What A Difference A Year Makes
Ariel Sharon is dying. Even if the doctors can bring him out of the coma, they will have prolonged his life by a week? a month? He will be paralysed, his brain may be destroyed, as happened to poor Tony Banks less than 48 hours later. Dying from a massive stroke is quite preferable to surviving it. And so Lord Stratford is in a sense luckier than The Bulldozer.
I never liked Sharon, never. No one who seriously wished for peace in the middle east could do. I remember when he was elected, it unofficially meant that any chance for peace had gone forever. The Israelis had voted for the warmonger to blast the Palestinians out of existence. And pretty soon; intifadas and jihads abounded. The whole world was drawn into a simplified version of the Israel problem.
But something changed, Sharon never actually believed that peace was possible. He said as much to a confidante, and his comments were later reported. But since the death of Arafat, Sharon somehow transformed himself into the only hope for peace. The removal of the settlements from the Gaza strip was as much as a surprise to the Israelis as to the Palestinians. I found myself rooting for Sharon and wondering how had this man, a man who only believed in peace through conflict, turned into the good guy. And yet, for all his ulterior motives, he was, and he was succeeding.
Sharon and Arafat, two stalking horses, enemies for as long as they lived, perhaps it is only their deaths that will truly pave the way.
But first, succession must be waged in Israel. The Palestinians were succesful. Mahmood Abbas believes in his purpose, even if he currently lacks the full power to rein in the extremes. We may yet see one of the old Warhorses, Peres or Netinyahu return to power, or the new man (at least to us foreigners) Ehud Olmert, may hold on. Known quantity or not, the wrong man now could spell disaster, the right man, if such as one exists, will bring progress.
In all the years of the Arab Israeli conflict, there has never been a more critical time. It used to be THE conflict on which the fate of the world rested. Now Iraq, Iran, Bin Laden and Bush, and possibly Syria and Afghanistan, all hold equal importance. All affect the global balance of suspicion between the peoples of the world. We cannot resolve Israel too soon. It is our longest, most poisonous conflict. Fail in this now, at this point in time when our chances of success have never been so good, and we may never get them again. Make no mistake, events in Iraq and Iran shall follow suit.
Thus we stand at a crossroads. Peres on one side, Netinyahu on the other, Olmert in the centre and a fourth direction that of any unknown combatant, and so do our futures rest on the fortunes of a power struggle in a distant land. Any of these people may be right, none of them can afford to be wrong.
And all this over the passing of an obese, but perhaps repentant man.
I never liked Sharon, never. No one who seriously wished for peace in the middle east could do. I remember when he was elected, it unofficially meant that any chance for peace had gone forever. The Israelis had voted for the warmonger to blast the Palestinians out of existence. And pretty soon; intifadas and jihads abounded. The whole world was drawn into a simplified version of the Israel problem.
But something changed, Sharon never actually believed that peace was possible. He said as much to a confidante, and his comments were later reported. But since the death of Arafat, Sharon somehow transformed himself into the only hope for peace. The removal of the settlements from the Gaza strip was as much as a surprise to the Israelis as to the Palestinians. I found myself rooting for Sharon and wondering how had this man, a man who only believed in peace through conflict, turned into the good guy. And yet, for all his ulterior motives, he was, and he was succeeding.
Sharon and Arafat, two stalking horses, enemies for as long as they lived, perhaps it is only their deaths that will truly pave the way.
But first, succession must be waged in Israel. The Palestinians were succesful. Mahmood Abbas believes in his purpose, even if he currently lacks the full power to rein in the extremes. We may yet see one of the old Warhorses, Peres or Netinyahu return to power, or the new man (at least to us foreigners) Ehud Olmert, may hold on. Known quantity or not, the wrong man now could spell disaster, the right man, if such as one exists, will bring progress.
In all the years of the Arab Israeli conflict, there has never been a more critical time. It used to be THE conflict on which the fate of the world rested. Now Iraq, Iran, Bin Laden and Bush, and possibly Syria and Afghanistan, all hold equal importance. All affect the global balance of suspicion between the peoples of the world. We cannot resolve Israel too soon. It is our longest, most poisonous conflict. Fail in this now, at this point in time when our chances of success have never been so good, and we may never get them again. Make no mistake, events in Iraq and Iran shall follow suit.
Thus we stand at a crossroads. Peres on one side, Netinyahu on the other, Olmert in the centre and a fourth direction that of any unknown combatant, and so do our futures rest on the fortunes of a power struggle in a distant land. Any of these people may be right, none of them can afford to be wrong.
And all this over the passing of an obese, but perhaps repentant man.
posted by Caractacus at 23:41
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