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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
January 7, 2006
It wasn't long ago that I wrote that Ariel Sharon had become indispensable to Israel. Citing his courage in getting out of Gaza, I expressed the belief that he would not stop there but would proceed toward withdrawal from most of the West Bank as well. Once he decided that Israel could not preserve its identity as a Jewish state and a democracy while holding on to the territories, he was intent on getting out.
As withdrawal approached, the far right howled and issued threats. In July, ten ultra-religious rabbis and kabbalists held a special service to pray for Sharon's death. (And this week in Israel and Palestine, extremist Jews and Muslims have both been celebrating Sharon's stroke). Pundits said that the Gaza settlers would turn Israel upside down to thwart Sharon's plans. He had, many said, come up against an adversary that would thwart him.
But Sharon prevailed, and with relative ease. In so doing, he demonstrated that the settlers could not defeat the Israeli government. An extremist minority would not stop a Prime Minister who believed that removing settlements was in Israel's best interests.
"Gaza withdrawal," I wrote, "has earned him his place as one of Israel's great prime ministers. He must not be permitted to retire to his farm until he finishes the job he has begun: achieving peace and security for Israel."
I had not anticipated, as no one had, that illness would strike him down. He seemed indestructible, the kind of leader who keeps going so long as he was in power.
Apparently, that was not meant to be. Gaza withdrawal will not be Sharon's first step toward peace with the Palestinians. It will be his only step. But it is one that has changed the Israeli-Palestinian scene forever. Like Yitzhak Rabin's decision to recognize the PLO and sign the Oslo agreement, Sharon's action is irreversible. Moreover the precedent for more withdrawals has been set.
Writing in Slate yesterday, the neo-conservative writer Christopher Hitchens described Sharon's achievement.
"There are, and always have been, only four alternatives in the Israeli-Palestinian quadrilateral. The first is the status quo of mingled apartheid and colonization that would eventually see the Israelis ruling without consent over a people as large as or larger than themselves and that is now almost universally seen as intolerable and unsustainable.
"The second is a state where those under its jurisdiction are equal citizens with the right to vote, which would be the end of Zionism.
"The third is the destruction or removal of one people by the other or their common ruin in a catastrophic war.
"The fourth is a partition between two separate states.
"All have their disadvantages, but the fourth appears to have the fewest and is supported officially by the PLO and endorsed by a probable majority of Israeli and Diaspora Jews.
"For most of his career, Sharon supported the first option and conducted occasional flirtations with the expulsionist supporters of the third option. His conversion to the fourth may have taken unpleasing forms -- a wall is a wall is a wall -- but it did begin to acknowledge the contours of Palestinian statehood, and this counts as one of the better ironies of history."
It is far more than a mere irony. Sharon's recognition that the "occupation" could not be sustained (he was the first Likud Prime Minister to use the word) and that the "Greater Israel" fantasy was dead showed him to be that rare national leader with the confidence and guts to reverse course when the current one was failing.
Most politicians are terrified to admit they are wrong. They would rather stay the wrong course than be accused of "flip-flopping." (Remember LBJ and Vietnam?)
Not Sharon. Not only was he unafraid of accusations of inconsistency, he seemed not to much care what his critics said (this was not always a good thing). He did what he thought was right.
And that meant leaving Gaza and accepting that the Palestinians have the right to a state. When Likud balked, he formed a new party and took the majority of the country with him.
At this point, it is impossible to predict with any certainty what a post-Sharon future will look like. But there is no reason to believe that the vast Israeli majority that supported Sharon and his Gaza decision are going to abandon that position now.
After all, Sharon did not invent the reality that dictated an end to the occupation. He only recognized it and acted on it.
His successor, whoever it is, will have little choice but to do the same.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Sharon's deputy, who will serve as Prime Minister for the next 100 days and who could be the frontrunner in the race to succeed Sharon, shares his mentor's view of Israel's future.
Speaking at Israel Policy Forum in June, Olmert said, "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being courageous. We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating our enemies. We want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies. We want them to be our friends, our partners, our good neighbors. And I believe that this is not impossible."
Jonathan Jacoby, executive director of IPF, told columnist Arianna Huffington yesterday that Olmert will not allow Sharon's conception of Israel's future to die.
"Olmert is the ideal person for this moment in Israel's history. Because he's both extremely experienced and extremely pragmatic. If something doesn't work, it doesn't matter how much it fits into his ideological belief system -- if it doesn't work, it's not good for Israel. He's come around to the position that what Israelis need to think about right now is one thing: what's going to end this conflict? As opposed to the dreams that have kept the ideology alive but aren't going to help keep Israel alive."
That is what both Israelis and Palestinians have to hope for. In the meantime, Sharon deserves credit for showing the way.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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