Jewish World Review Feb. 22, 2001 / 29 Shevat, 5761
Unity gov't in Israel key to strength
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
Secretary of State Powell dips his toes into the muddy
Mideast waters this week, and the Israelis are not
unnervous about this first on-scene encounter with the
new President's foreign policy man.
With Palestinian extremists calling for more intifadeh
blood, Israel needs a united voice. That means a policy
consensus that will not only enable Israel to handle the
Palestinian challenge, but also withstand the demands of
those in the West who would equalize the guilt for the
current violence and have Israel surrender to terrorist
blackmail.
There are other problems on the horizon. While Israel's
top military strategists pooh-pooh the immediate danger
of Saddam Hussein to Israel, the fact is that the
Baghdad Butcher is totally unpredictable. Just watching
Iraqi TV here shows how Saddam has latched on to the new
Palestinian intifadeh as Iraq's cause; it almost gets as
much attention as the latest Anglo-American raids on
Baghdad.
There are also growing Iraqi links with Syria, where the
new president, Bashar Assad once touted as a
peacemaker is turning out to be as big an enemy of
peace as his late dictator father, Hafez Assad. The
young Assad is even strengthening links to Iran and
its Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah.
Israel's answer to all this must be in a unified policy,
not the splinters that usually mar Israeli political
life.
Who knows better than Gen. Ariel Sharon that winning a
tough battle means first assembling your best officers.
That's one of the keys to the Israeli prime minister-
elect's decision to face down the crisis by forming a
unity government and naming the opposition Labor Party's
two leaders as his top brass: outgoing Prime Minister
Ehud Barak as defense minister and veteran Israeli
statesman Shimon Peres as foreign minister.
No doubt there are hard-nosed political considerations.
Sharon faces an uphill fight in cobbling together the
coalition every Israeli prime minister needs to rule.
And what better way than to neutralize his most popular
opponents in the Labor Party? More so because Sharon's
own Likud Party rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, is panting in the wings, waiting for Sharon
to stumble and fall.
Sharon also needs the dovish Barak and Peres to offset
his right-wing extremist tag.
Clearly, ego has played a role in Barak's and Peres'
surprise decisions to accept Sharon's invitation.
Neither of the two enjoy being on the sidelines. But
there's a lot to be said for the unity idea and for the
choices Sharon has made.
Barak remains one of Israel's top military minds. Peres
commands the respect of many of the same Mideast and
European leaders who despise Sharon. Peres may also be
the only senior Israeli that Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat will even talk with (if that's worth very much).
Mostly, both men, as well as other moderates in a Sharon
government, can play an important balancing role in what
might otherwise be a totally right-wing cabinet.The
relationship with Washington remains Israel's most
important foreign link. The Bush administration,
however, seems to be more preoccupied with Saddam, the
previous Bush administration's nemesis, than it is with
Arab-Israeli peace.
Jerusalem is going to have to increasingly rely on
itself. It can do that only with as much unity as
By Richard Z. Chesnoff
JWR contributor and veteran journalist
Richard Z. Chesnoff is a senior correspondent at US News
And World Report and a columnist at the NY Daily News. His latest book, recently updated, is Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe
Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History.
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