Word: sharone
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...with an "an armed terror organisation that calls for Israel's destruction," but it's not as if it had really been negotiating with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas before Wednesday's election. Substantive political negotiations between the two sides have not been held since January 2001, shortly before Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister on a promise to bury the Oslo peace process. President Bush's "road map" toward peace is little more than an empty mantra occasionally mouthed by both sides when the Americans are listening, but which neither has shown any serious inclination to implement. If anything, Hamas...
...biggest impact of the Palestinian result may be on the Israeli elections scheduled for March. Analysts expect to see the Israeli electorate rally around Ehud Olmert and the Kadima party (of stricken Prime Minister Ariel Sharon), in the way that Israelis do when they sense a possible threat from outside. Voters will want to show support for the acting prime minister and for the security establishment, and that should translate into even bigger gains for Kadima. The most recent polls, before Palestinian result, showed Kadima in the lead, winning around 40 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. But after...
...Sharon's policy was arrogant, perversely brilliant. It shattered the old Middle East paradigm, leaping past the old negotiate-or-not logjam. It allowed for a Palestinian state, but absent a reliable negotiating partner, Israel would decide what that state would look like. Suddenly Sharon had positioned himself to the left, and also to the right, of the traditional Israeli parties. "It was a perfect reflection of the country's mood," says David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "After 40 years of occupying the territories, people are sick and tired of it. They don't want...
...Likudniks are saying disengagement in Gaza has caused the chaos and will weaken Israel's security. "We hear reports of an al-Qaeda presence in Gaza now and about high-powered explosives being smuggled in through Egypt," a leading Likud security expert told me. "The question is, How would Sharon have reacted to the deteriorating situation? Would he have moved on and disengaged from the West Bank? I think there is a discussion to be had about what Sharon's real legacy should...
...perform in the spotlight now, and inside players tend to wilt when shoved onto center stage. Netanyahu has become Israel's Richard Nixon--his negatives are stratospheric, but he is a tough competitor, a plausible Prime Minister. Olmert will have another opponent as well: the memory of Ariel Sharon. Olmert won a quiet battle last week, establishing post-Sharon Kadima as a major force in Israeli politics. But Olmert still must prove that he can make his voice heard when all the usual dogs start howling again...