The end of the Sharon era

Once despised by a generation of Israelis, Ariel Sharon became a venerated father figure. His passing from the political scene leaves the future of the Middle East in even greater doubt.

By Aluf Benn

Read more: Palestine, Politics, Israel, Ariel Sharon, News, Hamas, Ehud Olmert

Photos by AP/Wide World

Ariel Sharon in 1973, 1995 and 1982.

Jan. 7, 2006 | TEL AVIV, Israel -- Ariel Sharon's critical illness marks the end of an era in Israel's leadership, and the beginning of a new chapter in the Jewish state's history. Throughout a unique military and political career, spanning over six decades, Sharon has been one of the most influential figures on Israel's national security, physical landscape and political map. Alternately viewed as a hero and a villain in his many public capacities, he exits Israel's political stage as an admired father figure, the most popular prime minister Israelis have had in a generation.

Concluding his fifth year as prime minister and approaching the age of 78, Sharon was on his way to a third electoral landslide in Israel's coming March 28 parliamentary election. The adoring public supported his efforts to maintain business as usual, after his sudden hospitalization for a stroke on Dec. 18, and prayed for his survival.

On Thursday, he was scheduled to undergo heart catheterization in order to prevent another stroke. But he had collapsed the night before from a brain hemorrhage, and was taken half-conscious to a Jerusalem hospital. Minutes after his arrival at the E.R., his powers were stripped away and given to his deputy, Ehud Olmert. True to form, the Sharon period ended in drama, this time in a personal life-and-death battle.

In whatever he did, be it in uniform or a business suit, Sharon has always provoked controversy. My generation of Israelis, coming of age around the time of his ill-fated 1982 invasion of Lebanon, grew to regard him as a reckless warmonger, the ultimate hard-liner who never voted for any of Israel's peace deals with its Arab neighbors. "If Sharon ever takes power, we'll leave the country," was a common saying among many Israelis. Shortly after the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Camp David, his September 2000 visit as opposition leader to the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif to Muslims) in Jerusalem, the most contested piece of real estate on the planet, sparked, or was used as pretext for, the Palestinian intifada. Few Israelis believed then that five months later, "Arik" would take office following a sweeping electoral victory. But by then he was already seen as a national savior against the growing Palestinian violence. His past sins were all but forgiven.

The job changed him. At first he wanted to crush the Palestinians by force, as in the past. When this failed, and suicide bombings went on, he agreed to build a physical barrier in the West Bank, an idea he previously rejected. Sharon -- the master of the terrain -- knew very well that the barrier route would mark the future border, and would eventually lead Israel to leave most of the West Bank territory it captured in 1967, including the many settlements built there by none other than Sharon himself. His old self.

Then, in late 2003, came the next and more profound development, when Sharon decided to evacuate the Jewish settlements from Gaza and leave that territory forever. It took him two years to direct the implementation of his "disengagement plan" through endless political hurdles and fears of civil war. But he prevailed, and the settlers were removed within six days last August, almost without a scratch. Sharon has shown exemplary leadership, winning unprecedented admiration for his "courage" from foreign leaders -- even including Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak -- who had shunned him before.

The Gaza withdrawal was followed by Sharon's latest, and as it happened, final maneuver: splitting the ruling Likud party, which he had initiated back in 1973, and forming his own centrist party, Kadima ("forward"). This bold move responded to the will of most Israelis to do away with the burden of occupying millions of unwilling, hostile Palestinians, and consolidate the country's shrinking Jewish majority over a smaller territory. Kadima immediately gained a lead in the polls and attracted a group of politicians from both major parties, Likud and Labor. Although Sharon kept his post-election plans ambiguous, the conventional wisdom was that he planned a follow-up withdrawal in part of the West Bank -- most probably, like the Gaza precedent, done unilaterally.

Unilateralism fit Sharon perfectly. He mistrusted "the Arabs" and preferred to dictate, rather than negotiate, the terms of the Gaza withdrawal. As a result, the Israeli disengagement hastened the disintegration of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), rather than strengthening it, despite the transfer of additional territory and unprecedented control over its border with Egypt. The P.A. leader, Mahmoud Abbas, lacks the charisma and authority of his late longtime predecessor, Yasser Arafat. Though supported by Washington, Abbas failed to take control of the P.A. security forces and bring back law and order to Gaza. Instead, armed gangs and clans have become the powers that be in the overpopulated, impoverished area. Terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad launch rockets at Israeli territory across the border, and Israeli authorities fear a new campaign of suicide bombings. Angry at Israel's declaration that it would not allow residents of East Jerusalem to vote in legislative elections, and concerned that his party, Fatah, will lose ground to the militant Islamic group Hamas, Abbas has yet to decide whether to allow the elections, scheduled for Jan. 25, to take place.

The growing chaos on the Palestinian side will be the most pressing issue for Ehud Olmert, Sharon's successor as stand-in prime minister. Olmert does not have 100 days of grace; he barely has 100 hours. Taking charge less than three months before the election, Olmert must unify Kadima behind him and convince the public that the new party is a serious enterprise and not a fad, and that he could truly fill Sharon's shoes. Indeed, during his first 48 hours in his new job, Olmert extracted pledges of support from almost all leaders of Kadima, who were handpicked by Sharon, while bargaining to keep the elder, highly popular Shimon Peres -- who had lost the Labor primary and defected to Sharon -- at his side.

Next page: Will Israel tilt to the right or cling to the center? The Palestinians will have a say