Stroke of Salvation?
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke yesterday. He underwent emergency brain surgery and is currently sedated. He may or may not make a full recovery, but if he does it will take months at minimum, which removes him from the Israeli political scene at a critical moment of his own creation.
Just as a preamble, let me state unequivocally that I am sorry that Sharon has fallen ill and my prayers go up to the God of his people for his full and speedy recovery. I would have much preferred that he remained in full health and was rejected by Israeli voters for the full-scale retreat he has struck for his country in the GWOT. As it is, his infirmity has now opened up the possibility of fixing the grievous damage his cut & run policy has inflicted.
Here's yet another example of it:
At the risk of sounding like an Israel-basher, I blame, at least secondarily, both of these incidents on Mr. Sharon. The reason is sublimely simple: he created the circumstances in and by which they took place.
To understand this better, it's necessary to contrast with the plaudits given Sharon by one of his biggest blogospheric boosters:
Aside from the curious logic of seeing the granting of Palestinian statehood as "striking a blow" against it, there's another rather obvious flaw in Ed Morrissey's reasoning: Palestinians have been "demonstrating the endgame of their nihilism" for at least thirty years. Whether it was holed up in Beirut or Tunis or Ramallah, the PLO (I've never used the bogus term "Palestinian Authority") has been at war with Israel since its founding and has never, as a matter of deeds, relented in that war. Moreover, the entire decade of the 1990s was given over to the "peace process" gambit, every avenue of negotiation and brokering and "compromise" taken and exhausted. And at the end of it, when then-PM Ehud Barak offered both Gaza and 95% of the West Bank to Yassir Arafat, with East Jerusalem as his capital, Arafat's response was another Intifada.
That ought to have been all the evidence the "international community" needed that the Palestinians were "unworthy of the world's concern." Yet the world's concern continued to flow, the pressure on Israel to commit national suicide remained and even intensified, the Bushies finally succumbed to it, and last August, so did Ariel Sharon. And yet it hasn't made a damn bit of difference and it never will, because "the world" doesn't care. It doesn't matter that the Pals have "made a ruin of Gaza, attacked Egypt, kidnapped the parents of one of their own folk heroes, and turned the territory into a gangland instead of a state." What they do with what the world demands that the Jews cough up is irrelevant; the point is to force the Jews, as it were, to resume marching themselves to the ovens voluntarily. And that is precisely where Ariel Sharon was leading them. Whether he realized it or not is also irrelevant.
Now, by this tragic turn of personal events, the nation Sharon led will return to political "business as usual," and a chance at steering a course toward national survival:
With Gaza already a de facto terrorist state and Iran nearing the nuclear threshold, it couldn't happen a moment too soon. It's just a shame that Sharon's incapacitation is what it took.
Just as a preamble, let me state unequivocally that I am sorry that Sharon has fallen ill and my prayers go up to the God of his people for his full and speedy recovery. I would have much preferred that he remained in full health and was rejected by Israeli voters for the full-scale retreat he has struck for his country in the GWOT. As it is, his infirmity has now opened up the possibility of fixing the grievous damage his cut & run policy has inflicted.
Here's yet another example of it:
Palestinian society disintegrated further yesterday as gunmen from the ruling Fatah movement tried to kidnap the parents of an American activist who died trying to halt the demolition of Gaza homes, while other militants destroyed part of Gaza's border wall with Egypt - killing two guards.
Both actions, and the takeover of seven government offices in the town of Rafah, were undertaken by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in order to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to release a militant arrested on Tuesday for alleged involvement in the kidnapping last week of the British human rights worker Kate Burton and her parents, Helen and Hugh.
Spokesmen for the gunmen appeared on al-Jazeera television unmasked and announced that there would be no voting in Rafah on 25 January, the day of parliamentary elections, unless the suspected kidnapper, Alaa al-Hams, is released.
At the risk of sounding like an Israel-basher, I blame, at least secondarily, both of these incidents on Mr. Sharon. The reason is sublimely simple: he created the circumstances in and by which they took place.
To understand this better, it's necessary to contrast with the plaudits given Sharon by one of his biggest blogospheric boosters:
It now looks like Ariel Sharon may have struck the most devastating blow against Palestinian statehood by allowing them to have Gaza all to themselves. Sharon, who may be dying at this very moment, gave the world a fishbowl for the Palestinians to demonstrate the endgame of their nihilism. They have now made a ruin of Gaza, attacked Egypt, kidnapped the parents of one of their own folk heroes, and turned the territory into a gangland instead of a state. Egypt has yet to respond to the murder of its guards, but one doubts that Cairo will react with brotherly love to a government that it insisted be given this golden opportunity to prove it could run Gaza as a state.
Aside from the curious logic of seeing the granting of Palestinian statehood as "striking a blow" against it, there's another rather obvious flaw in Ed Morrissey's reasoning: Palestinians have been "demonstrating the endgame of their nihilism" for at least thirty years. Whether it was holed up in Beirut or Tunis or Ramallah, the PLO (I've never used the bogus term "Palestinian Authority") has been at war with Israel since its founding and has never, as a matter of deeds, relented in that war. Moreover, the entire decade of the 1990s was given over to the "peace process" gambit, every avenue of negotiation and brokering and "compromise" taken and exhausted. And at the end of it, when then-PM Ehud Barak offered both Gaza and 95% of the West Bank to Yassir Arafat, with East Jerusalem as his capital, Arafat's response was another Intifada.
That ought to have been all the evidence the "international community" needed that the Palestinians were "unworthy of the world's concern." Yet the world's concern continued to flow, the pressure on Israel to commit national suicide remained and even intensified, the Bushies finally succumbed to it, and last August, so did Ariel Sharon. And yet it hasn't made a damn bit of difference and it never will, because "the world" doesn't care. It doesn't matter that the Pals have "made a ruin of Gaza, attacked Egypt, kidnapped the parents of one of their own folk heroes, and turned the territory into a gangland instead of a state." What they do with what the world demands that the Jews cough up is irrelevant; the point is to force the Jews, as it were, to resume marching themselves to the ovens voluntarily. And that is precisely where Ariel Sharon was leading them. Whether he realized it or not is also irrelevant.
Now, by this tragic turn of personal events, the nation Sharon led will return to political "business as usual," and a chance at steering a course toward national survival:
On November 21, Sharon left Likud and formed his own party, called Kadima. He took this radical step in part because his views vis-à-vis the Palestinians had evolved so far from Likud's nationalist policies, as shown by his withdrawal of Israeli forces and civilians from Gaza during mid-2005, that he no longer fit there. Also, he had attained such personal popularity that he attained the stature to found a party in his own image.
His move was exquisitely timed and enormously successful. Instantly, the polls showed Kadima effectively replacing Labour and Likud. The latest survey, conducted by "Dialogue" on Monday and published yesterday, showed Kadima winning 42 seats of the 120 seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Labour followed with 19 seats and Likud trailing behind with a dismal 14.
Kadima's stunning success turned Israeli politics upside-down. The historic warhorses had been so sidelined, one could speculate about Sharon forming a government without even bothering to ally with one or other of them....
If Sharon's career is now over, so is Kadima's. He created it, he ran it, he decided its policies, and none else can now control its fissiparous elements. Without Sharon, Kadima's constituent elements will drift back to their old homes in Labour, Likud, and elsewhere. With a thud, Israeli politics return to normal.
Likud, expected to slip into a dismal third place in the March voting, stands the most to gain from Sharon's exit. Kadima's members came disproportionately from its ranks and now Likud conceivably could, under the forceful leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, do well enough to remain in power. Likud's prospects look all the brighter given that Labour has just elected a radical and untried new leader, Amir Peretz.
More broadly, the sudden leftward turn of Israeli politics in the wake of Sharon's personal turn to the left will stop and perhaps even be reversed.
With Gaza already a de facto terrorist state and Iran nearing the nuclear threshold, it couldn't happen a moment too soon. It's just a shame that Sharon's incapacitation is what it took.
posted by JASmius at 11:56 AM
<<< Home