Between the Lines / Sharon plans to lie low and survive

The four ministers of the committee that is preparing the cabinet's proposals sat waiting for Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. They waited in vain, for he did not come. They were to discuss the proposal of MK Gilad Erdan, one of Netanyahu's footmen, to hold a general referendum on the disengagement plan.

Netanyahu, who is behind the proposal, was the one who called for a referendum the first time round. Yesterday he said in an interview on Israel Radio that this is the only democratic way to deal with the terrible rupture that would result from the disengagement. But he did not come to the meeting.

Two ministers voted in favor, two objected, and Netanyahu's vote was the decisive one. He could have sent someone to represent him, he could have called and asked the ministers to wait for him. He did not. So Netanyahu shot down his own proposal to hold a referendum on the disengagement.

The secretary of the Yesha council of settlers' leaders, Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, issued a denunciation of Netanyahu, but nobody was interested. What's the big deal? So once again Netanyahu did not do what he preached. The settlers have no other candidate for prime minister than Netanyahu.

Indeed, the only one who could carry out the disengagement plan at this time and form a unity government is not Ariel Sharon. Since the Likud members' referendum, Sharon is functioning as a prime minister in Netanyahu's cabinet. The one making the decisions is not the leader but his would-be successor.

Netanyahu decided this week to let Sharon open the Knesset's winter session in peace. This may be the message to all those who expect Sharon to be ousted soon - the only one who can do that is Netanyahu, and he is doing everything so that nobody will say that he ousted an incumbent prime minister.

In other words, he is waiting to see how Sharon ousts himself. Netanyahu's problem is that Sharon, like his old friend and rival, Shimon Peres, believes he has no substitute. Like Peres, who said recently that he has not found himself an heir yet, Sharon believes there is no one he can hand the torch to at this time. The disengagement plan is marginal to the more important question - who will be the leader. Neither Peres nor Sharon can find anyone worthy.

During the Knesset's summer recess, Sharon managed to survive in the most efficient way - he did nothing significant, he did not put the disengagement plan to the test of execution. On the contrary, he tried to get closer to the right-wing camp.

The restricted space Sharon has left to maneuver in will get narrower still if Minister Tzachi Hanegbi is elected chairman of the Likud's central committee and Minister Yisrael Katz is elected the party's secretariat chairman. The two chain boys, who cooperated as students in the Jerusalem campus when they used to beat up Arab students, will clamp additional restraints on Sharon.

The Knesset's winter session that opened yesterday could therefore be critical. If John Kerry is elected president of the United States, Sharon may gain a little more time until Kerry studies his plan, or until he amends the original plan and adapts it to the new administration.

Some believe that Kerry, who takes every chance he gets to attack Bush's foreign policy, will try to make a foreign policy achievement and the most suitable place for that is not the Iraqi mud but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This means more pressure on the Israeli prime minister, but also several more months of survival for Sharon.

Barak weather vane

One week Peres speaks enthusiastically to his friends of his desire to contend with Ehud Barak for Labor's leadership. The next he is all doleful, saying all is lost, there is no chance. One week, infused with motivation, he is ready to take on even his friend Sharon for the role of prime minister, a week later he recalls the interview given by his son Yoni, who called on him not to contend. "I think he can contribute, but I don't think he should be prime minister. Minister yes, prime minister, no ... I think it's time he withdrew from the central arena ... that it's time more young people entered politics," Yoni told Maariv on September 9.

On the one hand his wife Sonia and the rest of the immediate family are pressing him to give up what he should have, they think, given up long ago. On the other hand, Peres is suffused with rage to see that man, Barak, so full of himself that there is no room for anyone else, persisting in not admitting his mistakes, and wants to do everything he can to stop him.

Meanwhile he has started putting together a work team whose main objective is to stop Barak. Peres' messengers have already approached Shimon Sheves, the former Prime Minister's Office director, and adviser Tal Silberstein, who worked with Barak in two election campaigns. The two were asked to help Peres contend with the man they both hate today.

If Peres ultimately decides to run against Barak, he will find Amir Peretz in the race as well. Peretz told Peres recently of his intention to run for the Labor leadership if Barak announces his candidacy officially. This means there are at least two contenders today, Peres and Peretz, who is also forming an action team, who are acting to stop Barak.

The Histadrut chairman is surrounded by media advisers, staff heads and senior economic figures, holding endless talks on how to take over the party's leadership. Barak has not yet announced officially that he is contending, but the sleepy Labor Party has already awakened from its coma.

Right of right

Avigdor Lieberman is not the only one who has a poll predicting a large share of Knesset seats for the radical right wing bloc. Effie Eitam also ordered a poll indicating that the bloc to the right of the Likud will get about 18 Knesset seats. The National Union, Yisrael Beitenu and the National Religious Party (NRP) have a potential to become Israel's second largest party.

Before the last elections Eitam rejected Lieberman's suggestion to unite the three parties. Lieberman was especially generous - he offered Eitam the leadership of the united party in the Knesset, or the chair of the joint bloc.

Eitam rejected the proposal and planned a revolution in the NRP, which would eventually catapult him to the Likud's leadership. Today he is trying, together with MK Yitzhak Levy, to woo Lieberman and revive the bloc idea.

In such a bloc they would have to contend with Benny Elon, Uri Ariel and their colleagues, who are targeting the knitted kippa public, and do not need another kippa wearer on the scene.

The announcement of Shlomo Aviner, the rabbi of Beit El, of his desire to set up a new political body, having despaired of the NRP refusing to quit the government, may help Eitam and Levy, who are groping for ways to reorganize political forces to the right of the Likud. If one large right-wing bloc is not formed, an old-new right-wing party can be established, in the style of Matzad, which was formed by NRP quitters Hanan Porat and Haim Druckman.

The interesting issue is the potential to form a radical right wing bloc which will object to any political settlement.

The NRP is considered the smallest party in this bloc, but its leaders have traditionally always refused such mergers. For years this party, even after losing most of its Knesset seats, has preserved its character and identity. The question is how much Zevulun Orlev will adhere to this historic refusal.

	Sharon: Lying low (Amos Biderman)