Uri Avnery:
A Sharak Government
(Beitrag vom 14.10.2000, Quelle: www.gush-shalom.org)
If I were a cynic, I would have said that Ehud Barak and Ariel
Sharon planned it all in advance.
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 al over the occupied territories, demolished homes and
built "by-pass roads" designed to add more land to the "settlement blocs".
(Palestinian 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?"