Gaza Issue Stokes an Old Israeli Rivalry

JERUSALEM —  As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fights to salvage his plan for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, an old and bitter political rivalry has surged to the forefront.

Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, his finance minister, are engaged in an increasingly acrimonious -- and increasingly public -- war of words over the Gaza initiative, which is to be the subject of a pivotal debate today in Israel’s divided Cabinet.

Many observers believe that the pair’s latest quarrel, though ostensibly over policy questions, has taken on the trappings of an all-out power struggle, with the leadership of their conservative Likud Party and the prime minister’s post at stake.

Commentator Yossi Verter, in a column in Friday’s editions of the Haaretz newspaper, argued that the adroit maneuverings of the finance minister, widely known by his nickname of Bibi, had left Sharon’s job in jeopardy.

“Netanyahu in charge,” the headline read.

The decisive defeat of the prime minister’s Gaza plan in a May 2 referendum among Likud members was blamed at least in part by Sharon aides on his rival. Before the vote, Netanyahu, who has a substantial following among the party rank and file, told Sharon that he supported the proposal to withdraw from all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza -- but then pointedly refused to campaign on its behalf.

On Thursday, Sharon tried to woo Netanyahu by offering changes to the plan, including limiting a withdrawal to just three settlements in the seaside territory. Not only did Netanyahu spurn him, but word-for-word accounts of Sharon’s pleas during the supposedly confidential meeting were also swiftly leaked to the Israeli press.

On Saturday, Sharon hit back. In a scathing interview with Israel Radio, the prime minister did not mention Netanyahu by name, but left little doubt as to the target of his wrath.

“In a democratic state such as Israel ... a situation in which a personal struggle for leadership threatens the state’s interests is unacceptable,” Sharon said.

Netanyahu, for his part, spread the word that he considered himself the target of a slander campaign by Sharon’s office. Close associates gave a carefully orchestrated series of interviews to Israeli media insisting that Netanyahu was acting only out of a desire to unite his party.

As the country’s two best-known conservative politicians, Sharon and Netanyahu have traditionally laid claim to the same constituency, and their rivalry has been a feature of the political landscape for years.

Their most recent head-to-head competition came in November 2002, when Sharon crushed Netanyahu -- a former prime minister -- in a contest for the Likud leadership that in effect anointed the winner as the country’s leader.

Invited to join the Sharon government, Netanyahu made it plain that he wanted to be foreign minister. Sharon instead made him the finance minister, a job almost no one wanted because Israel was in the midst of a bruising recession and senior economic officials were bearing the brunt of public anger over it.

Although the two men have long shared ideological ground, their personal styles could hardly be more different.

A generation apart -- Netanyahu is 54 and Sharon 76 -- they chose sharply divergent paths to the top tier of the political establishment. Sharon spent nearly all his adult life in the army; Netanyahu served as a young man in an elite commando unit but quickly turned his attention to the worlds of business and diplomacy.

In the public arena, Sharon tends to prevail by dint of sheer force, while Netanyahu relies on charisma and charm. In contrast to Sharon, a son of Russian immigrants who was raised on a farm, Netanyahu is U.S.-educated and fluent in American English, with a demeanor as smooth as Sharon’s is rough-hewn.

Both men are political survivors who have rebounded again and again from scandal and setbacks. Netanyahu was dogged by corruption charges in the 1990s but was eventually cleared; bribery allegations still cloud Sharon’s horizon.

Likud hard-liners who once regarded Sharon as their champion have looked on with growing dismay in recent months as the prime minister has endorsed the idea of Palestinian statehood, described the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza as an occupation and called for the uprooting of Jewish settlements in Gaza. And Netanyahu has been a prime beneficiary of defections from Sharon’s camp.

At the same time, though, Sharon has pleased conservatives by employing overwhelming military force against Palestinian militants, making explicit threats against Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, building a heavily fortified barrier to separate Israel from the West Bank, and promising that Israel will retain control of large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Sharon could simply fire Netanyahu and other ministers who have refused to support his Gaza initiative. But even that could ultimately work to his rival’s advantage, because it could set off a chain of events leading to early elections.

If Sharon lets that happen, wrote analyst Verter, “Netanyahu is already snapping at his heels.”