2006-01-12-Sharon-peace process |
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jewishsightseeing.com, January 12, 2006 |
By Ira Sharkansky
For the first time in a week, hourly news bulletins have
begun without a report on the prime minister's condition. Many of the
fifteen hundred foreign correspondents who camped outside the hospital have
gone home. There is not much to report, except for slight movements in
response to pain stimuli, and an increase in blood pressure in response to
his favorite music or the speech of his sons. Physicians have not given up
hope, but say that if it happens, it will be a long recovery. He has yet to
open his eyes.
Ehud Olmert has an invitation to the White House prior to the
Israeli election, so we know who Bush wants to govern Israel. Olmert may not
need American help. The Labor Party has dismissed a campaign chair for the
third time, and there are angry noises directed at Benyamin Netanyahu from
key figures of the Likud Party. Latest polls show the Sharon/Olmert Kadima
Party up to 44 seats in the Knesset, along with of a continued decline for
Labor.
Some have not given up on a political resurrection. They want
to honor Sharon by putting him Number #1 on the Kadima list. Their
intentions are more likely to be votes than honor, of which there is little
in the politics of Israel or anywhere else. But there is a looming official
deadline for submitting candidacies, and each candidate must sign an
application. That is not in Sharon's immediate future.
Putting Shimon Peres Number #2 on the Kadima list, after
Olmert, will not be as attractive as putting Sharon #1. Peres has
asserted that he sought no position for himself, but virtually every media
commentator has ridiculed the claim. He says that whenever a distinguished
position opens, while his minions speak for him, and he reminds all who will
listen of his qualifications. Peres' name on the ticket may be worth the
equivalent of 3 or 4 Knesset seats, and Olmert has no shortage of political
sense. It is said that Peres had to give up the prospect of being Foreign
Minister in exchange for the Number #2 position, but no concession is final
with Peres. Assuming Kadima gets to form the next government, it will
be only a matter of time until someone says that the country cannot afford
to manage a foreign policy without Shimon Peres at the helm.
The country's physicians are arguing in the media about
Sharon's medical treatment. According to claims, he should have been sent to
the hospital in Beer Sheva, an hour closer to the site of his attack, than
to Jerusalem. He should not have been given the medicine prescribed after
his first, minor stroke. He should not have been allowed to reside at his
distant farm while he was susceptible to another attack. There should
have been more pressure on him to avoid returning to a bruising work
routine. The chair of the medical society has tried to silence the uproar,
but to no avail. One of the critics is angry at the radio network for not
giving him an opportunity to respond to a severe condemnation of his
comments.
Sharon has been sanctified, like Yitzhak Rabin before him,
for being taken away at a point in his career when he had done something
very popular. With those sympathetic to such things, Sharon's disengagement
from Gaza is parallel to Rabin's signing of the Oslo accords.
Benyamin Netanyahu is claiming to be the inheritor of the
Sharon heritage, which has replaced his boast of being invited to be Finance
Minister of Italy. A media clip of Netanyahu's pious assertion of January
goes well when coupled with a clip showing Netanyahu's sharp attack
against the prime minister when he resigned from Sharon's government in
August.
The Sharon story is not over, but it is fading.
Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem |