Sharon's Legacy - and Netanyahu's Previous One

Sharon's Legacy - and Netanyahu's Previous One

Aluf Benn, in a faintly disapproving column, notes that Sharon succeeded. He separated most of the Palestinians from most of the Israelis, and the Israelis have moved on to other things. Should there ever be a peace treaty to be signed, he expects, most Israelis won't even be watching the ceremony on TV as they'll be watching whatever else is on. He overstates his case, of course, and Tel Aviv is indeed more removed than Jerusalem, but he's mostly correct. Contrary to what our enemies incessantly claim, there is no Israeli project of Greater Israel or annexing the West Bank or subjugating the Palestinians or Apartheid or all that chatter. Under the worst of conceivable conditions, Ariel Sharon took a reality that had been developing for some 20 years and brought it to near completion: the Palestinians are over there, we're over here, and we're going to live our lives.

He also had a very successful finance minister, did Sharon, to whom he gave heaps of political backing so as to make major changes to the structure of the economy; this finance minister, like his boss, took 20-year trends and pushed them forward rapidly and dramatically. His name was Binyamin Netanyahu. David Brooks writes about the explosion of creativity this has enabled:

Israel’s technological success is the fruition of the Zionist dream. The country was not founded so stray settlers could sit among thousands of angry Palestinians in Hebron. It was founded so Jews would have a safe place to come together and create things for the world.

(via Goldblog)

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations