The Talented Mister Sharon
[An editorial in Israel's leading newspaper]
By Doron Rosenblum
HA'ARETZ English Edition
Friday, April 26, 2002 Iyyar 14, 5762 Israel Time: 22:09 (GMT+3)
haaretzdaily.com
Because of Arafat - and more so because of what Sharon did to Arafat - many people are now having a hard time giving up wallowing in what's called "the riddle of the prime minister's policies." It seems it's the prime minister's opponents, of all people, who refuse to admit that the riddle has been completely solved, but they find it comforting to pretend that it is still a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," like a bonbon best left unwrapped lest it be found to taste horrid.
And it's not only the Labor Party ministers who continue their pathetically toothless chewing on the bone called "painful concessions" that Sharon once threw them. Most of the public, exhausted and afraid, would like to see the pleasantly comforting ambiguous "suspension of disbelief" continue, toward the prime minister, and the significance of his policies.
Thus even when he explicitly states "Netzarim is just like Tel Aviv," and joyously proclaims he won't remove "a single settlement," there are still those who ask where's the Mapai trick. And when he adds someone like Effi Eitam to his government, there are still those wondering when he'll get rid of the Gaza Strip. And even when he torpedoes every option for separation and partition, and breaks the neck of the Palestinian Authority, sows chaos and the seeds of renewed terror, and rekindles excuses for the hatred of the world - there still remain people predicting that he'll yet surprise Yossi Beilin with the shot-from-the-hip "international conference," and we'll yet see Arik Sharon singing the Song of Peace in Rabin Square.
Sharon's talent for manipulation is nearly hypnotic. He manages to paralyze his opponents at critical moments, and to turn every move - no matter how delusional - into "the unavoidable." He does everything in huge dimensions, so the lines of the framework of reality are drawn with such a thick marker that they conceal every option. Without noticing, you also become partly responsible, agreeing to his plans, as does Masuda from Sderot and the American secretary of state.
But what is that plan? That too is part of Sharon's talent - to wrap with paralyzing vagueness not only the question of what his plan is, but whether he even has one. It's well known that conventional wisdom is divided. There are those who say that Sharon was practically born with a "grand" Sisyphean plan (pushing the Palestinian problem into Jordan), which every decade he tries anew to advance, despite various obstacles in the form of peace-shmeace plans.
Others say Sharon and his gigantic plans really just roll along, more as a reflexive character trait than any advance planning. If there's an opportunity to fan some embers or scratch some scabs, he won't miss it; if there's an opportunity for a siege, he'll tighten it all the way; if there's a chance to reveal the true face of the enemy, and show how reprehensible he is in his despair, well, it would be a shame to stop the momentum.
Yet all agree that goodwill, integrity, constructive thinking, conciliation and rehabilitation are not Sharon's fortes. It's simply not his field. Would you expect Arthur Rubinstein to paint the Guernica, or Picasso to play Polonaises? No, because each has his own talent.
There are those who will say, Sharon is the perfect leader for times of war. Others will say that's because when he is in power there simply are no other times except those of war. Either way, his election as prime minister at the start of the intifada is like going back to the neighborhood plumber, the one who "fixed" something two or three times, with a piece of rusty wire, some spit, and two thumps with a wrench (which incidentally also smashed the sink), to do a complete revamp of the entire apartment. It would be an exaggeration to say that he can be expected to have an "architectural horizon," but nonetheless, despite the broken pieces, the demolished furniture and all the familiar shticks, there are those who hope that this time the man will be revealed to be a second Le Corbusier. Or at least know what he's doing.
Besides, what can you do? Does anyone else have any better idea how to stop the flooding? As if we were hypnotized, we watch the semi-monotonic repertoire of the elderly workman, pulling out his rusty tools from a battered toolbox. Here's the tarnished restraints, and the familiar tightening of the siege, which always remains the same, whether around the Third Army, Beirut, a quarter of the Land of Israel, or a single leader. Here's the foiling screen, and the trusty old "causus belli."
Once again we experience that equally familiar cycle of deja vu - the same drag into agreement because "there's no choice," the same "quiet, there's shooting," the same "whole world's against us," the same trampling of the "traitors" at home, and the same paranoia about a world-wide "blood feud" against us. Here is the same, nearly-narcotic, fog about the purposes and goals of all of it. And soon, when the flood bursts with ever-doubling force, will come his same shrug of the shoulders. I tried. It didn't work. Because of you. Not only did you disrupt me in the middle again, but again, you should never show a fool a job half-done. |
