After Sharon, what next?

ISRAELI PRIME Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke on 4 January has
brought widespread political instability to Israel, changing the nature
of the general election there due on 28 March. However this is merely
the latest in a series of roller-coaster developments in Israel and
Palestine.

Kevin Simpson

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has witnessed growing political chaos
as the planned end-of-January general elections loom. The PA, made up of
leaders of the Fatah organisation of the Palestine Liberation
Organisation (PLO), is almost powerless, its politicians regarded as
corrupt and weak.

By contrast, the Islamic Hamas made sweeping local electoral gains
throughout the year. A nascent civil war already exists between warring
factions in the southern Gaza. PA President Abbas may postpone elections
and set up an "emergency" government with the participation of Hamas.

Society teeters on the edge of complete disintegration as a result of
years of corrupt PA leadership and decades of occupation by the Israeli
Defence Force (IDF).

In recent years, pressure has built up on Israel’s ruling class from
different quarters concerning its oppression of the Palestinians. It has
come from US imperialism, the impossibility of crushing the Palestinians
militarily and from the social instability caused by the IDF occupation
of Palestinian territory.

Also, the Palestinian population is growing faster than the Israeli
Jewish one and will overtake it in the area covered by Israel and the
PA. This led Sharon and most of the Israeli ruling class to change their
historic position on the building of a Greater Israel (involving the
annexation of the Gaza strip and West Bank).

US imperialism is desperate to make the region more stable to protect
its strategic interests. It has withdrawn its opposition to the building
of the Separation Wall around the West Bank and accepted that the major
Israeli Jewish settlements there will remain. However the Bush
administration has pressed for some appearance of concessions from above
to attempt to prevent an explosion from below.

Yet, Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza in August has not alleviated
the Palestinian masses’ poverty and oppression. Genuine national
liberation for the Palestinian people has never been on offer from this
so-called "peacemaker".

In fact the Gaza withdrawal has been used as camouflage for increased
oppression of the Palestinians in other areas. At the same time the
Sharon government accelerated the building of the 620 kilometre-long
Separation Wall. This has isolated 242,000 Palestinians (10% of the
population) in the closed military zone between Israel’s border and the
western side of the wall.

Reactionary politics

SHARON’S POSITION was strengthened by the withdrawal from Gaza.
However, this was overshadowed by a political earthquake which rocked
the country in November: Amir Peretz, leader of the Histadruth trade
union federation, won the contest for Labour Party leader on the basis
of promising radical reforms. Peretz is the first working-class
Sephardic Jew ever to win this position.

These events influenced Sharon’s decision to resign as leader of the
right-wing Likud, create a new political party called Kadima (Forward),
and call new elections for late March. Opinion polls predicted that
Sharon would win the elections comfortably.

Sharon had hinted that if he won the elections a further unilateral
withdrawal from more isolated Israeli Jewish settlements in the West
Bank could take place, leading to a final imposed settlement on the
Palestinians.

But all this has changed. Sharon has suffered severe brain damage.
Most commentators believe his political career is over and have praised
his role as a "peacemaker". However, Ariel Sharon comes from the most
reactionary section of the Israeli ruling class, who have always
proposed brutal military tactics as a response to all opposition by the
Palestinian and Arab masses to their oppression.

Most notoriously Sharon was Defence Minister during the 1982 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon when the infamous massacre in Sabra and Shatila
Palestinian refugee camps took place. Sharon was found "personally
responsible" by an official Israeli government commission for the
massacre. Evidence pointed to the fact that Sharon encouraged the
reactionary Phalange militia to enter the camps in retaliation for the
assassination of their leader Gemayel.

Throughout his career, Sharon supported the views of the most
reactionary sections of the Israeli ruling class: he voted against a
peace treaty with Egypt in 1979; he opposed the Oslo agreement; while
his highly controversial visit to the third most holy Muslim site in the
world, the Al-Haram Ash-Sharif/ Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was the
catalyst for the Second Intifada.

Since then the impossibility of crushing an entire people’s struggle
for national liberation has been brought home to the Israeli ruling
class. The withdrawal from Gaza was one result.

Vacuum opens up

BUT NOW the ruling class’ plans are frozen as a vacuum opens up in
Israel. The media adulation of Sharon is intended to whip up national
unity and prevent damaging divisions during this precarious time for the
ruling class. This is why Olmert, Sharon’s right-hand man, took over as
interim Prime Minister so quickly and also why there is such pressure
for Kadima to choose a new leader.

Despite previous predictions that Kadima would win the elections, it
is still a party yet to be formed. Its regulations give Sharon sole
authority to decide the list of candidates for the elections. It seems
for the moment that Kadima is maintaining its poll standing. But even
leading Kadima figures are concerned that in Sharon’s absence the party
could tear itself to pieces while choosing its election list.

Other parties could gain from these difficulties. Likud’s new leader
Benjamin Netanyahu may benefit. However, he is deeply unpopular because
of his vicious neoliberal policies as Likud Finance minister.

The situation could open up for Peretz, whose support dropped when he
toned down his radical rhetoric. Before Sharon’s stroke Peretz stood to
only gain 18 seats (down from 31 when he was first elected, and three
less than Labour has now). These figures could increase if Kadima goes
into crisis.

What is desperately needed on both sides of the national divide are
movements with leaderships which represents the genuine interests of the
working class, both Palestinian and Israeli. These would have to
struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by
democratic socialism.

Sharon’s record shows all that is on offer by capitalism in the
Middle East today: bloodshed, brutality and war. A struggle for
socialism would, by comparison, provide the conditions for peaceful
co-existence and harmony.


This is an edited version of an article on the CWI website:
www.socialistworld.net