Sharon,
The Enigma?
By Samer Elatrash
13 June, 2004
Zmag
Although Ariel
Sharon will probably go down in history as a brutal army general, a
footnote might mention that he did inspire a new genre of political
commentary after winning Israels 2001 elections. This commentary
serves to convert Sharon, whose intentions are no more subtle than a
spitting camel, into an enigma. Just when you thought that you had Sharon
figured out, so the argument goes, he pulls out a historic compromise
and fires cabinet ministers who threaten to vote against it, again confounding
the commentators. Just whothey askis Sharon? Is he the man
who in 1982 dismantled Yamit, an Israeli settlement in the Sinai after
the conclusion of a peace treaty with Egypt, or the man who for years
tried to convince the Palestinians to call Jordan their state?
Sharon may dislike honestya most hypocritical and lie filled
concept, he told an Israeli newspaperand he may, as David
Ben Gurion confided in his diary, be a habitual liar, but he is not
an inscrutable man. He is often derided for being a skilled tactician
yet a poor strategist. This is inaccurate; Sharon exhibits the same
patience that characterized the leaders of the nascent Zionist movement
who led it to the establishing of Israel. After years of poring over
planning maps for new settlements in the occupied territories, Sharon
is perhaps unrivalled in Israel for his knowledge of the terrain, of
every nook and cranny, he would boast.
Yet unlike the settler movement, which is now accusing him of betrayal
after his promise to dismantle Israels settlements in Gaza, Sharon
resembles the hedgehog from Archilochuss parable: the hedgehog,
wrote the Greek poet, knows one big thing, while the fox
knows many little things. Sharon knows one thing: that while
the international community and many of the settlers see
the withdrawal from Gaza as precedent that will in time lead to the
dismantling of Israels settlements in the West Bank and the creation
of a Palestinian state, time, as Sharon told an Israeli
reporter, is not working against us.
V.I. Lenin never
tired of reminding the Bolsheviks, who always had trouble following
Lenins abrupt turns and reversals in policy, that one has
to be able at each moment to find that particular link in the chain
which
will give one a firm basis from which to go on to the next
link. Sharon understands this and puts it to practice, even when
grasping on to the link might require some backpedaling on previous
statements and tactics, the breaking of party alliances or the dismantling
of a few settlements.
The Sharon who, as Israels Defense Minister, oversaw the dismantling
of Yamit in April 1982 was the same Sharon who convinced the Israeli
cabinet to wage a war in Lebanon a month later with the objective of
destroying the Palestinian national liberation movement and, so he calculated,
the national aspirations of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.
While the international community and the settlers saw in
the dismantling of Yamit a precedent, Sharon treated it as a compromise
that would secure Israels western front while Israel waged war
in the north with the objective of ensuring its dominance in the West
Bank and Gaza.
Israels treaty with Egypt gave it more leeway to embark on an
ambitious campaign which, far from the pragmatism which many observers
thought was evinced by the dismantling of Yamit, sought to reverse the
formation of Palestinian national consciousness, while redrawing the
map of Lebanon. It was no less an ambitiousand ill conceiveda
plan than the idea which led France to participate alongside Britain
and Israel in the 1956 war against Egypt with the hope that the removal
of Jamal Abdel Nasser, who had allowed the Algerian Front de Libération
Nationales (FLN) command a base in Egypt, would bring the Algerian
revolution to an end. Even after the military defeat of the FLN in Algiers
and the capture of its political command, there was no stemming the
national aspirations of the Algerians, and France was defeated in less
than a decade.
Sharon of course has studied the Algerian conflict; after winning the
elections, Sharon confided that his reading list included Alaister Hornes
account of the Algerian revolution: A Savage War of Peace.
Sharon has evidently learnt from Frances experience in Algeria
as well as Israels experience in Lebanon. The key lesson is that,
in a war against a national liberation movement, the objective is not
to bring a swift end to the uprising by deploying overwhelming forceFrance
killed a million Algerians, and forced thousands more into concentration
camps during the warbut to contain the uprising, to reduce it
a manageable level, and most importantly to ensure international
legitimacy, while waiting for the uprising to exhaust itself.
Four years into
the Palestinian uprising, it is apparent that Sharon has enjoyed a great
deal of success, not least because he faces a disorganized opponent.
If only Israel were to be left alone for another few years, it may well
succeed in dealing yet another irreversible set back to the Palestinians.
Sharons disengagement plan is no proof that Sharon
is willing to pay the painful price for peace, but it is
evidence that in Sharon, the State of Israel has again found a Prime
Minister who is willing to pay the price for gaining timetime
to allow the repression of the Israeli army and the creation of more
facts on the ground to lead to an irreversible situation,
which would rule out the establishing of a viable Palestinian state
west of the Jordan River. If the shock over George Bushs recent
declaration that Israels settlement blocs in the West Bank are
realities in the ground were of any indication, one can
predict a brief ! chorus of indignation after some future American president
declares that the realities on the ground dictate the creation
of a Palestinian state elsewhere than the West Bankin the Sinai
and Gaza, perhaps.
Sharon reportedly
hopes that evacuating Gaza will buy Israel another 50 years in the West
Bank. It is not so far fetched a hope, considering that during the months
leading to the cabinet vote that endorsed the plan last week, the West
Bank and Israels separation barrier have almost disappeared from
the international communitys attention, scarcely four
months after the case against the barrier was brought before the International
Court of Justice. The surrounding countries are immersed in their own
problems and under heavy US pressure, the Palestinians, after facing
the entire might of the IDF with little support for four years are exhausted,
encircled behind walls and fences and led by political groups that have
failed to make any use of the opportunities afforded by the intifada,
aside from enlarging their memberships.
Suspending disbelief is a leisure that one can indulge in when watching
a magic show, not when one is dealing with a consistent policy of colonization
and the denial of an entire people their land and freedom. The agonizing
over Sharons real aims, the conjecture over whether we may yet
see Sharon inaugurate an independent Palestinian state, are new lows
in the already execrable tradition of mainstream North American commentary
on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Sharon knows what he is doing, while
here in North America, people are debating the identity of General Sharon.