Two Internal Splits (Safire)

WASHINGTON — A global coalition of the giving - bolstered by American military ships and choppers that are able to deliver needed relief to sick and starving tsunami victims - rightly dominates the news. In Asia, the cataclysm's aftermath pulls even warring factions together.

Not in the Middle East. Palestinians and Israelis must first resolve their internal battles before they can begin to make peace with each other.

In Gaza, the leading candidate to replace Yasir Arafat in Sunday's election, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, has embraced the radical Arabs who want not peace but conquest. These terrorists are firing rockets and mortars at nearby Israeli civilians in the hopes of making Ariel Sharon's planned withdrawal of settlers appear to be a surrender to the warriors of Hamas.

When Israeli defenders returned fire this week, Abu Mazen called all Arab casualties "martyrs who were killed today by the shells of the Zionist enemy." He hopes to win extremists' votes by adopting their hate-filled rhetoric as well as Arafat's platform of a "right of return" of Arabs to overwhelm Israel.

Sharon hopes this is campaign oratory to increase the expected majority for Abu Mazen. But the Palestinian, by appeasing his fiercest faction of die-hards, is playing with fire. To reach a settlement, he will have to make compromises that these warring radicals totally reject - which, if they refuse and rebel, would mean Palestinian civil war.

The Israeli internal split is not about the usual parliamentary politics. At the moment, Sharon's Likud-Labor majority needs a few religious-party votes that will be determined by a 95-year-old rabbi. If that is not obtained by the usual method (a U.S. metaphor of political pork is not applicable in this context), then Sharon will go to elections to demonstrate the will of the Israeli people.

The split in Israel goes to the nature of the Jewish state. Ultras among the rabbinate talk of advising Israeli soldiers to refuse to obey orders to eject settlers who refuse relocation from Gaza.

Civil disobedience, with acceptance of its consequences in law, is legitimate in a democracy; military disobedience to legal orders is beyond the pale.

Were it not for the Israeli Defense Forces acting loyally under discipline, rabbis - with the right to worship in synagogues and to dissent in the public square - would be the first to be driven into the sea by the Arab extremists now being pandered to by Abu Mazen.

If there is to be a settlement, both Arabs and Jews must assert majority rule, which means that soldiers follow the orders of elected officials. I have no doubt that Arik Sharon, with Shimon Peres at his side, will do that. I wish I could be as sure about Abu Mazen.

Sharon is hopeful. "In the past, I have shaken hands with Abu Mazen, and with him I can talk," he told me the other night. "I would never shake Arafat's hand."

He is also confident that he can carry out his disengagement during or after an election, if one is needed - provided his counterpart on the Palestinian side makes certain that the thousands of Israelis making this painful exodus are allowed to leave in peace. I take that to mean he expects Abu Mazen to restrain his armed extremists by any means necessary.

Egyptians under President Hosni Mubarak are now proving helpful, Sharon said: "I managed to convince them to release an Israeli they held in prison for eight years for nothing, and that changed the atmosphere - stopped the smuggling of antitank weapons into Gaza." But what motivated Mubarak? "They are the most important country in the Arab world, and want to be recognized as a major factor." Is that all? "They want to strengthen their relationship with the United States."

What if, with Egypt's help, Abu Mazen is able to co-opt and pacify the Palestinian jihadists? And on the Israeli side, what if the other internal battle is resolved, and the settlers accept reality? Wouldn't a negotiated disengagement then resuscitate the road map?

The optimistic Sharon looked beyond the Arab-Israeli impasse to what he considers the threat to his nation's existence: "There is an 'axis of terror.' It runs through Syria and Hezbollah, which has 13,000 rockets deployed in Lebanon, to Iran. And Iran's nuclear missile program is today the greatest danger not just to Israel, but to the world."

"To reach a settlement, he will have to make compromises that these warring radicals totally reject - which, if they refuse and rebel, would mean Palestinian civil war."

It won't mean a civil war, because he won't have the ability to make such concessions. Even if he were willing to put his signature on it and the so-called PA approved it, it would be just another piece of worthless paper, as the Oslo "agreement" was.

Luckily, it won't come to that pass -- Israel won't negotiate with the terrorists.

Egyptians under President Hosni Mubarak are now proving helpful, Sharon said: "I managed to convince them to release an Israeli they held in prison for eight years for nothing, and that changed the atmosphere - stopped the smuggling of antitank weapons into Gaza." But what motivated Mubarak? "They are the most important country in the Arab world, and want to be recognized as a major factor." Is that all? "They want to strengthen their relationship with the United States." ...The optimistic Sharon looked beyond the Arab-Israeli impasse to what he considers the threat to his nation's existence: "There is an 'axis of terror.' It runs through Syria and Hezbollah, which has 13,000 rockets deployed in Lebanon, to Iran. And Iran's nuclear missile program is today the greatest danger not just to Israel, but to the world."

He's correct -- Syria will have to be eliminated as a coherent threat, and Syria and Hezbollah forced out of Lebanon. But Egypt is getting ready to go to war in cooperation with Syria, so the timetable for Israel's eliminating Syria has limits.

'... Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, has embraced the radical Arabs who want not peace but conquest... Sharon is hopeful. "In the past, I have shaken hands with Abu Mazen, and with him I can talk,' he told me the other night.

Sharon is sick. Is there a virus going around? He could have gotten it through a handshake.

'Sharon said: "I managed to convince them to release an Israeli they held in prison for eight years for nothing, and that changed the atmosphere - stopped the smuggling of antitank weapons into Gaza."'

So, Mubarak held an innocent man for 8 years and is now being praised for releasing him?!? There were reports the other day that anti-aircraft missiles were smuggled recently into Gaza from Egypt. Sharon is mentioning antitank, not anti-aircraft. ????

Sick. Definitely sick.

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