If Sharon were with us now
By Bradley Burston
For Israelis, the year 2006 ended four days after it began.
It ended when Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef of Hadassah hospital first walked out to announce that Ariel Sharon had suffered what he called a significant cerebral incident.
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So began a day, a month, in the end, a year of held breath.
Ariel Sharon, the man whom half of us always loved to hate, and whom the other half always hated to love, the one indispensable man in a country where everyone is treated as eminently disposable, is lost to us forever.
We cannot bring ourselves to admit that we are lost without him. But, for a year now, we have proven just that.
The nation as a whole suffered a cerebral incident on January 4. The nation suffered paralysis, loss of function. The nation has yet to recover consciousness. The nation lost its ability to act coherently, speak coherently, think coherently. It could no longer see as far as the horizon, and it could no longer see what was right in front of its eyes.
The best that the current prime minister can manage, is to act like the shyster lawyer representing the prime minister. The best that the defense minister can manage, is to act like the shop steward for the Defense Ministry employees' union. The best that the finance minister can manage, is to make certain that the poverty is the only certain inheritance of more and more of the young, and the only certain destiny of more and more of the elderly, the infirm, the marginal, the powerless.
We have lost the ability to avoid wars, just as we have lost the ability to win them.
Our leaders have lost their shame at their inability to govern. They have lost their shame at their willingness to sacrifice anything, including their constituents, for the sake of their own terms.
A year after the stroke, there is something unquestionably pathetic about wondering what might have been, if Sharon were still vital, still prime minister, still with us.
Just as there is something unquestionably pathetic about the way Israel is, without him.
So, what might have been?
The war in the north might never have taken place
First, the January Amona outpost evacuation debacle, in which Sharon's replacement Ehud Olmert appeared to the Arab world as insecure, clueless in tactical and strategic military command, and, above all, inexperienced, might not have occurred, and certainly not in the brutally incompetent manner in which it was ordered and conducted.
Secondly, Sharon's Kadima party might have gained 34-36 seats in general elections in April. This could have assured that the party would retain the defense ministry cabinet portfolio. This, in turn, could have meant that Israel would effectively have several competent defense ministers, rather than none.
Sharon, himself a former divisional commander, overall military commander of Gaza, and senior intelligence officer in the northern command, was much more likely than Olmert to be able to discern and dispel what some officers have called the whorehouse atmosphere of nonchalance that characterized parts of the army, especially in the north, at a time when front-line units should have heeded intelligence warnings.
It is not unlikely that along with Sharon, functioning as an effective defense minister, that either former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter or ex-defense minister Shaul Mofaz would have held the formal post, with former IDF brigadier general and policy chief for the territories Efraim Sneh as deputy. With greater supervision over the army, and especially over the >intelligence services, it is reasonable to speculate that the army would have been much better prepared for Hamas and Hezbollah plans to kidnap soldiers.
As a result,
IDF soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev might be free
Had the three not been kidnapped, the war might never have broken out, and certainly not in the way it did, with the army going into battle with its emergency arsenals empty, insufficient food and water for the troops, a circuitous and self-contradictory command system, a marked inability to evacuate wounded soldiers, and unspecified and unattainable goals.
Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that Ariel Sharon, given his experience in the first Lebanon war, would have done everything in his power to have prevented a second one.
Had the war not taken place,
Israel's economy, fueled by tourism, could have boomed, boosting employment and allowing Kadima's Labor partners to concentrate on addressing social problems.
If Kadima had been stronger following the elections, Sharon would have been in a position to dictate terms to Labor Chairman Amir Peretz, who could have been forced to accept an expanded welfare ministerial position, there to press for a reversal of the nation's pressing social concerns.
Fatah might still control the Palestinian Authority
Sharon, himself running hard for re-election on a centrist ticket, might have pulled a political rabbit from the hat, offering Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, and the Palestinians as a whole a major surprise gesture in the form of a mass prisoner release, an aid and economic cooperation package, an international peacekeeping force to counter Qassam attacks, and a diplomatic horizon that might have leveraged Israel's Gaza withdrawal into demonstrable gains for Gazans.
Sharon might well have convinced both George Bush and Mahmoud Abbas that it was a blunder to hold Palestinian elections in late January, and that the vote should be postponed for several months, allowing Fatah and Abbas to go into elections in a position of relative strength.
Enough.
Now, a year on, this is the extent of what we have left:
Might have. Could have. Should have.
Did not.
On New Years 2006, before it was too late, there was an uncomfortable suspicion in Israel that Ariel Sharon was the last real leader we had.
One long, bad year later, that suspicion turns out to have been all too true.
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