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Ahmadinejad's final solution |
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NO, No, no to terror |
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The U.S. and Hamas: A Sick Diplomatic Fantasy |
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Despite dismay at genocidal statement, Kofi Annan kowtows to Teheran |
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Wish lists, American and Syrian |
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Congratulations, with Reservations |
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Ariel Sharon, Again |
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When Hitler is your role model, should majority rule? |
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Reforming the UN, is it worth it? |
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Terror in Beersheva does not invalidate withdrawal from Gaza |
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Four more settlements |
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Us versus Them |
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Shame on you, Arik Sharon! |
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Indyk and Ross helped make the mess and now they're complaining? |
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New Russia? Same old anti-Semitism! |
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Terror: The female touch |
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Sweet, Low-Calorie Anti-Semitism |
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Britain Beware |
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Acting out of faith in Gaza |
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By Micah D. Halpern
December 20, 2005
The Middle East is more about politics than it is about politeness. But when a leader takes ill, decency sets in and kind wishes are in order.
How will the Arab and Muslim world react now that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been sidelined, hospitalized, even if only for a couple of days? How should they react? Has anything changed? Has everything changed?
One message that reached the bedside of the prime minister brought a wish for "a speedy recovery -- out of the political arena." And that was from a colleague, an Israeli.
Ariel Sharon is an enigma. If politics were poker, he would be a master. It is a style and attitude that he cultivated and perpetuates. Perhaps it was crucial to his military success. It has certainly been helpful in his political career. If Sharon is considered an enigma by Israelis and by the West, imagine how much more of a mystery he is to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
And now that he has had a mild stroke, the Arab world is caught in a quandary.
For years Sharon has been typecast. When they are being kind, the Arab world refers to him as the Bulldozer. Most often, he is known as the Butcher of Lebanon.
Ariel Sharon is responsible for the 1982 War in Lebanon. And when he served as Israeli minister of defense, under his watch, Christian Phalange Militia led a massacre decimating two large Palestinian refugee camps. To the Arab world, Sharon represents the hated Israeli, the hated Jew. He is their everyman, their everyJew, their everyIsraeli.
To the Arab world, Ariel Sharon is not just a man, he is a man of mythical proportions. Sharon has always been seen as the devil incarnate, as utterly without redeeming value.
But is the devil you know better than the one you don't? Should they pray for his health or wish for his death?
And then, just when they had him all figured out, when the Arab and Muslim worlds were sure that Sharon was an Israeli leader who would offer them nothing but pain and humiliation -- he went and got out of Gaza. Unilaterally.
If you are an Arab leader, how do you spin that? If you are in the Arab media, how do you spin it? The Arab media had a difficult time covering the Gaza Withdrawal. They did not know how to relate to Sharon -- praise him or vilify him? Acknowledge what he was doing or -- what?
During the period leading up to the redeployment, I was in Gaza at the same time as a television crew from al-Jazeera. They literally did not know how to spin the coverage. Ariel Sharon was supposed to be the modern day version of Richard the Lionhearted during the Crusades. But who was this man? Naively, I suggested that they simply cover the events, leaving out the spin. They did not think that their network would be able to handle something that revolutionary.
And what has been the response of al Jazeera been to the hospitalization of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? One of their headlines read "Is the Pressure Finally Getting to Sharon?" They hinted that if Sharon's condition improves and he quickly returns to his normal work day, this whole incident may only add to the myth of the man called Sharon, to the myth of his resilience.
The normal work day for Ariel Sharon is twenty hours long. By all accounts, he will be back to his norm in only a few days. And yes, it will add to his mystique.
From now on, Ariel "Arik" Sharon will be seen in the Arab world as invincible. They will recall that after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 General Sharon surrounded the Egyptian army and moved to just outside Cairo -- never touching the city. They will remember that when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made his historic visit to Israel he stepped off the plane and, bypassing others in line, went directly over to Sharon and shook his hand.
This stroke was minor. Its impact is major.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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