Israel's Glimmer Of Hope

Joel Rosenberg wrote last week on NRO of the bitter historical irony of the ultimate Jewish warrior, Ariel Sharon, transforming in his dotage into the ultimate appeaser:

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon built his entire career fighting terrorists and opposing the cockeyed diplomatic notion of “land for peace,” wherein Israel forks over tangible geographic assets in return signed pieces of paper full of meaningless promises.

Yet in recent years, Sharon, 77, has lurched from opposing “land for peace” to supporting “land for nothing.”

Almost nobody in Israel wants to keep Gaza or govern the daily lives of over one million Palestinian souls crammed into the tiny sliver of seaside real estate. But the current so-called “unilateral withdrawal” is unilateral surrender. Israel will give away long-fought-over territory without requiring the Palestinian Authority to wage a real war against Hamas and other terror groups and without requiring the PA to pursue real internal democratic reforms to give pro-peace Palestinian moderates the freedom to speak their mind in public and in the media without fear of reprisals.

As such, Sharon’s gamble is bad for Israel. It is bad for the U.S. and our war on terror.

Rather like the "Nixon going to China" analogy. Except that Tricky Dick didn't journey to Beijing in 1971 to fork over Alaska and Hawaii to Mao Zedong. And Sharon coughing up Gaza is more dangerous even than that.

One man of principle who could not abide this craven capitulation was Natan Sharansky:

Back in May, Israeli Cabinet Minister Natan Sharansky resigned from Ariel Sharon’s government for precisely these reasons. Sharansky, the one-time Soviet dissident imprisoned by the KGB in a gulag for nine years, has emerged over the years as one of Israel’s most principled and clear-thinking leaders. His best-selling book, The
Case for Democracy won him a role as a key ally of President Bush in the administration’s effort to democratize the Middle East while simultaneously alienating him from his own prime minister.

Sharansky reluctantly but courageously concluded that he could no longer serve a government that would unilaterally turn over Gaza and large portions of the West Bank to Israel's sworn enemies without getting anything tangible much less valuable in return, and without insisting upon democratic reform within Palestinian society. Sharansky was also deeply disappointed by Sharon's refusal to allow a national referendum on the withdrawal plan before its implementation, now slated for August 17.

Sharansky's was a symbolic stand. The other man of principle whose similar stand was expected, and which would be a far more practical threat to Sharon's premiership, was ex-PM and current Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, he did not announce his resignation until a week ago.

You can always tell the stature and effectiveness of a conservative leader by the reflexiveness and billiousness of the invective hurled at him for pretty much anything he does. In Bibi's case, he was denounced by the Israeli Left as well as our old friends at the New York Times (in what has to be the first example of the Gay Lady ever having a kind word to say about Ariel Sharon, even by implication), as a "political opportunist" for waiting until the retreat from Gaza was a fait accompli, as well as better positioning himself for an intra-Likud challenge to Sharon for party leadership, instead of when Sharansky did, when it would have "meant something." Of course, if Bibi had quit back in May, the same detractors would have attacked him for trying to leech Sharansky's moral stature for crass political purposes. After all, he's a conservative who doesn't buy into the dominant appeasement mentality, so nothing he does is ever right or pure of motive.

The real reason Netanyahu didn't bail three months ago is that he had unfinished, and crucial, business in his existing ministerial portfolio:

Netanyahu as finance minister has been deeply involved in trying to revive the Israeli economy which had been in recession for the past three years. He was steering badly needed tax cuts, privatization, deregulation and banking reforms through the Israeli parliament right up to the last minute in office. With the bulk of his sweeping free-market reform plan now in operation — and Israel’s economy and stock market steadily improving — Netanyahu finally had the freedom to step down from his governing responsibilities in a responsible fashion, and he did so.

If he does challenge PM Sharon, it will be for the same reason that the Israeli voters threw out Ehud Barak and Labor in favor of Sharon in the first place more than four years ago - to try and prevent Israeli national suicide.

And according to a Haaretz poll of Likudniks, Bibi would be the odds-on favorite to win:

Resigned Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu would upset Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a race for the Likud Party leadership if the party primary were held today, according to a new poll of Likud members, says a report in Haaretz.

Polls over the past year have consistently shown Sharon beating Netanyahu, but this latest tally found that in a three-way race between Sharon, Netanyahu and MK Uzi Landau, the veteran leader of the Likud anti-disengagement camp, Netanyahu would win 35% of the vote - compared to 29% for Sharon and 17% for Landau.

Forty percent of Likud Party members are needed to win in the first round, avoiding a runoff. Furthermore, according to the report, if Landau were to drop out of the race, or in the event of a runoff between Sharon and Netanyahu, most of Landau's supporters would switch to Netanyahu - giving him 47% of the vote, to 33% for Sharon.

It is speculated that faced with such a repudiation, Sharon might take his supporters and defect to Labor to form a so-called "centrist" coalition that could retain his hold on power. But given the leftward direction his policies have taken, that would only constitute a more honest reflection of the already existing political alignment.

However, with Jewish retaliatory violence against Palestinians, mutinies in the IDF against orders requiring the forcible removal of Jewish settlers in Gaza, and the establishment of a neoTaliban on the Mediterranean coast and Israel's southwestern doorstep the likely consequences of the Sharon surrender policy, it is doubtful that such a political alignment can survive, regardless of its guise.

Or that the Jewish state, or victory in the GWOT, can survive if it does.