the three aquifers that supply Israel with all its water. That leaves some valleys, but Arik will explain that we need those to provide access routes to the hills. Perhaps the air can be conceded.

That would seem to mean that the 13% redeployment, if it is ever carried out, would be the last. The Palestinians would get a few small chunks of land that they might be permitted to call a ‘state.’ There would be a great celebration on the White House lawn. The PNA would get lots of foreign aid that could be spent on new Mercedes and weapons for the GSS, and everyone would be happy except the people who had to live with it. This solution would create a kind of Hebron situation all over the West Bank. Frustrated Palestinians in their ghettos, fearful and fanatic settlers in a kind of ghetto of their own, with harassed army people in the middle.

But Sharon was never big on philosophy and principles. He is a results person in the mold of Ben-Gurion, and he is a master of the unexpected. In the peace agreement with Egypt, he supervised the dismantling of Yamit. He can make various excuses to his constituency about why he did it. He wrote, in his autobiography, "the settlements we already had there would not be able to survive by themselves." "Sinai was not part of the Land of Israel."

But he also wrote, "..after thirty years of existing in a state of war, the question of whether we could make peace with an Arab state and then live in peace with them was historic. The opportunity had to be taken, even though the risk was great."

Arik Sharon has indisputably one great feat to his credit. In the Yom Kippur war, when virtually everyone around him had panicked, he saw an opportunity to cross the canal, establish a bridgehead and surround the enemy. He did it against orders, running the danger of outrunning his logistics. He is an opportunist. This is also what drove him to push for more and more settlements. He loves to do things just because they can be done, to ‘establish facts on the ground.’ Now there may be an opportunity, a last opportunity, to establish peace with the Palestinians. A different kind of fact on the ground. Hopefully, he will see that "The opportunity had to be taken, even though the risk was great."

Shimon Peres said this morning that PM Netanyahu has finally understood that he has no choice other than to go ahead with the peace process. These are encouraging words. But then, Peres also thought he would be reelected.