Selections from our coverage of Ariel Sharon's illness and the future course of Israeli politics (new links added throughout the day):
Multimedia on Sharon and his legacy at MSNBC.
As of this morning:Sharon under deep sedation, and in induced coma for at least 24 more hours on a respirator. He continues to be in serious but stable condition, the director of Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, Jerusalem said Thursday.
I got to see Sharon speak when he came to NYC last spring to campaign for the disengagement among American Jews. He got a mixed reception.
Sometimes a divisive public figure can unite people in death, who would be at each other's throats while he was alive. Sometimes they unite to back his successor. Meryl says that this is Olmert's Harry Truman moment, and read the comments too. And she links to this profile of Ehud Olmert.
Daniel Pipes is pessimistic about Kadima, but he was against disengagement, so he views the probably ascendancy of Likud favorably.
Soccer Dad critiques Sharon's government for failing to seek widespread support for his policies, or planning for his succession.
Olmert's ability to (a) become powerful very, very quickly and (b) get the party to somehow officially designate him as its leader very, very quickly. Odds that either of those things will happen are difficult to determine - for instance, nobody knows how or where Kadima would hold primaries (or who would vote in them). There are a lot of really talented politicians who have risked their political careers on Kadima, and they probably can't go back to their old parties (Peretz was already stacking Labor with his union friends before Kadima existed, while everyone knows [Netanyahu] to be vindictive and petty). So there are a lot of really big brains with an incentive to make Kadima work. . . . Olmert has three months to prove that he's able to lead the country. But he has to act quickly to demonstrate that he's even going to be running as a leader of anything.
BBC reporter James Reynolds on Sharon's wide appeal, which will be difficult to reproduce:
Mr Sharon has attracted the support of left-wingers who do not want to rule over Palestinians and right-wingers who do not want to negotiate with them, as well as the backing of the bulk of normal Israelis who are fed up with suicide bombings and who want a tough military presence.Hillel Halkin is also worried about the future of Kadima:Not only does he provide policies, he provides personality.
As someone who for 60 years fought in all of Israel's wars, he is considered the ultimate 'Mr Security'. If they do not have this ultimate 'Mr Security' then a lot of Israelis will feel not only bereft, but insecure.
A country on which a new mood of confidence had settled following the breaking of the Palestinian intifada and the successful Gaza disengagement, both accomplishments for which Ariel Sharon deserved full credit, is now a confused and worried one. Mr. Sharon will go down as one of the best prime ministers in Israel's history, one who won a war against terror that was deemed unwinnable and restored a sense of direction to a people that had lost it. Yet if, as has often been said, one mark of a great leader is his making sure that he has a successor, or that there is at least a clear procedure for choosing one, Mr. Sharon fell short of greatness. In impetuously leaving the Likud to found Kadima, it never occurred to him that, at the age of 77, he would not be around for at least a few more years. It should have, though. That's not the kind of oversight that a meticulous planner like him should have been guilty of.Stephen Green on the delicate balancing act that Kadima represents:
By forcing Jewish settlers out of Gaza, Sharon angered many of his rightwing allies in the Likud Party. By doing so without a formal treaty with the PA, Sharon completely alienated Israel's leftwing Labor Party. Trapped in the center – much like his division was once trapped behind Egyptian lines – Sharon came up with a creative solution: last November, he founded a new political party, Kadima. . . . . It's my firm belief that Sharon's Disengagement/Fence/Targeted-Violence trifecta is Israel's best hope for security.The question for Kadima, and for the future of Israel: how many voting Israeli citizens agree with that statement? And how many think there is any other Israeli politician who can pull it off?
UPDATE: Meyrav Wurmser in National Review thinks Kadima was an anomaly created by Sharon's outsized influence on Israeli politics, which is better off without it.
Also Joel Rosenberg on Bibi's chances:All but written off by many political observers in Israel who thought he would be trounced in a three-way battle with Sharon, the former Prime Minister could be Israel's next Prime Minister. He won the recent Likud primaries decisively. He has taken a tough position on Iran. And he has a track-record of controlling Palestinian terrorism while also negotiating peace deals (he gave Hebron to Yasser Arafat, though the Israeli Left never gave him much credit and the Right was furious). But Netanyahu's success is by no means certain. His party is badly divided. The Israeli press hates him. And he would need to find a way to win over centrists while not causing the Right to abandon him. It won't be easy. But suddenly, it's possible.
Boker Tov, Boulder contrasts some Israeli and Palestinian reactions to Sharon's illness, but Palestinian reactions - at least at the official level - are more complex:
U.S. National Security Council official Elliott Abrams and State Department official David Welch were to have met with Sharon on Thursday evening, apparently to urge Israel to reverse a decision to ban Palestinian voting in disputed Jerusalem. . . . Abbas has said he may not hold elections if Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians as a capital, is excluded. “We hope that this (Sharon’s illness) will not affect what we had expected of the Israelis,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. If Olmert puts off a decision on Jerusalem, “it means the Palestinian election is going down,” Erekat said.. . . . Arab TV broadcasters beamed out largely straightforward, nonstop live coverage about Sharon.
Ahmed Jibril, a radical Palestinian leader in Damascus, Syria, called the stroke a gift from God.
. . . . But a Palestinian commentator on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network offered Sharon unexpected praise as “the first Israeli leader who stopped claiming Israel had a right to all of the Palestinians’ land,” a reference to Israel’s Gaza withdrawal. “A live Sharon is better for the Palestinians now, despite all the crimes he has committed against us,” said Ghazi al-Saadi.
The nutcase running Iran sees Sharon's illness as another opportunity to posture. (via Meryl, doing her own update)
A caption contest from happier days.
IMO this means that Israel won't attack Iran.
All politics is local. The Israelis will have to settle their differences over Sharon's replacement before a successor will be strong enough to do anything risky aboard. Even if means being nuked in the meantime.
So it's up to us.
The other side of the coin is that this crisis in Israeli government encourages attacks by the Syrians (unifies the nation and puts the UN Harriri investigation fallout aside, reasserts control over Lebanon); along with the Palestinians of course (look for Abbas to be swept aside by Hamas) and possibly Egypt as well, to distract from domestic issues.
Israel may well get war with Sharon gone. The hostility to Israel allowed the Arab world to be frozen in Amber; look for many to wish to rid the region of the pressures of Iraq and Lebanon's democratization with another war against Israel.
And Pat Robertson is acting like a loon:
US evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for "dividing God's land" of Israel, igniting his latest trademark controversy.
As the Israeli prime minister battled for life, Robertson seemed to suggest to viewers on his "700 Club" television show that Sharon was being punished for his policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
"The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, 'divide my land.' God considers this land to be his.
"You read the Bible, he says, 'This is my land.' And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No. This is mine.'"
Robertson, who frequently provokes outrage with his remarks, said he was "sad" to see Sharon fall sick, and that he was a "very likeable person."
"I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or the United States of America."
"God said, 'This land belongs to me, you better leave it alone.'"
Source
Nice to see that Robertson and Ahmadinejad are singing off the same sheet of music on this one. Not that it makes it any less disgusting.
IMO this means that Israel won't attack Iran. All politics is local. The Israelis will have to settle their differences over Sharon's replacement before a successor will be strong enough to do anything risky abroad.
Israel will be involved in any Iranian attack whether they choose to be or not. If attacked, Iran will open fire from (ostensibly) Hezbollah positions in S. Lebanon. The rocket batteries there will present more than nuisance value to Israel. The range of the more advanced rockets, combined with the threat of chemical warheads presents the real possibility of an Israeli nuclear response.
So any strike against a primary set of targets in Iran - it's nuclear facilities - may have to wait until a secondary set of targets is eliminated first, in Lebanon.
How about Barak?
Yes! Israel may well get war with Sharon gone. The hostility to Israel allowed the Arab world to be frozen in Amber; look for many to wish to rid the region of the pressures of Iraq and Lebanon's democratization with another war against Israel.