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No, I don't think Sharon is engaging in a complicated strategy to maneuver into a better bargaining position, and then make peace. I think he is just doing what he's done for the last 50 years: take and hold what he wants, from the Arabs, by force.
It was Sharon, when he was Housing minister, many years ago, who carried out the Jewish settlement of the conquered territories. And those settlements were deliberately placed between and adjacent to Arab populations, so as to blur the demographic boundary, and make a Palestinian State impossible. He has no intention of withdrawing from any of Judea and Samaria, ever, and he has consistently said this for decades.
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It is not a paradox for a country to be a democracy, but only for part of the population. The U.S., for much of it's history, was a democracy, limited to white men; blacks and Natives and women (that is, the majority of the people) have been excluded, for most of the time since 1776.
In England, when the Magna Carta was signed, democracy was very limited: basically, it only included the landed gentry. It took centuries for democracy to slowly become more inclusive. Only after they were out of Ireland (exluded on the basis of religion), and India and Africa(excluded by race), did their democracy include most of the people ruled from London. If you define "democracy" as a system where at least half the adults are allowed to vote, then the British Empire wasn't a democracy till 1961.
I know many will not like this analogy, but South Africa and Rhodesia under apartheid were also "incomplete" democracies. |
