A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Israel ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/fisher_feb4.html
Sharon: No more Mr. Nice Guy
The man they call the Bulldozer could smooth a path to peace, or trigger more unrest
By MATTHEW FISHER - Sun Columnist at Large
February 4, 2001
JERUSALEM - Friends and foes alike call Ariel Sharon the Bulldozer. It is not only because of Sharon's prodigious girth, but because of his ferocious reputation as an Israeli military commander and defence minister in hostile places such as the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
For more than three decades Sharon has often been at the centre of Israeli military and political life, sometimes on the outside looking in, but he has never had the prize he so clearly covets. If recent opinion polls are right - and they have Sharon ahead of Ehud Barak by a staggering 20% - that will change soon after ballots in Tuesday's prime ministerial elections begin to be counted.
The gruff, silver-haired 72-year-old retired general represents the certainty and security that many Israelis crave after the brief, chaotic rule of Barak and the failure of the Oslo peace accords.
"Sharon's a real Jew. Barak has shown that he isn't a real Jew," was how a young waitress put it to me the other day in Jerusalem.
What she meant, I think, is that Sharon will put Jewish interests first at all times. After months of riots, shootings and bombings, there is no longer much public will to compromise. A huge majority of Israelis is fed up with peace talks because they do not bring peace. They only seem to beget more violence.
To others, especially Europeans who have a rather different take on this country than North Americans, Sharon represents the opposite of certainty and security. They fear his election could trigger unrest in the Occupied Territories that could lead to another war involving several neighbouring Arab states.
Strangely, though Sharon has been blamed for the bloody pacification of the Gaza Strip after the Six Day War of 1967, including the razing of a refugee camp along the waterfront, and the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by Christian Phalangists in Lebanon in 1982, many Arabs actually want Likud's candidate to win the election.
Their perverse reasoning is threefold: They reckon it's better to know exactly what your enemy stands for. They hope Sharon will behave so crudely that western support for Israel will weaken. Although they've been let down many times before, they expect that such behaviour will also solidify shaky Arab support for the Palestinian cause.
Something new certainly has to be done to try and end the bloodshed that started immediately after Sharon intentionally inflamed Arab passions late last September by taking 200 policemen with him on an unauthorized visit to the Temple Mount. This Jewish holy site has been a flashpoint for centuries because it shares the same land as the Dome of the Rock and Islam's third most sacred site, the El-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City.
There is not only the direct psychological toll and death count of the current insurrection to be considered. The economic consequences of the four-month-old confrontation have been severe. The Israeli economy has been hobbled. The much weaker Palestinian economy has been utterly paralyzed.
Against type, Sharon's campaign propaganda has portrayed the retired general as an avuncular sweetheart. Whether this is true, or his longstanding reputation as a hardliner is closer to the mark, Sharon will have to suddenly face many hard truths at the same time if he's elected on Tuesday.
Sharon not only has to win, he has to be able to form a coalition government and to hold it together. To do so in Israel is always trickier than getting elected.
Longstanding differences
There are not only longstanding differences between Israelis and Palestinians. Ultra-Orthodox Jews have little time for secular Jews and vice versa. The Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have a far different take on politics than the high-tech crowd that mostly lives around Tel Aviv. There are the worldly Jews who survived for centuries in Europe and the more excitable Oriental Jews who survived for centuries in places such as Iraq, Egypt and Morocco.
The 800,000 Russian Jews, who have mostly arrived since 1990, are split between those who are committed to their new homeland and those who view Israel strictly as an economic opportunity and a way station on a journey to far greater riches in the United States. There are also radicals within Ultra-orthodox and Orthodox camps and, of course, among the Palestinians, whose political views are much different than many of those who share the same religious views. Some of them use violence and intimidation whenever they feel it is necessary to advance their cause. Others hate this.
To survive, the Bulldozer will have to make deals with most or all of these groups. Surviving is something Sharon is obviously good at. Whether the old general is flexible enough to hold everything together in Israel is another question entirely.
Matthew can be e-mailed at 74511.357@CompuServe.com or visit his home page.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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