Just a month ago, Barak was bankrupt; a politician at the end of his
career. He had lost his majority in the Knesset, his partners had left
him, the days of his government were numbered and it only managed to carry
on because of the Knesset recess. The polls predicted that he would lose
the imminent elections by a large margin.
Ariel Sharon was in a similar
situation. His career was nearing its end. It was clear that his Likud
party would oust him and replace him with Netanyahu, who would win the
elections.
And then, as if by a miracle,
everything changed. Barak started to talk about the "holy places of the
nation", because of which he could not agree to Palestinian sovereignty
over the holy mosques. Sharon announced that he was going to visit this
Muslim compound. Barak took the visit under his wing and sent 1200 police
officers to accompany Sharon. The visit caused the expected explosion. The
next day seven Palestinians were killed by Israeli policemen near the
al-Aksa mosque. Demonstrations spread all through the occupied territories
and spilled over into Israel proper. After some hundred fatalities,
including the Palestinian child killed in the arms of his father and the
Israeli reserve soldiers brutally lynched in Ramallah, a real emergency
was finally achieved. Barak called for the setting-up of an emergency
government, and, lo and behold, nearly all the parties stood in line to
join him. All the media have become a chorus for his propaganda, a vast
majority in the country supports him.
All in all, a stroke of genius.
Barak and Sharon are saved from political perdition and have become
national heroes.
Well, that's what I would have
said, if I were a cynic. But I am not, and therefore I say that it was not
planned, but has worked out like that nevertheless. It was the inevitable
outcome.
So what can we say about the
emergency government?
First: This will not be a Barak
government, but a Sharon government. Perhaps one should call it a Sharak
government. For in all the governments he has been a member of until now,
Sharon was the dominant figure. As Minister of Agriculture, he planted the
settlements which now dictate Barak's policy. As Minister of Defense, he
got Begin into the Lebanon quagmire. In all his diverse ministerial
assignments, he has fixed the borders of annexation, according to which
the present war is being fought. The very idea that Barak could control
Sharon is ridiculous.
Second: About Barak himself - Never
has a politician betrayed, in such a cynical way, all the promises he made
before his election. We voted for Barak in order to get rid of the Likud,
and because he promised to make peace with the Palestinians and the
Syrians. The peace with Syria failed because of 10 (ten) meters on the
shores of lake Tiberias.. The peace with the Palestinians failed because
of the "holy places of the nation". The drafting of the Yeshiva-pupils has
turned into a joke, and so has the civic/secular "revolution". Even the
retreat from Lebanon has not been a success: because of the unwillingness
to give up a tiny peace of territory near Har Dov and to release the
hostages we have been holding for 13 years, Hizballah has been given a
pretext to go on harassing us.
Third: An emergency government is a
war government. The enemies of a compromise with the Palestinians will be
in the majority. In the eyes of the Arab world, the name of Sharon is
bound up with the Kibia massacre of 1953 and the Sabra-Shatilla affair of
1982. Even a child understands that hugging Sharon means throwing the
peace process into the dustbin.
The mantra in the media goes like
this: "But Barak has gone a longer way towards the Palestinians than any
Prime Minister before him." When? Where? Contrary to Netanyahu, he has not
given back even an inch of occupied territory. The talk of a compromise on
Jerusalem at Camp David was an unsecured cheque. The moment Barak started
to talk about "the holy places of the nation", compromise died.
The Barak government talked a lot
about peace and coined beautiful slogans, but on the ground, from its
first day, it continued the war against the Palestinians. Following the
Sharon formula, Barak has enlarged the settlements, put up new ones under
various guises, confiscated more Palestinian land all over the occupied
territories, demolished homes and built "by-pass roads" designed to add
more land to the "settlement blocs". (Palestinians in their villages could
not fail to see these acts all around them. Perhaps that explains the
violent confrontations now taking place all over.)
Within an incredibly short time,
Barak has destroyed the achievements of his predecessors, from Begin on.
The Arab states are cutting off their relations with us, "normalization"
is dying, Israel's standing in international public opinion is sinking.
Barak, who pretended to be the successor of Rabin, was from the very
beginning the successor of Sharon.
Over the emergency government will
hang the saying of the prophet Amos (III,3): "Can two walk together,
except they be agreed?"
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ua / hagalil.com /
15-10-2000 |