The Middle East: Suddenly, Ariel Sharon is sounding like a spokesman for the Israeli peace movement. Jeffrey Heller, in Jerusalem, examines the Israeli Prime Minister's embracing of the latest peace plan
Unbelievable. That was the word on everyone's lips after the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, a champion of Jewish settlement in areas Palestinians want for a state, described Israel's hold on land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as "occupation".
Stunned Israelis and Palestinians are trying to determine whether the veteran warhorse had actually changed stride or just made a tactical move to appease Israel's main ally, the United States.
Mouths dropped along with Mr Sharon's bombshell on Monday when he defended his right-wing government's acceptance of a US-backed peace plan that calls for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005 on land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
"We don't like the word, but this is occupation. To keep 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is bad for Israel and the Palestinians," Mr Sharon, sounding like a spokesman for an Israeli peace movement, told angry legislators from his Likud party.
A former general, the 75-year-old Mr Sharon has called the West Bank many things before - the biblical land of Israel, the land of Jewish forefathers - but never "occupied", a word Palestinians use as a rallying cry in an uprising for statehood.
But few in Israel were taking his new-found word literally.
"Deep inside, he doesn't really believe that anything can be done with [Palestinian President Yasser] Arafat still around," said a veteran Sharon observer.
"So he says: 'Why should I be the one to screw the Americans over and be the refusenik in peace moves?' Down deep, he doesn't believe settlements will have to be evacuated, because the Palestinians will torpedo the deal."
Since Mr Sharon first took office in 2001, debates have raged in Israeli living rooms and op-ed pages over whether he would indeed deliver on a pledge to make "painful concessions" - never defined publicly - for peace.
Mr Sharon has been dogged for the past 20 years by allegations that he deceived then-prime minister Menachem Begin about the planned scope of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, a charge Mr Sharon denies.
Meanwhile, speculation is rife that in his twilight years, the man nicknamed "the bulldozer" was determined to enter the history books as a peacemaker, emulating Mr Begin who returned the occupied Sinai peninsula to Egypt under landmark peace accords.
Sending out mixed signals at the Likud meeting, Mr Sharon pointedly coupled his support of the peace "road map" with a pledge that he would not press on with the plan if the Palestinians did not halt violence against Israelis.
Confused Israelis prepared to sit back and watch as a summit, apparently next week, with President Bush and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas approached.
"What is great about Sharon is that even today. . .he can still spin everybody like a top," political commentator Chemi Shalev wrote in the newspaper Maariv. "No one. . .knows for sure whether Sharon has indeed turned into a born-again peacemaker or if he remains the old wolf in sheep's clothing."
Saeb Erekat, a former chief Palestinian peace negotiator, took a page out of Mr Sharon's well-thumbed book of catch-phrases towards the Palestinians in commenting on his new use of the term "occupation". "We need to see deeds, not words," Mr Erekat said. - (Reuters)