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May 10, 2005
Not a politician
Well, the moral voice in the Israeli cabinet, Natan Sharansky, has resigned. This is not a minor development, although you have to step aside from the left-liberal consensus on the Middle East to see why. And, given President Bush's comments in Europe yesterday—blasting the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin pact favoring stability over liberty in Eastern Europe—makes one wonder if Bush sees the contradiction if his own views are applied to the Holy Land.
Here a link to a short take in The Jerusalem Post Magazine, but since it available only to subscribers, I will quote some important points below.
"When he entered politics, the centrist stand his Yisrael B'Aliya party took enabled Sharansky to hold the balance of power that allowed Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Sharon to form coalitions. At its peak, Sharansky's party had seven mandates and 175,000 voters."
"Before Yisrael B'Aliya's collapse in the 2003 election, Sharansky was portrayed as shifting rightward, but the truth is that his views have never changed. When he talks about what he would be willing to give the Palestinians, he sounds as Left as can be. He just conditions concessions on Palestinian democratization, a value that cannot be placed on the standard Israeli political map."
When I return to Israel, I plan to ask Sharansky if he think that his friend President Bush has abandoned support for Palestinian democracy, by not conditioning the Gaza withdrawal on democratic change. In fact, I have a more radical idea in mind: Gaza should be a democracy independent of the West Bank and of the PLO.
The Jerusalesm Post also noted the limited minds in the Israeli press.
"Even his departure from the cabinet this week was mischaracterized in the Israeli press as no different from the resignation of Effi Eitam. Sharansky did his best in interviews to explain that he was not protesting withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, but rather Israel's leaving unilaterally without insisting on Palestinian democratization as a prerequisite. ..."
"Even the English edition of the Hebrew Haaretz newspaper decided that the departure of a man unknown outside of Israel, IBA chief Yosef Barel, was more front-page-worthy than that of Sharansky. This despite Sharansky making Time magazine's list of the world's most influential thinkers and his new status as US President George W. Bush's guru since the president read Sharansky's book, The Case for Israel."
The Jerusalem Post quotes Sharansky, capturing a taste of what is probably bitterness. "It's unfortunate that the values I fought for don't interest people in Israel as they do in the United States," Sharansky said. "Both the Left and the Right in Israel have conceded the value of democracy. The president of the United States understands it, and it's a pity that Israeli politicians don't."
Posted by Richard Miniter at May 10, 2005 03:19 PM