topic by
Tom
5/15/2002 (11:35) |
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Dr. Sharon and Mister Hyde
by Tom • Wednesday May 15, 2002 at 08:19 AM
Sharon wants a Palestinian state? In your dreams. That's just something he promised to the Bush administration about behaving in a balanced manner.
The real and only victory by the Likud Central Committee was over the commentary about it. Nobody 'won' in the classic sense of the term, and nobody lost - except for the nation whose ruling party can conduct itself in such a manner while debating one of the nation's most important national issues.
The lesson from the Mann Auditorium was that, like the Philharmonic subscribers who usually fill the hall, Likud delegates can be sold the same old program over and over and they'll cough and applaud. The applause-o-meter that gave an advantage to Maestro Netanyahu, doesn't matter either. Applause can rise and fall overnight.
Sharon has a lot of time yet to calibrate his political instruments until they are tested in the primaries. The famous steering wheel that he turns right and left will make many more twists before then. The most important impression at the Central Committee session was from the lying and horse-trading that surged into the open. It wasn't the Microphone Convention of a dozen years ago. It was rather the Israbluff Convention.
Sharon wants a Palestinian state? In your dreams. That's just something he promised to the Bush administration about behaving in a balanced manner. Netanyahu believes that an Arafat state is a danger on the horizon? Maybe 'in books and lectures' as Sharon sneered, not in real life. For him it's a cheap trick, because Netanyahu may be a sophisticated populist, blinded by personal ambitions, but he's not stupid. He knows that before anyone starts doing anything about a Palestinian state, it will take a lot more time than the next primaries, whether here or in Washington.
President Bush wants Palestinian independence? Not on his life. If he did, he would have done considerably more about it. Nor does the Labor Party have a Palestinian state inscribed on its flag. Its hidden platform from 1997 did not 'rule out' a 'state with limited sovereignty,' and in the last elections that was replaced by an explanation distributed by candidate Ehud Barak about a half-state in the West Bank and a plan for unilateral withdrawal in case the Palestinians declare independence.
Sharon's promises of determined leadership on this issue are thus hollow. He will do everything he can to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. The old condition for negotiations was a period of calm. Then came the demand (and implementation) for destruction of the terrorist infrastructure. Those conditions were buried under the rubble of the Palestinian cities, but they could pop up again even if there is a lull in terror attacks. The new condition is patronizingly called reforms in the Palestinian Authority. They too can wait ad calendas grecas, as the Romans termed 'never.' (The Greek calendar had no calends, or debt settlement days, on the first of the month). Or as we say - until the prophet Elijah shows up.
This pattern of lies has so entangled national politics that even if Netanyahu had been roundly defeated, we would not be free of it. The most amazing aspect of it all, of course, is that a majority of the general public favors setting up a Palestinian state and making many concessions necessary in the process leading to it.
The political Israbluff is therefore particularly serious. With broad manipulation, making use of the media and the sheepish Labor Party, the Likud is directing a policy clearly opposed to that public mood, which no matter how latent, gets repeated proofs in the polls. This fact exposes the bald nakedness of the prime minister's promises of leadership. Because if Sharon really wanted, he could have started seeking negotiations right from the start, leveraging windows of opportunity, created by lulls in the fighting, into real progress.
But he has no intention of doing so. And nothing will speed him up. The mass rally of Peace Now, the Peace Coalition and Gush Shalom on Saturday night has as much chance of moving things onto the political track as the children of the candles at the same plaza in the mid-90s. As in psychology, it sometimes seems as if the Israeli street prefers to be deceived than to be cured of its neuroses and anxieties. Dr. Sharon and Mister Hyde are helping in that deception with regrettable success.
By Gideon Samet
news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=+164037
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