28 September 2004	Tuesday	12 Shaban 1425

AL-QUDS: Once hailed by fellow right-wingers as the "king of Israel", Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is increasingly branded a "traitor" for wanting to rid the occupied Gaza Strip of its Jewish settler presence.

The 180-degree change in perceptions reflects the hawkish 76- year-old premier's political evolution after four years of unabated Israeli-Palestinian violence. Sharon had, after all, vowed to resort to force alone to restore security when he took office in February 2001.

The Palestinians may still consider him as their arch enemy, since he regularly toys with the idea of eliminating their leader Yasser Arafat, but the man once nicknamed the "bulldozer" seems to have mellowed or least given up on a military solution to the conflict.

His intention to evacuate all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four others in the northern West Bank by September 2005 is fervently opposed by Israel's ultra- nationalist and settler fringe as well as by members of his own right-wing Likud party.

So much so that some of his allies, who sang his praises when he was elected prime minister, now call him a "traitor" for seemingly having given up on the settlements. Sharon has made clear however that the Gaza pullout would serve to reinforce the presence of 240,000 settlers in the West Bank. A mere 8,000 people are slated for evacuation from the Gaza Strip.

But his opponents go as far as accusing him of wanting to carry out "ethnic cleansing" against Jews in the territory, with the consent of US President George W. Bush who fully backs the pullout.

"Sharon opened his eyes. He has understood that a solution to the conflict should first and foremost be political," said an Israeli official in his entourage. "He's gotten old, he knows it's his last term and that, despite his glorious military past, it's not good to go down in history as the man who ended his career in blood and violence," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Sharon's own pronouncements suggest is he is increasingly concerned about his place in the history books and wants "I'm acting democratically. The Likud is against me, but I am also the prime minister and accountable to the people and to the state of Israel," he recently told public television.

Settlers are all the more aggrieved as Sharon has long promoted the settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, both of which were occupied by Israel after the 1967 Middle East war.

He set an example personally by establishing new quarters in occupied eastern part of Old City, just before the first intifada broke out in December 1987. His controversial visit to the Haram al-Sharif, Islam's third holiest site, also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, on September 28, 2000 triggered the second intifada.

At first hard liners were hopeful. "Sharon will never do that to us. The settlements are his life project, he can't destroy it," said MP Nissan Slomiansky of the National Religious Party, the settlers' mouthpiece.

But Slomiansky changed his tune last June when the Israeli cabinet adopted Sharon's pullout plan. "Sharon has betrayed his own cause. He is now under the illusion that it's possible to make peace with the Palestinians," he complained.

Sharon's political evolution recalls that of his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin who cast aside his military past to sign the now defunct Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians in 1993.

Rabin paid dearly for the price of peace when an ultra- nationalist Israeli Jew gunned him down in November 1995. Doubts persist over Sharon's true intentions, however.

Political analysts note his talent as a master manipulator who unveiled the Gaza evacuation plan soon after revelations leaked out about his involvement in a financial scandal.

Sharon's performance is also open to criticism four years into the intifada, even if he is perceived as having managed to contain the violence. Assassinations of Palestinian militants have continued and even soared with Sharon, as have military raids, house demolitions, arrests, and settlement activity. -AFP