Whither Ariel Sharon?

When he came into power following the reign of Benjamin Netanyahu I was appalled. It seemed to me that he had alll on his own provoked the Al-Aqusa intifada that has now been raging in Israel. My thinking on this was colored by news reports of Sep 28, 2000, when Sharon, acting allegedly in the interests of keeping historical artifacts from being vandalized by Palestinian archaeologists, went to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif complex along with almost 1,000 police officers. The news reports hailed him as a zionist hardliner with whom no negotiation was possible.

It seemed to me that in electing this man to prime minister in 2001, Isrealis were putting their worst foot forward and saying to the world that they were not the least interested in peace. I obviously had a very wrong impression of Mr. Sharon. In the intervening years I have become aware of his passion for not only the Jews of Israel but also for a lasting peace that he knew would be difficult to attain. He has engineered great changes in the way that Palestinian/Israeli relations have been managed and what a lasting Mid-East peace could look like. He has brought his country far but still has a tremendous amount of work to do. As he leaves politics due to his body's frailty, his policies are in a state of half-completion.

I now wonder how Israeli politics will keep from running backwards away from some of the very pragmatic and prudent steps that this amazing centrist political figure has wrought. He came in as (in my removed and obscured american eye) and arch conservative hawk. He has gone out as a consensus building centrist who took the best ideas from both the extreme right annd the extreme left.

The politics of the middle east cannot be easily encapsulated, especailly by me, but it looks like they are about to enter a very chaotic periiod in the next days and weeks. I fervently hope that cool heads will prevail and that the route to peace will be found.