JERUSALEM — For 20 years, Daniel Savitch has despised Ariel Sharon. The veteran left-winger voted against the Israeli prime minister, regards his warrior career with revulsion and openly questions Sharon's honesty and integrity.
So Savitch appreciates the irony of the position Israeli leftists now find themselves in: rooting for the political survival of a man many of them have long loathed.
The leftists haven't changed stripes, Savitch insists, but Sharon has, at least on one issue. The conservative leader, a steadfast supporter of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, has promised to uproot all 21 enclaves in the Gaza Strip this summer, a step long advocated by many on the left.
"I don't trust the guy, but I don't think this is the main issue here," said Savitch, 43, the executive director of a Jerusalem synagogue. "Suddenly he's doing the things that should have been done long ago.... It's too dangerous not to back him, too dangerous not to give him a chance."
Ever since the Israeli leader announced his intention last year to pull troops and settlers out of Gaza, the usual party lines and loyalties have been scrambled as politicians and voters struggle to grasp the implications of a move few had expected.
The prime minister's about-face on Gaza has been especially discomfiting for the Israeli left, which has been in disarray since the collapse of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
Grudgingly, many left-leaning Israelis and officials say they are swallowing their personal distaste and pulling for Sharon to prevail against the extreme right and the religious nationalists who want to derail his Gaza pullout plan.
"I support Sharon in spite of Sharon," one veteran left-winger said with a groan.
"It's extremely ironic that we now take up the campaign in favor of Ariel Sharon's program. However, history is full of surprises," said Janet Aviad, a leader of the Israeli activist group Peace Now, a longtime opponent of Jewish settlements.
"One shouldn't be stereotyped or locked into any one position," she said.
"When you see a person who adopts your positions and moves in the direction that at least a majority of Israelis now support, vis-a-vis the settlements in Gaza, you have to support him."
He needs the help. Although Sharon's Cabinet has approved his disengagement plan, to start at the end of July, opponents threaten to kill it by torpedoing his budget in parliament. Failure to pass a spending plan by the end of this month will automatically trigger new elections and imperil the pullback.
