Sharon still dominant

Editorial

No Israeli leader has been subjected to the international condemnation that Ariel Sharon has endured. Routinely compared to Hitler by critics of Israel and blamed for every ill in the Middle East, Sharon reinvented himself over the last three years, confounding enemies and allies alike.

Rarely does a politician appear to change his spots to the extent that Sharon transformed from an unapologetic proponent of Jewish settlement policies in the West Bank and Gaza, into the leader who evacuated Gaza and has laid the groundwork for mutual coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. But, while Sharon's legacy will undoubtedly go down in the annals of Israeli history, the reaction to his sudden removal from the centre of political life is a bit excessive.

This is not at all to suggest that his legacy is anything short of epoch-changing. He will be recorded as a Gorbachev-like figure, alongside the Soviet leader who revolutionized his country's very political structure. But notwithstanding Sharon's impact on that structure, the nail-biting in international media over the future of Israel's policies and position in the region is not commensurate with the realities of the Knesset and the country.

Sharon's loss to the political establishment is profound, no doubt. But unlike the other leaders in the region, whose political establishments are literally created in their own image, Sharon presided over a mature democratic state. More to the point, he transformed not only the political class in Israel but the political outlook of the Israeli grassroots. That is to say, Sharon led his country to a fundamentally changed outlook toward Israel's place in the region and the world and especially its relationship with the Palestinians – an outlook that will survive Sharon.

Sharon's fundamental remaking of the national discussion in Israel has shifted public opinion toward, at the least, a mutually benign neglect between Israel and the Palestinians. The body politic has altered under Sharon's guidance to the extent that expansionist dreams of a "Greater Israel" – an idea that attracted some support in the 1970s – is now effectively neutered as a political force. This will not change.

The faces and the names that come after Sharon will be different and the policies will vary, but the course of Israeli history has been altered. Whatever occurs hereafter will proceed on the groundwork laid by Sharon both in the physical status of the land in and around Israel and on the recently reshaped political firmament.

Sharon, despite his departure from the political stage, is still very much the dominant character in Israeli politics and will remain so for a long time to come.

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