Sharon's Whirlwind

P. David Hornik paints a bleak picture of post-Gaza Israel and Ariel Sharon's culpability for it:

The Israeli soldier faces a formidable task. Since 1993, he not only fights the terrorist enemy but, in effect, a geopolitical system that ensures the enemy keeps coming at him and is never defeated. The Palestinian Authority always gets a free pass, with Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas receiving endless extensions on their obligation to “dismantle the terror infrastructure.”...

[T]he work of urban warfare units like Maglan and others appears Sisyphean if every terrorist they kill or catch is automatically replaced by a steady stream of others.

The Rafah crossing opened for the first time on Saturday under the new arrangement whereby the Palestinians are responsible for who enters, apart from farcical European “monitoring.” Some 1,500 Palestinians entered from Egyptian Sinai in the course of the day, compared to an average of 400 per day when Israel was in charge of the crossing.

The implications of this latest "deal" - and that the Bush Administration could actually have brokered it - are nothing short of astonishing:

Under the terms of the same agreement, brokered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, by which Rafah opened for heavy traffic on Saturday, dozens of buses and trucks will soon be crossing Israel from Gaza to the West Bank daily. That their freight will include fresh terrorist cadres, and weapons for their use, is as certain as the sun setting in the West. No less certain is that the Israeli army will keep having plenty of work to do, Israeli civilians will keep being endangered, and that the unilateral cession of Gaza set it all in motion. International pressure will make sure this process continues eternally, if Israel bows to it. [emphasis added]

Not eternally; eventually the Jewish state will be worn down to such an extent that its Islamic enemies will go for the jugular and launch an all-out attack, with concomitantly catastrophic geopolitical consequences. By retreating in the face of evil, Ariel Sharon has made war more likely, and ensured that his country will be at a greater disadvantage when it comes.

And on this he presumes to seize the "center" of Israeli politics?

Daniel Pipes, who knows a thing or two about this general topic, doesn't think so. Citing Bernard Susser's and Giora Goldberg's Escapist Parties in Israeli Politics, he predicts that like all its predecessors, Sharon's new Kadima faction will be a flash in the pan that will not long endure.

Tell me if the following analysis doesn't sound eerily familiar:

The authors note that “escapist political parties … have been an almost permanent fixture of Israeli political life over the past 40 years.” Calling Kadima escapist may sound insulting, but Sharon’s new party closely fits Susser and Goldberg’s use of this term. Actually, they distinguish between two types of escapist parties, “anomic” and “new start.” The former interests us little here, being directed at “alienated, politically adrift voters with little investment in the political system”...

To begin with, these express “a powerful urge to cut through the maze of difficulties [surrounding Israel] with gratifyingly sharp and decisive answers” and arise because the Israeli electorate gets demoralized “when complex issues continuously resist solution.” ...

They tend to be ideologically unfocused. It is difficult to use conventional categories like left and right, dove and hawk, socialist and capitalist, establishment or anti-establishment to describe them. Their answers to political dilemmas tend to be sensational, uncomplicated and ethically charged. They promise quick results and dramatic successes. They display a low threshold for political ambiguities. … Escapist parties will normally claim to belong to the political “centre,” even if the party’s leadership is closer to one or the other of the ideological poles....

Claiming to represent some underlying national consensus, to be the voice of a silent majority, they make every effort to appeal to as broad and varied an electorate as possible.” They also have a similar sort of appeal: “They are particularly adept at tapping into, and claiming to represent, the frustrations of an exasperated electorate. … escapist parties tend to emphasize personal over substantive concerns. They highlight their own impeccable credentials and their leadership skills rather than the worldviews they champion....

The leadership of these escapist parties is usually a strikingly mixed bag of individuals with little ideological coherence. They tend to be drawn, at times quite indiscriminately, from all corners of the ideological spectrum. … they are parties with a national leadership but without grassroots organizations or developed local representation....

The life expectancy of escapist parties tends to be quite short. They often do not last more than a term or two before disappearing. [emphases added]

If names like "Ross Perot," "Pat Buchanan," and "John McCain" didn't spring immediately to mind, you probably aren't politically literate enough to be reading this blog. Perot hung around for a few years, than dropped from sight. Buchanan had his pitchfork brigades, and ended up selling out his social conservative beliefs to try and mount the "party" Perot left behind. And McCain, who revels in being all things to all people and because of it will never be trusted by the GOP base with its presidential nomination, will be the next "independent" spoiler who purports to represent the "radical middle."

Like McCain plots today, Ariel Sharon abandoned Likud out of spite and for revenge against the party he founded and its sensible refusal to sign off on cutting and running from the terrorists in Gaza. His Kadima faction is all personality and no substance, standing for nothing and promising everything. And like all manifestations of mushy milquetoast, Kadima will become mush and ooze offstage, discovering like its antecedents that a cult of personality cannot substitute for a genuine political movement.

Or, given the inevitable consequences of Sharon's national betrayal, perhaps chased off stage instead - the final act before the final curtain comes down.