Word: sharone
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...Tweaking," however, is not a concept one normally associates with Sharon. The Prime Minister, 75, is not a subtle man. At Aqaba, his statement started not with hopeful words on the proximity of peace but with this: "My paramount responsibility is the security of the people of Israel and of the state of Israel. There can be no compromise with terror. And Israel, together with all free nations, will continue fighting terrorism until its final defeat...
After a suicide bomber in Jerusalem killed 17 people the day after the failed hit on Rantisi, Sharon told his Cabinet ministers, according to Gissin, "Jewish blood can't come cheap. We aren't going to be put on the altar of the road map." Gissin maintains that Sharon's revulsion to terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians dates from the 1950s, when there were frequent lethal penetrations of Israel from the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan. Sharon, a young army officer, took command of Unit 101, a counterterrorism outfit that launched reprisal attacks on Palestinian villages there...
Criticism from outside Israel, however, has rarely deflected Sharon from his chosen path. For the Prime Minister and Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic-security service, there is no contradiction between espousing the road map and hammering Hamas. Leaders of Hamas--like Rantisi--rejected the road map and vowed to continue the fight against Israel. If they make that decision, Sharon will see that they pay the consequences. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority--divided between those who support the road map and those who do not--are, as yet, too weak to control Hamas...
...though Ariel Sharon is reluctant to listen to a hard line on security, but it helps when the tough talk comes from someone he trusts. Sharon's Mr. Security is Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic spy and security service. (The Mossad handles foreign intelligence.) According to Israeli intelligence officials, he has had a more profound effect on the Prime Minister's handling of Palestinian terrorists than any other adviser. "He has the Prime Minister's ear," says a senior Israeli security official. With 27 years' service in the Shin Bet, the mild-looking Dichter...
...enabled an assassin to kill Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that year. Dichter was promoted to the top job in 2000 by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak. When the intifadeh broke out five months into Dichter's five-year term, he initiated a string of high-profile counteroperations that impressed Sharon even before he became Prime Minister. To kill Hamas operatives, Dichter had his agents hide explosives in telephone booths and car-seat headrests; he pushed them to cut planning time for operations from months to mere hours. Dichter and Sharon share the same view of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat...