Fill the Empty Center

No one can figure out Israeli politics, least of all the Israelis, but it may be that Ariel Sharon knows precisely what he's doing. At this point, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. He's just asked the president of the country to dissolve the Knesset, agreed to early elections, and announced that he will form a third party to the right of Labor and the left of Likud.

Ariel Sharon, a centrist? Is there a new world order or something?

I yield to no one in my support of Israel. Supporting Sharon is another matter entirely. This man's political career outstrips almost everyone else's in point of years, he was a military careerist before that, and through all that time he insisted that Israel's Arabs ought to be expelled. You can imagine what he wanted to do with the Arabs outside of Israel - in the occupied territories, for instance.

This made him very popular in the earlier parts of his career, but as time went on his extremist attitude marginalized him more and more, until by the turn of the century he was done, finished, kaput. Then, when the land-for-peace deal got signed, Sharon publicized his objections by visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a move that so infuriated the Arabs that they immediately gave Sharon all the legitimacy he could want by starting another intifada. As usual under such circumstances, the Israelis responded to this violence by electing a real hardliner to the Prime Minister's seat - in this case, Ariel Sharon.

Well, all right, Sharon spends a few years at his usual strong-arm game, and then suddenly last year he decides to go unilateral, withdraw from the conflict altogether. He starts building a fence between Israel and the occupied territories, and then -

Against all precedent -

Contrary to everything he has ever preached -

He closes up shop in Gaza and pulls every Jew out.


Many of his biggest fans are hugely disappointed, and some even suggest that the army should disobey any order to take Jews off any land. Despite this, the withdrawal goes off without a hitch - a few people are shot, but consider what could have happened.

Nevertheless, his right-wing backers and rivals in his own Likud party conclude that this would be a good time to outflank him, and the other major party, Labor, concludes that this is the time to show who the real liberals are. So Labor leaves the governing coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu makes noise about how Sharon's gone soft, and everything's getting very messy when Sharon decides to cut them all loose and go out on his own.

He used to be a militarist. Then he became a pragmatist. Now he's a centrist. What's going on in that head of his? Is he an old man flailing around? Is he desperate to hold onto power at any cost? Or did he cleverly maneuver the left farther left and the right farther right so he could take over the middle, where most people live?

And what's this going to do to Israel's future and the possibility of peace?

Ariel Sharon used to be the most predictable of Israeli politicians. I can't imagine that anyone, Jew or Arab, will easily believe that he's changed. Maybe he's just playing games. But then again, after all this time in power and after all the blood he's allowed to be shed, maybe he's actually turning into a statesman.


Benshlomo says, When both extremes think you're evil, you may be on the right track.