JERUSALEM — Christians, like others in the Holy Land, are waiting to see what kind of Israeli leader Ariel Sharon will turn out to be.

Sharon, who on Feb. 6 won a landslide victory against incumbent Ehud Barak in the race for prime minister, is a veteran right-wing politician and a former general. Nicknamed “the bulldozer,” he is feared by many in the Arab world due to his strong-arm approach to foreign affairs.

In the early 1980s, Sharon led the Israeli Army's entry into Lebanon. Though he was successful in forcing out the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which had been attacking Israel's northern communities, an Israeli commission of inquiry found him indirectly responsible for the 1982 massacre by Christian Phalangist forces of hundreds of Palestinians in Lebanon's Sabra and Shzatilla refugee camps.

To this day, many Israelis and Arabs blame Sharon for the 18-year Israeli occupation of Lebanon.

Ironically, though, Barak, the man who finally withdrew all Israeli troops from Lebanon in 1999, failed to provide his constituents with a sense of security. Despite promising the Palestinians sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and a variety of other unprecedented concessions, the Palestinians launched a second violent uprising, known as the Al Aksa Intifada, last September.

Since then, more than 50 Israelis and 300 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict.

The Palestinians are demanding that Israel hand over all land it captured during the 1967 Mideast war, the dissolution of all Israeli settlements on occupied territory, full sovereignty over the disputed Temple Mount in Jerusalem — a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims — and the right of all refugees to return to their homes in Israel. Barak refused on all four counts.

Officially, Church leaders have refused comment on Sharon's victory, and what it might mean for local Christians and the Church as a whole.

“Israeli elections are an internal affair,” Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah told the Register the day after the election. Patriarch Sabbah is an outspoken proponent of Palestinian national rights.

However, in an unofficial capacity, several Church officials did voice opinions.

Father Raed Awad Abusahlia, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate, said that local Christians “know very well that the result will affect our life and future,” but he added that “we are ready to deal with the newly elected prime minister because he will not be worse than the previous one.”

Christian-Muslim Solidarity

Father Raed, like all of those interviewed, stressed that Holy Land Christians consider themselves to be “part of the Palestinian people,” no different from their Muslim Arab brethren. “We share the same hopes and aspirations, as well as the same difficulties and sufferings.”

The chancellor said that Sharon's victory “shows very well that the Israelis don't have leaders, because choosing Sharon with his past means that they are not ready to achieve a just peace and don't recognize” the rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people.

Unless Sharon changes his position, Father Raed said, “we will need a real miracle to go out from this dilemma.”

Maronite Archbishop Paul Sayah, patriarchal vicar of Jerusalem, Jordan and Palestinian-ruled territories, also underscored that when it comes to Israeli politics, “Christians don't see themselves as a separate category” from Muslims.

This was evident on election day, when many of Israel's approximately 100,000 Christian citizens, the vast majority of whom are Arabs, decided to boycott the elections, along with the majority of Muslim citizens. Only 25% of the country's 1 million Arab citizens cast a vote; there is no statistical breakdown between Christian and Muslim voting patterns.

“They were voting with their feet,” said Archbishop Sayah, explaining that the Israeli Arab minority, which constitutes 20% of the population of the Jewish State, feel discriminated against. “I think they felt originally that Barak was prepared to deliver on the score of justice and peace. They were as disillusioned as many Jews were.”

Archbishop Sayah pointed out that both Christian and Muslim Arab communities in Israel receive considerably less funding than do comparable Jewish communities. The schools are inferior, there is almost no local industry, and the unemployment rate is much higher.

Another factor led to the boycott: In October 2000, while Israelis and Palestinians were clashing in the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli Arabs in the Galilee staged a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians. When the rally grew violent, Israeli security personnel shot and killed 13 demonstrators.

Feeling shocked and outraged, Arab Israeli leaders urged their people to punish the Barak government by staying away on election day.

Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, “feel cheated out of some basic rights that they should have as citizens,” Archbishop Sayah said. “No one in Israel denies it.”

An Israeli official said that the government “is doing what it can to reverse these inequities, which have built up during the past 52 years. The day before the election, Barak officially apologized to the Arab community and officially took responsibility for the shootings.” Archbishop Sayah said he had every reason to believe that Sharon will honor the agreements pertaining to property and status that Israel has with the Holy Land's various churches.

“I presume any democratic state will honor its agreements, regardless of who is leading the country,” he said.

Sharon and Religious Freedom

This was confirmed by Ra'anan Gissin, Sharon's personal advisor.

“Israel will continue its agreements with the churches and will continue to maintain free access to all religions. In modern times,” he asserted, “the only time when there has been free access for all religions has been under Israeli sovereignty.”

Rabbi David Rosen, director of the Anti-Defamation League in Israel and an expert on Christian-Jewish affairs, predicts that Sharon will try to maintain positive relations with the international Christian community.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Sharon understands the importance of good relations with the Christian world,” Rosen said.

Rosen believes that the incoming prime minister will be especially attentive to evangelical Christians in the United States, “who have significant political influence, especially with the Republican Party.”

Referring to two other right-wing Israeli prime ministers of the past, Rosen added, “Menachem Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu actively courted this segment of this Christian world, but at the expense of other segments.”

Sharon will have to continue the Mideast peace process if he doesn't want to lose popular support, Franciscan Father David Jaeger, member of the Holy Land Custody and one of the architects of the agreements between Israel and the Vatican, told the Vatican missionary agency Fides.

“Israelis' vote was not against Barak's peace policy, but against his administrative deficiencies,” Father Jaeger said. “If Sharon does not continue the peace process, he will lose all popular consensus.”

Father Jaeger, who is an Israeli of Jewish origin, cautioned, “What is especially worrying is the future of relations with neighbors, especially with the Palestinians: Everyone knows the position of the Prime Minister-elect, his party, and the other parties of the right.”

But, added Father Jaeger, “Sharon appears to be aware of this concern, and has tried to come close not only to neighboring countries, but also to that clear majority of Israelis who have always supported the peace process.”

Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.

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