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Jewish World Review Feb. 12, 2001/ 19 Shevat, 5761

Suzanne Fields

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Consumer Reports


Ariel Sharon, not by Steven Spielberg


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ARIEL SHARON rides to the rescue. Ehud Barak was willing to transfer sovereignty of east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and maybe Israel, to the Palestinians. Not Sharon.

Ariel Sharon, now 72, was a half-century ago symbolic of the New Jew, tough and leathery, ready to fight for rough justice in a mean world. He emerged on the scene when the classic image of the Jew was still of a brainy guy without muscles, the 97-pound weakling who was forever getting sand kicked in his face because he didn't know how to fight. He could be passively cunning, but not physically courageous.

"Schindler's List,'' the popular movie about the Holocaust made by Steven Spielberg nearly a decade ago, reinforced that stereotype. The hero was a heroic Nazi con man (not easy to find) with a big physique who liberated Jews who couldn't help themselves.

Sharon, in contrast, was born on an agriculture collective near Tel Aviv (nothing effete there) and fought bravely in the War of Independence in 1948, in the Six Day War in 1967 and in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He was among the first of the new breed of defiant Jews, the Israeli soldiers we came to admire, who were running against type. For me he was like Hank Greenberg, the Jewish baseball player of my childhood whom sportswriters called Hammerin' Hank and Jewish fans called "the Moses of baseball.'' He stood tall, carried a big stick and his team usually won.

Although Ehud Barak was a decorated commander, he lost all credibility as he restored the image of a Jewish leader whose power resides in weakness. In his attempt to make peace at almost any price, he disgusted even the doves in his party, many of whom stayed home because they couldn't vote for Sharon and wouldn't vote for Barak. The only forward step Barak took was to show all Israelis -- and the rest of the world-- that Arafat had no intention of accepting even the much-too-generous peace package Barak offered.

With Sharon, it's a whole new ball game. He can be like Richard Nixon in China, a man from so far on the other side that his own side trusts him to negotiate unlikely change. We know he won't give away the Temple Mount. He has a small house in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.

Adding toughness to symbolism, Sharon has so far refused to shake hands with Arafat. Yet, after his landslide election, Arafat wrote to the prime minister-elect, congratulating him and offering peace talks: "Our hands will continue to be held out to make peace because both sides expect it.'' (Let's hope those hands aren't concealing a knife or a grenade.) Sharon, unlike Barak, demands "realistic peace.''

Barak's humiliating defeat further exposes Bill Clinton's failures of foreign policy. Both Clinton and Barak pushed negotiations too fast and too far, showing greater concern for (begin ital) their (end ital) futures than for Israel's. Clinton wanted a legacy and Barak wanted re-election. Neither got what he wanted most. Clinton, in his zeal to be an "honest broker'' for peace, lost an important opportunity to condemn the Palestinian intifada, which in turn put the "peace process'' in jeopardy. He gave the Palestinians no incentive to end the violence.

The new Bush administration promises close cooperation with the new Sharon government, but with a greater equanimity than the previous administration.

"This is a time to be patient,'' says Secretary of State Colin Powell, "to give the winner an opportunity to decide what kind of government will be formed. ... Jawboning is pretty much all we can do right now, and hope the leaders in the region recognize the absolute importance in controlling the passions, in controlling the emotions.''

Sharon has lots of enemies inside and outside Israel. He is a flawed leader who has made mistakes. The War in Lebanon was particularly divisive. Saul Singer, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post (who lost a brother in Lebanon), reminds us and everybody else that "Israel's governments may have acted with lesser or greater wisdom, but always with the legitimacy granted by our democratic system.'' That's the reality that gives Ariel Sharon a chance to make real peace.



Up

02/07/01: Profaning the sacred with the political
02/05/01: What's the Creator got to do with it?
02/01/01: Live like the snopses, leave like the snopses
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01/25/01: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
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01/18/01: Ashcroft can't dance (don't ask him)
01/15/01: Clothes make the First Lady
01/11/01: Pity Jerusalem in the 'peace' process
01/08/01: Laying the political race card
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01/02/01: This year, looking ahead is sure sweeter than looking back
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12/13/00: Hillary in the lion's den
12/08/00: Return of the 'second sex' on campus
12/04/00: Politics as entertainment today
11/30/00: Winner vs. whiner
11/27/00: Measuring against history
11/23/00: Memories of Thanksgiving past
11/17/00: In defense of the Electoral College
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11/13/00: Sexual politics squared
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10/30/00: The Oval Office, through a glass brightly
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10/16/00: 'Ladies night' at the second debate
10/12/00: Gore vs. Bush: Volvo vs. Maserati
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09/05/00: Joe Lieberman as a 'Menorah Man'
08/31/00: Rising suns of the conventions
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07/17/00: Snoop Doggy Dogg was a founding father, wasn't he?
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07/10/00: Abortion as cruel and unusual punishment
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07/03/00: Independence Day with Norman Rockwell
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06/05/00: Hillary and Al -- playing against type
05/31/00: The sexual revolution confronts the SUV
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04/24/00: Women's studies beget narrow minds
04/17/00: The slippery slope of anti-Semitism
04/13/00: A villain larger than life
04/10/00: When mourning becomes an economic tragedy
04/03/00: The last permissible bigotry
03/30/00: Seeking the political Oscar
03/23/00: The gaying of America
03/20/00: Pointy-eared quadrupeds on campus
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03/02/00: Elegy for Amadou
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01/31/00: George W. -- 'Ladies man' and 'man's man'
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01/13/00: French lessons in amour --- and marriage
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11/30/99: Potholes on the road to the Promised Land
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10/26/99: Rebels with a violent cause
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10/01/99: Lincoln's 'Almost Chosen People'
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09/08/99: M-M-M is for manhood
08/30/99: Blocking the schoolhouse door
08/27/99: No kick from cocaine
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08/19/99: A rude awakening
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©1999, Suzanne Fields. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate