Sharon Voters Give Up on Peace

On Tuesday, Feb. 6, Israel held elections for its 12th prime minister, a man who will play the lead role in developing and implementing Israeli foreign policy. The election results revealed that Ariel Sharon, who won by a 20 percent margin over incumbent Ehud Barak, will be the new face of Israel.

Some have explained this landslide victory by citing the large numbers of Israelis who voted for neither candidate by staying home, unwilling to support the hardline Sharon and yet disappointed in Barak who, the story goes, conceded too much to the Palestinians, which sparked the recent violence. For those Israelis who did turn out to vote, however, it appears that they no longer believe that they can achieve peace by making the concessions Barak planned to make, since that would sacrifice the essential character of the Jewish state. That is, if they were to allow Palestinians the right of return, Arab numbers would soon swell to match those of the Jews within Israel. Similarly, giving up Jerusalem would involve relinquishing control of many Jewish holy sites. By electing the radical Sharon as prime minister, they demonstrated their loss of hope at arriving at a viable peace plan with the Palestinians. They believe, or so it seems, that the region's violence can only be subdued by the sort of military domination that Sharon can provide.

Sharon's past military experience certainly indicates that he will take a heavy-handed approach to diplomacy. In the 1950s, he led Israeli troops in an attack on a Jordanian village, killing 69 civilians, most of whom were women and children. He has also been credited with engineering the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila during Israel's disastrous attempt to root the Palestinian Liberation Organization out of Lebanon. After this episode, he was the subject of an inquiry commission by his own government, which found him indirectly responsible for the massacre, a decision that forced him to resign. Most recently, he has gained notoriety as the man who entered the holy Islamic site at the Dome of the Rock in September, 2000, escorted by 1,000 police, an event which kicked off the current Palestinian uprising. The title of his autobiography is Warrior. His nickname is Bulldozer. He is considered a war criminal by many, especially in the Arab world. A man who committed acts like those in Sabra and Shatila should have been imprisoned long ago.

Many of Israel's prime ministers have had such tarnished records, however. Barak has overseen Israel's response to the recent violence, which has led to the deaths of several hundred Palestinians, many of whom have been children. What separates Sharon from the herd, however, is that he does not even pretend that he is willing to come to an agreement with the Palestinians or the other Arabs. While Barak was willing to make concessions to the Arabs in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, Sharon is better known for calling Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, a "liar and a murderer," and for encouraging Jews to settle in the West Bank and Gaza.

A few weeks ago, Sharon announced that his peace plan would involve no more concessions of land to the Palestinians, no possibility of allowing Palestinians a right of return to their land, and other policies which will most likely lead to a full deterioration of relations between the two sides. If the latest Palestinian uprising was caused by the failure of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to arrive at a peace agreement, then Sharon's peace plan, or lack thereof, can only bring more bloodshed. Thus, while in the past few weeks the United States and other supporters of Israel have blamed Arafat and the Palestinians for the failure of the peace talks, in a few days' time they will no longer be able to make such claims.

Although Barak was far from sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, he continued to meet with Palestinian leaders in an attempt to reconcile major disagreements. His techniques differ greatly from those of Sharon, a man known for his brutality and his scorn for the peace process.

Those who voted for Sharon were aware of his background and character. Unless the Israelis chose Sharon expecting a greatly changed approach to foreign policy, his election symbolizes Israel's bitterness and a belief that violence will be the only way to pacify the region's growing tensions.

Rita Hamad '03, an economics concentrator in Eliot House, is president of the Society of Arab Students.