An Odd Kind of Politics
With the Israeli public solidly behind him, Mr. Sharon was emboldened to withstand initial pressures from the Bush administration to curtail the raids. But the flap over sending a United Nations fact-finding mission to Jenin showed there were limits on him.

The proposal for fact-finders began as an American-backed gambit to avoid a Security Council resolution. But once Secretary General Kofi Annan named the team, the Israeli Army and the right wing furiously realized that they were threatened with a potential war-crimes investigation, and rejected any such mission. Mr. Sharon's plight gave the Bush administration a lever with which to lift the siege on Mr. Arafat.

That siege ended with an agreement to let the assassins of an Israeli minister serve time in a Palestinian jail supervised by Americans and Britons — a reversal for Mr. Sharon, who had insisted they be tried in Israel. But President Bush made clear this was a red line, and Mr. Sharon was left with no choice but to face the wrath of his cabinet.

THE real test for Mr. Sharon, however, is likely to come if the focus of the Middle East conflict does shift back to peace. His own proposal, and the plans for an international conference this summer, seem likely to rapidly dissolve the bonds that have kept his coalition together.

Mr. Sharon has already crossed the red lines set by his own Likud party by saying a Palestinian state is inevitable. The party's 2,670-member Central Committee, its hard core, now plans to to debate a starkly simple resolution next weekend: "A Palestinian state will not be established on the west bank of the Jordan River."

Since a Palestinian state is the lowest common denominator in any peace settlement, and since some reference to one seems certain to be in Mr. Sharon's new plan, Likud was in effect preparing to give him a serious bashing as a warning against any territorial concessions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/05/weekinreview/05SCHM.html