In West Bank, resentment is tinged with admiration

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- In conversations in refugee camps, university campuses, cafes, and political party offices -- often with television updates on Ariel Sharon's health blaring in the background -- West Bank residents voiced reluctant admiration yesterday for how well the stricken prime minister had advanced Israel's interests, often at the expense of Palestinians.

Their view of Sharon reflects bitterness over what they see as his success in changing their lives.

The prognosis for Sharon remained dire after he underwent further surgery yesterday in a Jerusalem hospital, where he was being treated for a severe stroke he suffered late Wednesday.

Sharon was already reviled by Palestinians and Arabs in neighboring countries for what Palestinians argue was his hand in alleged massacres and rights violations in the Israeli-Arab wars, especially when he was defense minister in 1982 during the notorious killings of Palestinians at the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla.

Since taking office as Israel's prime minister in March 2001, he has angered and confounded Palestinian officials with a series of unilateral moves: he isolated Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah compound; he began construction of separation barrier in the West Bank to keep out suicide bombers; and finally, he engineered the withdrawal of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip last year.

The concrete barrier at the Kalandiya checkpoint that divides Ramallah, the Palestinian capital, and the nearby city of Jerusalem is a physical expression of Sharon's legacy for Palestinians in the West Bank -- forging a new order that has put Jerusalem and much of the political and economic bounty it represents increasingly out of Palestinians' reach.

''Whether Sharon is alive or not, the Jews have one policy," said Imad al-Sarraj, 40, a private school administrator who commutes to work from Ramallah to Jerusalem. ''They will continue building the wall, which means for me personally that I will lose my job because I won't be able to get to Jerusalem."

Since Arafat's death in November 2004, Sharon had promoted the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a viable peace partner.

In practice however, many Palestinians said, Sharon instead charted a course designed to separate Israelis from Palestinians and construct a more easily defended Jewish state, with little or no input from Palestinians.

''Israeli policy does not change. What changes are the tactics," said Ismail Abu Al-Abed, 32, a blacksmith and member of the anti-Israel Hamas movement who spent seven years in prison.

Sharon achieved Israel's goal of consolidating the Jewish state's position in the region and in the world better than any of his predecessors, Abed said, reflecting a common mixture of frustration and respect.

He listed what he described as Sharon's achievements, including international acceptance of the separation barrier, strengthening Israel's strategic relationship with the United States, and inroads with the Arab world -- all while continuing to restrict Palestinians' movement and rebuffing their political demand for an equal say in policies affecting life in the Palestinian territories.

''He protected Israel's interests, but talked to the world about peace, while doing nothing about it," Abed said.

With Sharon apparently permanently out of politics, the era of great personal rivalries between Israeli and Palestinian leaders may be coming to a close. For more than three decades, Sharon and Arafat battled each other, coming to personify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The guerrilla skirmishes of the 1960s, when Arafat led a small militant faction and Sharon was ascending the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces, culminated in the second Palestinian uprising, or intifadah, in 2000, after Sharon made a trip to the Temple Mount/Haram Sharif, the site in Jerusalem holiest to both Jews and Muslims.

No other leaders on either side have come to personify the conflict so directly. Some Israelis and Palestinians joked that after Arafat died Sharon had lost his single biggest political raison d'etre.

''They chased each other in a historic chase," said Mahmoud Khader, 33, a vegetable peddler who was watching Arab satellite channel reports about Sharon's brain surgery.

''The Israelis call him the savior of the Israeli nation. We call him the butcher of the Palestinian people," Khader said.

Either way, Khader said, Sharon had emerged the victor because he had bested his adversaries -- be they Palestinians or Jewish settlers who loathed him for pulling them out of Gaza.

In Israel yesterday, political discussion focused on whether any successor to Sharon would have the same authority and credibility to make major moves, such as withdrawing from more settlements.

But Palestinians from factions including Fatah, the secular group that controls the Palestinian Authority, as well as the Islamist group Hamas said they believed Sharon's successor would be likely to follow the clear and unilateral course he charted, confident in support from Washington.

''I hope his disappearance will be good for us, but I fear anyone who follows will be worse," said Kamel Nakhib, 47, a blacksmith.

At Arafat's old compound in downtown Ramallah, workers were digging foundations around their former leader's grave for an ornate new mausoleum.

Speaking during a break from the bottom of the 10-foot ditch, and standing in front of a pillar of earth containing Arafat's coffin, 25-year-old construction worker Muhannad Abdulhamid smiled when asked about Sharon.

''Arafat is waiting in paradise to throw banana peels on the head of Sharon when he dies and goes to hell," Abdulhamid said.