Uri Avnery, 7.1.06
He was
an Israeli Napoleon.
From early youth, he was
totally convinced that he was the only person in the world who could save the
State of Israel. That was an absolute certainty, free of any doubt. He just
knew that he must achieve supreme power, in order to fulfill the mission that
fate had entrusted him with.
This belief led to a
complete integration of personal egocentrism and national egocentrism. For a
person who believes he has such a mission, there is no difference between the
personal and the national interest. What is good for him automatically becomes
good for the nation, and vice versa. This means that anyone who hinders
him from attaining power is really committing a crime against the State. And
anyone helping him to come to power, is really doing a patriotic deed.
This belief directed all
his actions for decades. It explains the dogged determination, the tenacity,
the unbending perseverance that became his trade mark and earned him his
nickname "the bulldozer". This attracted admirers, who fell
completely under his influence.
It also explains his
attitude to money matters. It has been said
that he "does not stop at a red light", that "laws are
not for him". More than once he was accused of accepting millions from
rich Jews abroad. On the day before his fateful stroke, it came out that the
police had formally accused him of receiving a bribe of three million dollars
from a casino-owner. (It is quite possible that this raised his blood pressure and
helped to cause the massive stroke.) But not all these millionaires expected a
return. Some of them believed, as he did himself, that by supporting him, they
were actually supporting the State of Israel. Can there be a more sacred duty
than to provide an assured income to the Israeli Napoleon, so that he can
devote his entire energy to the fulfillment of his historic mission?
On his long journey,
Sharon easily overcame such hurdles. They did not divert him from his course.
Personal tragedies and political defeats did not hold him up for a moment. The
accidents that killed his first wife and his oldest son, his dismissal from
office after being convicted by a board of inquiry of "indirect
responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacres, as well as the many
other setbacks, failures and disappointments that struck him throughout the
years did not deter him. They did not divert him for an instant from his
endeavor to achieve supreme power.
And now it was all
coming true. On Wednesday, January 4, 2006, he could be certain that in three
months time he would become the sole leader of Israel. He had created a party
that belonged to him alone and that was not only on track to occupy a central
position in the next Knesset, but also to cut all other parties into pieces.
He was determined to use
this power to change the political landscape of Israel altogether and introduce
a presidential system, which would have given him an all-powerful position,
like that enjoyed by Juan Peron in his heyday in Argentina. Then, at long last,
he would be able to realize his historic mission of laying the tracks on which
Israel would run for generations, as David Ben-Gurion had done before him.
And then, just when it
seemed that nothing could stop him anymore, with cruel suddenness, his own body
betrayed him.
What happened resembles
a central motif of the Jewish myth: the fate of Moses, whom God punished for
his pride by allowing him a glimpse of the Promised Land from afar, but having
him die before he could set foot on its soil. On the threshold of absolute
power, the stroke hit Ariel Sharon.
While he was still fighting for his life in hospital, the
myth of "Sharon's Legacy" was already beginning to form.
As has happened with
many leaders who did not leave a written testament, every individual is free to
imagine a Sharon of his own. Leftists, who only yesterday had cursed Sharon as
the murderer of Kibieh, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila and the man
responsible for the plunder and slaughter in the occupied Palestinian territories,
began to admire him as the "Man of Peace". Settlers, who had
condemned him as a traitor, remembered that it was he who had created the
settlements and kept on enlarging them to this day.
Only yesterday he was
one of the most hated people in Israel and the world. Today, after the
evacuation of Gush Katif, he has become the darling of the public, almost from
wall to wall. The leaders of nations crowned him as the "great warrior who
has turned into a hero of peace".
Everybody agrees that
Sharon has changed completely, that he has gone from one extreme to the other,
the proverbial Ethiopian who has changed his skin, the leopard who has changed
his spots.
All these analyses have
only one thing in common: they have nothing to do with the real Ariel Sharon.
They are based on ignorance, illusion and self-deception.
A look at his long career (helped, I may add, by some
personal knowledge) show that he has not changed at all. He stayed true to his
fundamental approach, only adapting his slogans to changing times and
circumstances. His master-plan remained as it was at the beginning.
Underlying his world
view is a simplistic, 19th century style nationalism, which says: our people
stands above all others, other people are inferior. The rights of our nation
are sacred, other nations have no rights at all. The rules of morality apply
only to relations within the nation, not to relations between nations.
He absorbed this
conviction with his mother's milk. It governed Kfar Malal, the cooperative
village in which he was born, as it also governed the whole world at the time.
Among Jews in particular it was reinforced by the horrors of the Holocaust. The
slogan "all the world is against us" is deeply anchored in the
national psyche, and is applied especially to Arabs.
On this moral base the
aim emerged: to establish a Jewish state, as large as possible, free of
non-Jews. That could lead to the conclusion that the ethnic cleansing, begun by
Ben-Gurion in 1948, when half the Palestinians were deprived of their homes and
land, must be completed. Sharon's career began shortly after, when he was
appointed to lead the undercover commando Unit 101, whose murderous actions
beyond the borders were designed mainly to prevent the refugees from
infiltrating back to their villages.
However, Sharon became
convinced quite early that another wholesale ethnic cleansing was impossible in
the foreseeable future (barring some unforeseeable international event changing
conditions altogether.)
In default of this
option, Sharon believed that Israel must annex all the areas between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan without a dense Palestinian population. Already
decades ago, he prepared a map that he showed proudly to local and foreign
personalities in order to convert them to his views.
According to this map,
Israel will annex the areas along the pre-1967 border as well as the Jordan
valley, up to the "back of the mountain" (an expression particularly
dear to Sharon). It will also annex several East-West strips to connect the Jordan
valley with the Green Line. In these territories that are marked for
annexation, Sharon created a dense net of settlements. That was his principal
endeavor throughout the last thirty years, in all his diverse positions -
Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Industry and Trade, Minister of Defense,
Minister of Housing, Foreign Minister,
Minister of Infrastructure, and Prime Minister - and this work is going on at
this minute.
The areas with a dense
Palestinian population, Sharon intended to hand over to Palestinian
self-government. He was determined to remove from them all the settlements that
were set up there without thinking. This way, eight or nine Palestinian
enclaves would have come into being, cut off from each other, each one
surrounded by settlers and Israeli army installations. He did not care whether
these would be called a "Palestinian state". His recent use of this
term is an example of his ability to adapt himself, outwardly and verbally, to
changing situations.
The Gaza strip is one of
these enclaves. That is the real significance of the uprooting of the
settlements and the withdrawal of the Israeli army. It is the first stage in
the realization of the map: this small area, with a dense Palestinian
population of a million and a quarter, was turned over to the Palestinians. The
Israeli land, sea and air forces surround the strip almost completely. The very
existence of its inhabitants depends at all times on the mercy of Israel, which
controls all entrances and exits (except the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which
is monitored by Israel from afar.) Israel can cut off the water and electricity
supply at a moment's notice. Sharon intended to create the same situation in
Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and the other areas.
Is this a "peace plan"?
Peace is made between
nations which agree to create a situation where all of them can live in
freedom, well-being and mutual respect and believe that that is good for them.
This is not what Sharon had in mind. As a military man, he knows only truces.
If peace had been handed to him on a platter, he would not have recognized it.
He knew perfectly well
that no Palestinian leader could possibly agree to his map, now or ever. That's
why he did not intend to have any political negotiations with the Palestinians.
His slogan was "we have no partner". He intended to realize all the
stages of his plan "unilaterally", as he did in Gaza - without
dialogue with the Palestinians, without considering their requirements and
aspirations, and, of course, without seeking their consent.
But Sharon did indeed
intend to make peace - peace with the United States. He considered American
consent as essential. He knew that Washington could not give its consent to his
whole plan. So he intended to obtain their agreement phase by phase. Since
President Bush has submitted to him entirely, and no one knows who will succeed
him, Sharon intended to realize the main part of his plan within the next two
or three years, before the end of the President's term in office. That is one
of the reasons for his hurry. He had to come to absolute power now,
immediately. Only the stroke prevented this.
The eagerness with which so many good people on the left
embraced the "Sharon Legacy" does not show their grasp of his plans,
but rather their own longing for peace. They long with all their heart for a
strong leader, who has the will and the ability to end the conflict.
The determination with
which Sharon removed the settlers from Gush Katif filled these leftists with
enthusiasm. Who would have believed that there was a leader capable of carrying
it out, without civil war, without bloodshed? And if this has happened in the
Gaza Strip, why can't it happen in the West Bank? Sharon will drive the
settlers out and make peace. All this, without the Left having to lift a
finger. The savior, like Deus, will jump ex machina. As
the Hebrew proverb goes, "the work of the righteous is done by
others", who may be something quite other than righteous.
Sharon has easily
adapted himself to this longing of the public. He has not changed his plan, but
given it a new veneer, in the spirit of the times. From now on, he appeared as
the "Man of Peace". He never cared which mask it was convenient to
wear. But this mask reflects the deepest wishes of the Israeli people.
From this point of view,
the imaginary "Sharon Legacy" can play a positive role. When he
created his new party, he took with him a lot of Likud people, those who had
come to the conclusion that the goal of "The Whole of Eretz Israel"
has become impossible to attain. Many of these will remain in the Kadima party
even after Sharon has left the tribune. As a result of an ongoing, slow
subterranean process, Likud people, too, are ready to accept the partition of
the country. The whole system is moving in the direction of peace.
The "Sharon
Legacy", even if imaginary, may become a blessing, if Sharon appears in it
in his latest incarnation: Sharon the uprooter of settlements, Sharon who is
ready to give up parts of Eretz Israel, Sharon who agrees to a Palestinian state.
True, this was not
Sharon's intention. But, as Sharon himself might have said: It is not the
intentions that matter, but the results on the ground.