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Analysis

Replacing the 'irreplaceable'

With elections coming in March, Israelis will struggle to fill the void Sharon's loss will cause.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published January 6, 2006

It should come as no surprise that a man of 77 might suffer a debilitating stroke. Yet the shock most Israelis felt at news about Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shows what a monumental presence - figuratively as well as literally - he has been for decades.

Stricken at the height of his popularity, Sharon leaves a huge vacuum in Israeli politics just three months before national elections. And the peace moves he initiated appear in jeopardy as Palestinians grapple with their own leadership crisis and the growing power of the militant group Hamas.

Though Sharon holds a precarious grip on life, many Israelis already "feel as if they'd lost an uncle," says Yehezkel Dror, a political scientist at Hebrew University. "They are disoriented and traumatized."

Doctors said Thursday that Sharon will be kept in a coma-like state for up to three days to prevent further brain damage from a massive stroke. Sharon's pupils were responding to light, "which means the brain is functioning," the director of Hadassah Hospital said. However, his condition remained grave and neurosurgeons not involved in the case said chances for a full recovery are slim.

Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, will serve as acting prime minister for up to 100 days. But Rosemary Hollis, a British expert on the Mideast, calls Sharon "irreplaceable."

"There isn't anybody to exactly fill his shoes. Israelis are going to scatter back across the political spectrum. We won't have a clear winner and we won't have a clear direction."

Once considered a hard-liner, Sharon has in recent years been viewed as the politician best able to give Israel both peace and security. He approved construction of a massive barricade that has reduced suicide attacks, but also ended Israel's controversial occupation of the predominantly Palestinian Gaza Strip when troops and settlers withdrew last summer.

In November, Sharon made the stunning announcement he was leaving the right-wing Likud Party to found a new party, Kadima, committed to pursuing peace with the Palestinians. Polls taken before his stroke show Kadima winning a substantial bloc of seats in the March 28 parliamentary election and assuring Sharon a historic third term as prime minister.

Even if he were to make a miraculous recovery, though, most experts doubt the peace process would advance very far, at least in the near term.

"It would be inappropriate to romanticize what Sharon has stood for," says Hollis, head of the Middle East Program at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.

"He's not "Mr. Negotiations with the Palestinians' - instead it's unilateral, it's peace on our terms and borders as we see them, and no compromise on Jerusalem. And you can forget about any right of return for refugees. But I suspect in the aftermath of this, you're going to have Washington and, to an extent, London wringing their hands and saying, "If only we hadn't lost Sharon.' "

Dror says a successful peace process depends "60 to 70 percent" on the Palestinians, and, Sharon or no, he sees little cause for optimism. Since the pullout, Gaza has descended into chaos with a rash of kidnappings, open warfare between rival factions and rocket attacks on nearby Israeli cities.

"It looks like a failed state before it even becomes a state," Dror says.

Israelis are nervously anticipating the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections, in which the militant group Hamas is expected to make a strong showing. Sharon's government has threatened to bar voting in Arab East Jerusalem because of Hamas' vow to destroy Israel and its history of deadly suicide bombings.

"If the Palestinians elect groups that want peace and stop shooting, the peace process will progress with every prime minister," Dror says. "All (Israeli politicians) agree that Israel has to give something, and they all agree that if the Palestinians get something, it only whets their appetite to shoot."

Hollis, though, says even some Israeli hard-liners see a benefit to negotiating with Hamas rather than Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, considered a weak leader with little popular support.

"The feeling is, the sooner we get to the real thing, which is Hamas, the more we know what we're dealing with," Hollis says. "If Hamas agrees to something, it speaks with a more credible voice than Abbas does."

Sharon's stroke and incapacitation reveal the thinness of Israel's own leadership ranks. Although there is no shortage of candidates for prime minister, none has the stature, experience or popularity of the crafty ex-general, whose political roots go back to the creation of the Israeli state in 1948.

Sharon's deputy, Olmert, is in line to become head of Kadima. Like Sharon, the 60-year-old Olmert has morphed over the years from hawk to moderate.

But Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, is widely considered a cold fish who stirs little enthusiasm among most Israelis.

Among others joining Sharon's new centrist party last fall was former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who bolted from Labor after he lost out as chairman. At 82, he is even older than Sharon, and though a gifted man who won the Nobel Peace Prize, he has never led the Labor Party to victory. (He became prime minister in 1984 as part of a deal and again in 1995 after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.)

"Peres has experience, but no electability," says Gideon Rahat, an expert on Israeli politics at Hebrew University. "He's kind of a Greek tragedy."

Although Kadima likely will survive as a political party, some members are expected to return to more established ones now that Sharon is effectively out of the picture. The main beneficiary is apt to be Likud and its chairman, Benjamin Netanyahu, another former prime minister.

Many Israelis - Sharon among them - view the telegenic Netanyahu as a blatant opportunist. His popularity plunged last summer when he initially supported the Gaza pullout, then quit as finance minister in ostensible protest of the move.

But in contrast to Olmert and Labor Party leader Amir Peretz, a political newcomer, "Netanyahu can put himself out as someone who has experience and has been prime minister," Rahat says. "He doesn't have a good reputation, but Likud and the right don't have any other options."

Netanyahu has cautioned Likud Party members not to make an issue of Sharon's health. But Rahat said he wouldn't be surprised if some on the extreme right aren't rejoicing at the apparent end of Sharon's long tenure.

"They're probably very happy and say God gave Sharon what he deserves after the (Gaza) disengagement. I think a lot of Palestinians are also happy because he's seen by them as a cruel general. The extreme right and the Palestinians may celebrate. But most people are probably not feeling good because even those who didn't like him at all are now sure he's the only person who can lead Israel to peace and security."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

ABBAS

The Palestinian leader is facing a strong challenge from Hamas in upcoming elections.

LIVNI

Justice minister, longtime Likud activist who left that party to join Sharon's Kadima.

NETANYAHU

A Likud leader and former prime minister, he opposes further concessions to the Arabs.

OLMERT

Replaces Sharon as leader of upstart Kadima party. Was mayor of Jerusalem for a decade.

PERES

Former prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner, left Labor to join Kadima.

PERETZ

Unseated Peres as Labor chairman. Aims to return the party to social democratic roots.

[Last modified January 6, 2006, 01:05:09]