Ariel Sharon’s Failing Health: A Change in the Political Climate in Israel
by Alice Henderson
Two nights ago, an anchor for my local 6:00pm news program started her report by stating, “Iraqi Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke last night”. While for many Americans, confusing Iraq for Israel is an easy mistake to make, this new turn of events could have life-changing effects for more than six million Israeli citizens and about five million Palestinian refugees as well as for Sharon himself.
Ariel Sharon was born in 1928 in a region of Israel that was then still Palestinian territory. Joining a local militia in 1942, Sharon began his military career at 14 years old. In 1953, he formed a brigade that specialized in performing operations across the Israeli border. These operations often focused on assassinating Palestinian terrorist leaders. Though Sharon had been reprimanded by his superiors all along for reckless tactics, recent investigations have led to accusations that his operations also killed an unnecessary number of Palestinian civilians. In 1973, Sharon retired from the military as a brigadier general to begin his political career as military advisor to the Labor Party prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. In 1977, though, Sharon shifted his political allegiance to the conservative Likud Party. From within the Likud Party, he was able to direct resources to the new Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip despite vehement protests from the left wing which he abandoned. Sharon has since been a prominent member of the conservative Likud party, promoting less than peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
In 2000, the more liberal labor party leader, Ehud Barak, resigned as prime minister after the failure of the peace talks with then-president Bill Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In 2001, Sharon was elected as the new Israeli prime minister. By 2005, Sharon seemed have to changed his position, proclaiming that he would do anything to ensure Israeli safety, even approving a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. This decision created many enemies for Sharon within the Likud party, ultimately forcing him to resign and form a new centrist party called Kadima. He had planned to lead Kadima in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March of 2006.
One of the first to defect from the Likud Party with Sharon, Ehud Olhmert may take Sharon’s place as head of the new centrist party. Olmert supported the withdrawal of settlements, sharing Sharon’s view of the importance of maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in concentration in the west part of the West Bank. A possible barrier against Olmert’s success as a political leader is his lack of military background. Nobel laureate Shimon Peres is another candidate for leadership of the Kadima party, but at 82 years old, he will have trouble proving his worth to the party in the long term.
Reaction to Sharon’s recent medical crisis has been mixed. Israeli leaders have been subdued and offering their prayers. Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the current leader of the Labor Party, has said that he will support Sharon’s return to politics, however unlikely it may be. While a member of the militant Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad, was interviewed on Al-Jazeera saying that Sharon’s death would free them “of a murderous butcher” and there have been a multitude of similar comments, much of the Arab media has been grudgingly neutral. Some have pointed out that if Sharon had been a Palestinian leader doing to the Israelis what he did to the Palestinians, he would be idolized. Many hope that the end of Sharon’s political career will mean the end of prominence for the Zionist (imperialist) ideology in Israel.
Sources:
BBC News
MSN Encarta Encyclopedia
CNN News Online
CNN Headline News
CIA- The World Factbook
