|
The
Sharon Factor: PLC Member |
 |
January 26, 2001
In his attempt at reinventing himself, Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Likud
candidate for prime minister in the upcoming February 6 elections, is
claiming supernatural powers—i.e. the ability to accomplish the
impossible.
On the one hand, Sharon claims to be able to deliver “peace” with
the Palestinians and with the Arab world while promising, on the other
hand, to annex Palestinian territory, maintain all Israeli settlements,
impose Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, totally negate the
Palestinian refugees’ right of return, and wreak havoc among the
Palestinians should they dare protest.
Thus he seems to suffer from the illusion that he can “offer” less
than Barak’s already unacceptable “offer” and miraculously invent
a Palestinian counterpart who will jump for joy at the chance of
relinquishing more Palestinian lands and rights.
Conceptually, Sharon’s impaired vision seems to discern a non-existent
Palestinian willingness to enter into a new and prolonged interim phase,
to continue negotiating ad absurdum, while Sharon continues to create
more facts on the ground pending a distant (not entirely definite) final
agreement.
With the same shortsightedness, Sharon has ruled out disengagement or
“separation” as an option in favor of more fatal “togetherness”
in the unnatural context of settlements, economic dependency, and
territorial control.
If Barak (and all previous Israeli governments since 1967) could not
contain or digest the Palestinians wholesale, Sharon seems to think that
his voracious appetite is reason enough for biting off much, much more
than he can chew.
The type of apartheid “integration” envisaged by Sharon will
eventually lead to the de facto realization of a bi-national state after
a prolonged period of suffering and bloodshed.
In addition, Sharon’s threat to resort to violence and to the “iron
fist” tactics that have stigmatized his style of decision-making with
indelible blood is the cynical refuge of the politically and morally
bankrupt.
He can also ask Barak who is leaving “no stone unturned” in pursuing
a brutal policy of violence on the rampage in his attempts to quash the
intifada and batter the Palestinians into submission—to no avail.
Better yet, Sharon should take a stroll down memory lane himself and
reexamine his own bloodstained record.
What he had failed to accomplish with his notorious “Unit 101” and
such massacres as that of Qibya, or such collective cruelty as the Gaza
campaign of 1972, or the horrific Sabra and Shatilla massacres of 1982,
he will undoubtedly fail to achieve in 2001 with “more of the same.”
The situation is pregnant with even greater irony.
Sharon, who had been deemed unfit to hold the post of minister of
defense in 1982, suddenly perceives himself (or is being perceived by a
large segment of the Israeli electorate) to be suited to the post of
prime minister.
Sharon, who had brought more shame and disgrace on Israel, its global
image and moral standing, is now claiming the right to lead it towards
his type of “peace” and “security.”
As a military “vigilante” with a record of violations requiring more
investigations than any other “leader,” Sharon is now seeking the
opportunity to take his legacy to its natural conclusion—a needless,
wasteful, and tragic war of his own making.
Ironically also, Sharon is reinventing himself as the “benign
grandfatherly figure” capable of looking after his electorate while he
charges straight into another conflagration of horrendous proportions.
He claims to have “interlocutors” and “counterparts” among the
Palestinians and Arabs—assuming that they had all succumbed to the
instant collective amnesia that seems to have afflicted the Israeli
public.
Yet more ironically, Sharon has shifted the terrain of his own campaign
to the “peace-making” territory of his opponent, while Barak seems
to be competing on the Likud terrain of oppression and violence.
Thus each is guaranteed a loss of ground on his own turf without
annexing the other’s territory.
The “kinder, gentler” Sharon that his image-makers and spin-doctors
are busy manufacturing may withstand scrutiny, provided he kept his
mouth shut (as his own campaign managers are asserting).
In the meantime, other extremist members of his camp are having
difficulty keeping their own mouths shut, betraying the thinly-disguised
agenda of Sharon’s far right with threats of doom and gloom.
Avigdor Lieberman from Sharon’s own election team (not to mention the
likes of Rahba’am Ze’evi) leaves little room for conjecture in his
declared threats to plunge the whole region into a new inferno including
the bombing of Iran, Egypt, and Lebanon while destroying Palestinian
cities altogether.
One may conclude, then, that the Israeli public is voting for a
political ventriloquist, a war criminal with no history, a braggart with
no voice, a leader with no vision, and a warmonger with no peace agenda.
Ultimately, the Israelis are the ones who will pay the price for the
twice-felt shame that is Sharon.
For the Palestinians, Barak has left us with very little to fear from
Sharon in the area of murder and mayhem.
If peace is far with Barak, it will only become more unattainable with
Sharon.
Sharon, however, will bring the added ingredient of universal
condemnation and repulsion that will stigmatize Israel and subject it to
closer scrutiny, accountability, and condemnation.
Regardless of the outcome of elections, no Israeli prime minister can
enjoy the “longevity” of a full term in office given the
contradictory nature of the “mission impossible” that seems to
prevail—peace and security on the one hand, and denial of Palestinian
rights on the other.
Until there is genuine clarity of vision within the Israeli body politic
and leadership, Israel (and the region) had better get used to a
period of instability, of rapid government changes, of constant let
downs and false promises, of floundering leadership and loss of
direction—in short, a pendulum swinging to both extremes of futility
and frustration.
Peace cannot be tailored to accommodate the power of the occupier and to
incorporate conditions of injustice and victimization created by decades
of unaccountable occupation and oppression.
All aspiring candidates, from whichever party in Israel, would be well
advised to glean the proper lessons from the repeated and rapid failures
of their predecessors.
Real separation is that which severs all ties with occupation and its
mentality of domination and acquisition, threat and intimidation.
Real power comes with the empowerment of the Palestinian people and the
recognition of the legitimacy of their rights.
Real leadership is that which is not only capable of reading history,
but also of charting the course of a future unfettered by inequities of
the past.
Until then, reality cannot be put on hold and the dynamic of tragic
conflict may prove more powerful than that of hesitant peace.
Sharon’s threat of war (as inherent in his fraudulent peace agenda)
may yet be the most powerful self-fulfilling prophecy.
