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A new Sharon?
A few days ago, I met in Tel Aviv with a friend of mine, an intelligent and educated woman with whom I have shared, over the past two decades, dozens of experiences demonstrating against the occupation and repression in the occupied territories. Our conversation naturally turned to the current political turmoil and the upcoming elections.
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I asked her whether she will vote for Meretz, as she did in the last four or five elections, or if this time, in order to strengthen the chance of an alternative policy, she will support Labor. Her answer surprised me: ?neither Meretz nor Peretz, I think this time I will vote for Kadima??
?You?re going to vote for Ariel Sharon, Mofaz and Tsahi Hanegbi?? I asked.
?Yes! Believe me, it?s is not an easy thing to do, but only Sharon can make the peace process move forward?? Unfortunately, this opinion is far from marginal. Thousands of ?peace activists? for whom Sharon was, during the last quarter of century, synonymous with brutality, colonization and war are now convinced that the man has changed. Some speculate that he may be Israel?s own Charles DeGaulle.
Such an assumption is more wishful thinking than a rational analysis of either Sharon?s policies or intentions. On what grounds do these new Sharonites base their hopes? To justify their support of Sharon, many formers Israeli leftists compare the Prime Minister?s language to that of his (former) right-wing colleagues: while they make daily statements about how ?Eretz Israel belongs to the people of Israel? and swear every morning and every evening that settlements will be built everywhere?including in the heart of Palestinian cities? Sharon has historically been more discreet. This difference in rhetoric is real, and separates the current PM from traditional right wing Israeli politicians? from Menachem Begin to Benjamin Netanyahu? who have generally been more candid about their colonial machinations.
Ariel Sharon, however, never truly belonged to this explicitly right wing political current. Sharon?s model and master has always been David Ben Gourion, the founding father of Israel, who always pointed out that while his right-wing opposition spoke loudly about historical rights, he was hard at work, quietly implementing those rights on the ground.
Sharon claims to follow the path of Ben Gourion, and he seems to be doing it: while he avoids the radical language of ?historical rights,? speaking even about ?future painful compromises? (if and when the Palestinians will renounce terrorism, once and for all, and recognize Zionism as the legitimate national liberation movement of the Jewish people) the new Israeli De Gaulle is actively implementing his thirty years old master-plan of colonization in the West Bank.
The second piece of ?evidence? of a turn in Sharon political philosophy is, of course, the ?Disengagement Plan? and the dismantling of Israel?s settlements in the Gaza Strip. ?Isn?t this proof of Sharon?s readiness to make compromises?? ask his new left wing followers. But one only has to read Sharon?s own explanations of the ?unilateral redeployment from Gaza? to understand that this move is neither a break with his consistent policy of colonization or a first step towards renewing the negotiation process.
First, it is a unilateral move, intended to resolve an Israeli problem: getting rid of the Palestinian population in order to maintain a Jewish state in ?Eretz Israel.? This problem as two parts: how can Israel enlarge the Jewish state to the whole of historical Palestine while keeping it demographically Jewish, without expelling the Palestinians to Jordan, which could be a very risky gamble. In the late seventies, Sharon developed an answer to this double question: the neutralization of the Palestinian population in autonomous cantons where they will be concentrated and enclosed? like Indian reservations in the United States or Bantoustans in South Africa. If the Palestinian leadership wants to call these enclaves ?The Palestinian State,? Sharon will not object.
This enclosure of the Palestinians in half a dozen or more reservations will allow Israel to establish hundreds of new settlements and outposts in the rest of the West Bank, which will be more or less free of Arabs. ?Fifty years of colonization in order to establish the future borders of the State of Israel,? for, as Ben Gourion used to say, ?the borders will always be where we have ploughed our last furrow.? Indeed, Ben Gourion, who always avoided fixing the final borders of Israel, is the model of Ariel Sharon, whose intention is ?to continue the war of Independence? started, but never finished, by Ben Gourion.
Despite what new Sharonites may claim, Sharon is not the man of the decolonization. On the contrary, he is the first real planner, after Ben Gourion, of a long term colonization project in which the creation of Palestinian self-ruled cantons is not a compromise with the Palestinian leadership, but a unilaterally imposed step as an extension of the original colonial project.
In that sense, Israeli analysts who describe Sharon?s new party, Kadima, as a return to Mapai (the party of David Ben Gourion) may be right, provided that they are speaking about the real Mapai and its political agenda and practice, and not the fake image of a social-democratic moderate party? the product of professional liars and manipulators like Shimon Peres.
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