Sharon is Politically Dead, What Now for the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process?

Today doctors in a Jerusalem hospital will begin gradually waking Israeli leader Ariel Sharon (above left) from his medically-induced coma. Only then will they discover whether the Prime Minister will survive the multiple strokes and brain haemorrhages he suffered last week and how much they have affected his faculties if he does. One thing is certain, whether Sharon survives or not he is politically dead and Israel is without its Prime Minister in the run-up to important elections both in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and at yet another crucial stage in the peace process.

As it stands acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (above centre) and the Kadima party, recently founded by Sharon after the Likud Party split over the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, is ahead of the hard-line remaining Likud members in the latest opinion polls. The same polls show that the Labour Party, in the current climate of fear in Israel, and without the heavy-weight Shimon Peres who changed alliegance to Kadima is not the force it once was. A coalition between Kadima and the Labour party is the most probable outcome and could potentially mean some chance for progress towards peace with the Palestinians.

That is not to say that Olmert would be any more willing to make a deal with the Palestinians than Sharon was. As mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s he supported the illegal building of Jewish settlements on the Palestinian West Bank. These settlements currently being consolidated by the wall separating the Israeli and Palestinian communities are a major source of tension between the two sides. Also Olmert has yet to prove his muscle in the areas of defence and security so important to Israeli voters and may pursue a harsh policy in that area so as to shore up his credentials with the understandably security-conscious Israeli voters. This would further antagonise the Palestinians and make it even more difficult for the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmood Abbas to control the militants both in his own Fatah movement and in Hamas.

While an Olmert administration couldn’t be any worse than the premiership of Ariel Sharon who after all provoked the current Intifada by setting foot in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex in September 2000, and began construction of the now infamous separation wall that eats into Palestinian land; it would most likely be a continuation of the policies that have led to stalemate in the peace process that has reigned throughout the Palestinian uprising. Sharon’s strategy of tightening Israel’s grip on the settlements on the West Bank while letting go of the less valuable Gaza strip would almost certainly remain in place. This makes the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians a distant possibility.

However there is an even worse possibility. Although behind in the polls, the Likud party under former PM Binyamin Netanyahu (above right) cannot be totally dismissed in the upcoming elections. Should there be a major suicide attack in Israel in the near future Israeli voters may well remember Netanyahu’s record on security. His tenure in office between 1996 and 1999 which was one of the most quiet phases in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians on the other hand will remember his uncompromising manner and ruthless crackdowns. A Netanyahu victory would ensure deadlock as he unconditionally opposes the creation of a Palestinian State, a pre-requisite for any deal on the Palestinian side.

The so-called ‘Roadmap for Peace’ put forward by the US, EU, UN and Russia is all but dead, Yasser Arafat, blamed for so long as a hurdle on that road is dead, Ariel Sharon, the main instigator of the current mess is dying, and in any case politically doomed, what remains to be seen is who will step in to salvage the situation. As of now it seems that with the current weak position of the Labour Party, a continuation of the policies of Ariel Sharon over a potentially disastrous Likud agenda would actually be the lesser of two evils. It is very hard to believe that this is the reality facing the Middle East peace process at this critical phase.