Sharon hasn’t even (as far as I know) died yet and some people are already writing the kinds of rosy-tinted things about him that are usually reserved for obituaries. How about this, from AP’s Steven Gutkin in Jerusalem?
- Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke threw Israeli politics and Mideast peacemaking efforts into turmoil, threatening momentum for a deal with the Palestinians and enhancing the position of hard-liners.
So far as I know, up until Sharon had his stroke there was almost zero momentum for a deal with the Palestinians. What there was (possibly) momentum for was a further unilateral step by Sharon’s new Kadima Party that might cede some control over some small areas of the West Bank to the Palestinians in “return” for Israel winning greater international support for its seizure of East Jerusalem and many other significant parts of the West Bank.
If Sharon had been headed toward “a deal with the Palestinians” there were many, many things he could have done to negotiate/coordinate with them both last year’s Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the other supplementary negotiations that were supposed to follow on from that (like the Gaza-WB link.)
He did not. Philosophically as well as in practice his very strong preference has always been for forceful unilateral action that imposes his own personal preferences on all other parties, whether Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, or other.
Sharon is still alive, and his family and supporters must all be wracked with worry over his fate. So personally, I think it’s inappropriate to go into too many details of the man’s long record as a military and political leader. It’s not obituary time yet. Also, any obituary, when written, will require an assessment of all his activities from the 1950s on, and not just of the two intriguing decisions he made in the past 26 months: to pull all Israeli ground presences out of Gaza, and then to break from Likud and found Kadima.
Also, I don’t agree with that assessment above that Sharon’s exit from active political life will necessarily strengthen Israeli hardliners. As we saw last summer, a large majority of Jewish Israelis clearly supported the decision to pull the settlers out of Gaza, and there is also a clear majority who favor further significant Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank. Israeli hardliners do have an advantage over the “left” in terms of ideological/political clarity (aka rigidity), and some possible advantage in terms of organization. But if the leaders on the left can muster a clear and realistic approach to peacemaking then they have a good chance of being able to mobilize the country’s many, many supporters of a decent and realistic approach to peacemaking.
The position of the US government and the rest of the international community will be crucial in helping to determine whether it is the Israeli moderates or the hardliners who emerge stronger from the collapse of the (thus far highly “personalized”) Sharonist center. It is extremely unhelpful for anyone in the international arena to be fatalistic about any “inevitability” of the empowerment of the hardliners.
In this regard the US government is not just “one more” representative of the international community. It is the sole outside power that has supported Sharon’s positions against the Palestinians through thick and thin over recent years. Now, Washington will be forced to make some huge further choices regarding Palestine. Let’s hope it makes them in a wise and foresighted way, and not in a way that stokes further violence by anyone… and that includes the Israeli hawks both in and outside the security forces.
It looks like Sharon is in stable condition, and I hope that he recovers as much as possible. But I cannot see him returning to office.
In terms of overall political implications, I think the biggest concern is that almost the entire “center” of the political spectrum tried to hitch themselves on Sharon’s popularity, and now may be left in the wilderness. Likud is almost complete hard-liner now, with the possible exception of Silvan Shalom.
I personally prefer the policies of Labor or Meretz. But if Kadima collapses, there are several promising political figures who could have been future leaders. Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni were possible future PMs, but don’t seem quite ready for prime time.
Regarding your comment that: “The position of the US government and the rest of the international community will be crucial in helping to determine whether it is the Israeli moderates or the hardliners who emerge stronger from the collapse of the (thus far highly “personalized”) Sharonist center.” Actually, I think it is the position of the Israeli elecorate that is more determinative.
An outline of their ideology, where “freedom” and “democracy” come from.
2005-09-03 Sharansky’s “Case for Democracy”
Joshua, thanks for this contribution. I agree with you that the Israeli electorate will be more determinative. That’s why I wrote that international actors would be crucial in “helping” to determine future directions.
However, I am convinced by 30-plus years of Israel-watching that broad sectors of the Israeli electorate can be (and indeed, have been) strongly influenced in their political choices by the incentive structures they see being maintained by outside actors, and crucially by Washington. That is how Washington “helps” to determine the direction…
Political scenarios in a post-Sharon era http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/666777.html
I don’t think it’s anywhere near a foregone conclusion that Kadima will collapse. Sharon was certainly its biggest electoral asset, but much of the reason Sharon broke with Likud in the first place was the underlying public wish for a centrist alternative. That wish is still there and can carry Kadima a long way if it gets its act together reasonably quickly. I think a Kadima-Avoda coalition is still the most likely outcome of the election, albeit with Olmert as PM.
Russian analyst discovers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Rian’s Belenkaya calls Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal a genius plan which increased Israeli international rating and helped to shift the responsibility for peace settlement to the Palestinians. Also, she dsicovers that now Israeli politicians are more concerned about their political careers than about the peace process – as if there is something new or unusual about it!
Make no mistake, unfortunately, those who subscribe to this kind of uncertainty and naivete on I/P, are looking for nothing but bitter trouble.
1. M.Belenkaya. Sharon’s sickness changes Israeli politics: http://rian.ru/analytics/20060105/42863797.html
2. Israeli political cartoons: http://inplainview01.us.tt/cult/toonsIsrael.htm
as to who is more determinative in influencing Israeli elections, a good case can be made that it is the Intifadaists…the timing of their pre-election outrages cost Peres the 1996 election (to Netanyahu) and Barak the one in 2001 (to Sharon).
I am only a very interested observer of the Israeli/Palestinian morass, but do think the release of Barghouti from prison might start negotiations? I do so enjoy your site that I found from Juan Cole’s site.
Jonathan,
I think you are very correct about not writing off Kadima just yet. There is a very strong pull to the center, and has been for quite a while here, as witnessed in the enthusiasm with which both the Merkaz Party and Shinui under Tommy Lapid were welecomed. These were short-lived popular movements mainly because of a lack of real leadership.
As the poll, released tonight by Channel 10 and Haaretz shows, Kadima is still viable, provided it can unite quickly, and remain united, under a clear leadership with a single candidate recognized as dominant and continuing with Sharon’s programme. (This is exactly what happened with Labour in 1992, when Rabin and Peres ended their open feuding.)
I agree that a Kadima-Labour coalition is the most likely outcome. Likud and Netanyhu have already placed themselves well outside what is palatable for the majority of the Israeli electorate, I believe, and I don’t think that that is a reversible position. If you recall, Bibi got absolutely no traction in 1996 with the electorate until he openly, if reluctantly, embraced Oslo. I don’t think that he can use that trick again with an electorate that already distrusts him.
Robertson Links Sharon Stroke, God’s Wrath
Hahooo, see this he is a CHRISTIAN!! Is he?
What we got I think Zionist who colour himself as Christian, and talking like “Fanatic”
Full story
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for “dividing God’s land.”
“God considers this land to be his,” Robertson said on his TV program “The 700 Club.” “You read the Bible and he says `This is my land,’ and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, `No, this is mine.”’
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001/20060105/1812602711.htm&ewp=ewp_news_0106pat_robertson
Salah, you obviously haven’t been reading the “Left Behind” series of thrilling Christian apocalyptic fiction (www.leftbehind.com). If you had, you would understand where good old Pat is coming from. Basically, the Jews all have to gather back in the Holy Land (all of it, including what the Heathen refer to as the “West Bank” and “Gaza”). Then there’s the “Tribulation” (seven years of bad luck – I think this is the same as you get for walking under a ladder). After that comes “Armageddon” which is like a really big war on terror that, among other things, consumes all of Israel. Then there’s the “Rapture” when Jesus comes back and takes the born-again Christians, and any Jews that have repented of their sins and accepted Him as their savior, up to Heaven. Everybody else burns in Hell for all eternity. Or something like that. I may have the details a little wrong – some Christian here can correct me.
The really pathetically stupid thing is how the right-wing Jews in Israel and the US have been trying to cultivate these people as their buddies. You’d think they would have learned from the first crusades that a bunch of riled up Christian fanatics don’t stop with kiling Muslims. Oh well . . .
John C.,
Thanks for your attention.
The fact is we had a Holy Book “Qura’an” it’s obvious those people used the verses from Holy Books to manipulate the people minds like what we see in any religion.
But the basic things we need to understand that the “Holy Land” its also Holy Land for Christian and Muslim also the Jews, if some group or individuals reserve that land to their greed thinking then its a problem, this is the key point in the all story.
What I expected John no Religion either Christianity or Judaism and Islam tell you to kill and steal the land of human who lived on it.
In fact you are ordered by your faith to call them to believe in your book and your religion not killing them and steal their land.
May my talk looking optimistic but this the truth and my faith told me.
Thanks john I will go to read “Left Behind”
Hi all and thanks for your v. informative comments.
Salah, John C is right to point to the incredible strength within US popular culture and the organized evangelical-Christian rightwing of the “Left Behind” series, which are some extremely badly written novels (trust me, I read one… yuk!) and now they’ve started making movies from them.
Elizabeth, I believe the Israeli govt has already started allowing Marwan Barghouthi to hold some political meetings in his prison, etc. But I’m not sure that even he could save fateh from its current, very deeply rooted implosion. (More on that in this recent JWN post.)
Sorry my old link to the story looks not working this one working
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/us.jsp?floc=ns-tos-feat-h-02&feature=newz_0106ariel_sharon
Helena,
extremely badly written novels
I think Helena, you said “badly written” is it on prepose? May be the writer might put in this shape.
I can not think some writer writs a Novel by this level and he writes badly unless some thing in his mind he need to reflected in this way.
Salah, yes, they’re badly written (from my point of view) because they are written like very cheap adventure novels… with very thin characters, simple language, and really nasty suggestive sexual references, but lots of violence and militarism and “adventure” and simple ideas of “our side” being good and “the enemy” being very evil indeed.
However, very cheap adventure novels do have a huge readership in this country. So I guess that was what these authors (who are also Christian “preachers”) were looking for.
I should add that none of this is my idea of Christianity, at all.
“Thanks john I will go to read “Left Behind””
Salah my friend, I did not mean that you should go and read these trashy books. Don’t waste your time.
As Medea lay dying
Thinking about Medea‘s demise, the first thing I can imagine is Vonnegut’s Sad Messenger. Or maybe it is something like this? Call her a surgeon or a butcher, but Medea’s magic was quite remarkable. She certainly knew how to make men happy, and those who curse her, risk accusation of envy.
GU. Jonathan Freedland. Israel braced for loss of its grandfather: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,1680473,00.html
And now the surgeon is lying unconscious. “It’s as if we’re living in a Greek tragedy,” said the Tel Aviv University analyst Gary Sussman, recalling Rabin’s death at the height of the Oslo peace process in 1995. “Every time there’s a leader who has what it takes to save us from ourselves, he gets taken from us.”
This is permanent location of this comment, it is also posted on YNet – together with lamentations of religious Jews, yepp.
Evidently our boy Pat Robertson is working on raising money for an evangelical theme park to be built in Israel by the Sea of Galilee, on land to be donated by the Israeli government!
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=97717&ran=124161&tref=po
They love him over there!!
Sorry to beat this subject to death, but Josh Marshall’s TPM blog led me to these wonderful news items from 2002:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28235
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28070
The first concerns the formation of the “American Alliance of Jews and Christians, or AAJC,” with an advisory board including “Dr. James Dobson, Charles Colson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Rev. Pat Robertson, Pastor Rick Scarborough, as well as Rabbi Barry Freundel, Rabbi David Novak, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Michael Medved, John Uhlmann and Jack Abramoff.”
The second describes a pamphlet circulated by a related organization called “Toward Tradition.” The 52-page pamphlet sent to Jewish organizations was entitled “Enemies or Allies? Why American Jews Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Conservative Christians.”
The title of this pamphlet must have been a conscious parody of the classic 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Right? It must have been, right? What were they thinking? What did the Jewish organizations who received this pamphlet think?
Evidently our boy Pat Robertson is working on raising money for an evangelical theme park to be built in Israel” Occupied Plastenian Land” by the Sea of Galilee, on land to be donated by the Israeli government!
This is the other BOY, you got alot of them John C.
NEW YORK – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), the keynote speaker at the Zionist Organization of America
(ZOA)’s annual Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner at the New York Hilton on November 16, said at the dinner that when
he recently stood on the Golan Heights and looked out across the region, “I didn’t see any occupied territory, I only saw Israel.”
http://www.internationalwallofprayer.org/A-227-Representative-Tom-DeLay-At-ZOA-Dinner-November-16-2003.html
“Be Not Afraid”
This is what in his speech the House Majority Leader Tom DeLay delivered to the Israeli Knesset on July 30, 2003.
” We know our victory in the war on terror depends on Israel’s survival.”
Merkel’s posturing on Gitmo aside, Spiegel considers big ME war quite seriously. Unfortunately, this looks like natural Sharon’s legacy.
Pierre Heumann. The Rise of the Hard-liners? http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,393862,00.html
2006-01-11 If this is not absolutism then what is?