During the years of the first Palestinian Intifada, the Ramallah based lawyer and human rights activist Raja Shehadeh coined the term, The Third Way, as the new Palestinian approach to their fate. In a widely acclaimed book by the same title, Shehadeh explained, that between blind hatred and submission, there was another way to deal with the Israeli occupation. “The third way”, he wrote was al sumud, or steadfasteness. As history is revisited, the Palestinians appeared once more to turn to al sumud to deal with the cards that fate dealt them after the Israeli electorate chose Ariel Sharon as prime minister of the Jewish state.

There is undoubtedly no Israeli individual more universally hated or despised among Palestinians and Arabs than Ariel Sharon. He masterminded and oversaw wars, invasions and massacres of Arab civilians. His resounding victory at the polls speaks more about Israel than thousands of deeply analytical works could ever do. Fifty-two years after the creation of the Jewish state in most of historic Palestine, Israelis have chosen a man with a violent racist past to lead them.

Ariel Sharon’s past has cast a shadow on what can be expected of him

The people who voted for him were right wing, religious, disillusioned or peripheral, but in the end it was their votes that counted.

During the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in 1982, the Palestinians had their most famous encounter with Sharon, now with his election; it will be their second encounter of significance. And more than anything it is Ariel Sharon’s past that has cast a shadow on what can be expected of him.

The Abstentions

More than at any time in the last half a century, the Palestinian Israelis, who are self-described second class citizens of the Jewish state, generally decided not to go to the polls.

“We could not consciously vote for Barak, not after the murder of 13 of our people, not after he ordered the killing of the 400 in the West Bank and Gaza,” said Dr Azmi Bishara, the unofficial leader of Arab politicians in the Israeli Knesset. “I do not expect Sharon will last very long. If he wants to last he has to make peace, and since peace is not part of his agenda he cannot last.”

Bishara, who spearheaded the campaign to abstain from voting in the prime ministerial elections as a protest, added, “I expect that in six to eight months the Knesset will be dissolved and there will be new elections.”

The Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel heeded the call of their political leadership to boycott the elections. While some wavered, they decided to boycott when they realised that their vote, which constitutes 12 per cent of the total, would not win the elections for Barak, who was trailing by 20 per cent in the opinion polls.

In the city of Nazareth, one of the largest Arab cities in Israel, only two people had voted by noon on election day.

In 1999, more than 75 per cent of the Arab electorate had voted, almost exclusively for Barak, and this time around some “experts” had said they expect an Arab turn out of between 30 and 45 per cent. But, in effect, less than 20 per cent voted, increasing Ariel Sharon’s lead over Barak.

While campaigning in Arab towns and villages, Barak said he felt “sorrow and a need to express condolences”, but he in no way apologised nor did he take responsibility for the death of 13 of his country’s Arab citizens at the hands of the police forces.

While Ariel Sharon, did not campaign in Arab towns at all, he began his term as prime minister by calling for “a new page in relations with Israel’s Arabs... to create a sense of real partnership with them.”

There is hardly a soul that entertains any hopes of a fruitful relationship

While Sharon did get some Arab votes, notably among the Bedouin population, to whom he promised access to facilities such as an expansion of water pipes and increased electricity lines, there is hardly a soul that entertains any hopes of a fruitful relationship.

On the day after the elections, a Palestinian political scientist from Jerusalem, wrote a public appeal to Sharon that was published by the liberal Haaretz daily. Entitled, An open letter to Ariel Sharon, the Palestinian, Muhammed Muslih, tried to appeal to Sharon’s new responsibilities.

“ I have never met you,” he began, and “I am not sure how I would feel if I were to meet you.” Beginning with the habitual recrimination, he wrote “as an Arab, I shall never forget that in October 1953 you commanded the Israeli force that invaded the Jordanian village of Qibya and killed about 70 Arabs, the majority women and children. I am also constantly reminded that you are an Arab-hater and an apostle of violence,” he wrote listing the acts of violence perpetrated or overseen by General Sharon.

He urged Sharon to forgo his past and remodel himself as a maker of peace and not a hawk of war advising him to give up hopes and plans to build a “Greater Israel”. He concluded the letter on a positive note, “I like to believe that you can be a Sadat. If you so choose, and I hope that you will, you will surprise almost everyone and go down in history as a peacemaker.”

The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories

“Sharon is like an elephant in a glass factory,” was how Dr Mustapha Barghouti, political commentator and activist based in the Palestinian city of Ramallah summed up Israel’s new prime minister.

Minister of Information and peace negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo said he believed the Israelis had made a “foolish decision”.

But while Marwan Barghouti and members of the Palestinian government and main political faction, Fatah, rained a hail of criticism on the Israeli general cum politician, Palestine’s number one spokesman, Yasser Arafat, weighed his words carefully. First he said he “respected the Israeli decision”, adding, “we are insisting on continuing the process, the peace process, the peace of the brave. “And on the day after the elections he sent Sharon a congratulatory letter. In style he expressed the hope that the peace process would continue with the aim of reaching a “peace of the brave” on the basis of a land for peace agreement, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and support for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Arafat, in an almost unprecedented letter of politeness wrote: “the peace process continues and we nurture it... make sacrifices for it. Peace is our common choice.”

He concluded by saying that the Palestinians continue to “extend a hand in the making of peace”.

Parallel to Arafat’s conciliatory opening comments, Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti marched with hundreds of Palestinians protesting against Sharon’s election “The Israelis will regret electing Sharon,” he said warning that the hawks election would mean an escalation of the uprising.

Barghouti, along with almost all Palestinians believe Sharon’s announcement that all the 200 or so settlements in the West Bank and Gaza will stay in place, together with his unwillingness to share sovereignty in Jerusalem, and an absolute veto on the Palestinian right of return was tantamount to a “declaration of war.”

There was an almost universal feeling of doom after Sharon’s election

A Sharon spokesman, Zalman Shoval, explained that a Sharon-led government would propose long-term interim agreements with a semblance of “permanence” and the postponement of decisions on Jerusalem and the right of return.

Contacts between members of the Palestinian National Authority and representatives of the Sharon government are likely to take place early in the Hawk’s reign, if analysts are to be believed.

A widely publicised meeting in Vienna in January, between Arafat’s economic advisor Mohammed Rashid and the new prime minister’s son Omri Sharon, among other Israelis, was widely believed to have been the first contact between the two camps.

The meeting dealt only with the future of the Jericho Casino, one of several joint Israeli-Palestinian economic ventures, but was an early sign that the two sides were capable of “talking” at some level.

In order to change his image as a warmonger it has already been suggested to Sharon by his advisors that he meet with Chairman Arafat sooner, rather than later in his term of office, in order to give both the Arab world and western countries a sign he has shed at least his outward intransigence towards his Arab neighbours.

But regardless of what the Israeli leader does both the Arab world and the West are likely to look at him with a much more critical eye than it did his Labor predecessor.

“ There are two possibilities,” said Azmi Bishara, “one is that he wants to become the hero of peace and will come to terms with the Palestinian requirements or that he maintains his stand, gives minimum concessions and creates the stage for further conflict.”

While there was an almost universal feeling of doom after Sharon’s election it still remains to be seen if Dr Hanan Ashrawi, the former spokeswoman for the Palestinian negotiating committee and parliamentarian is right when she says, “Sharon will bring even more policies of intransigence”.

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