|
CounterPunch
December
9, 2002
Why Does the
Leopard Hide His Spots?
by URI AVNERY
I loath Binyamin Netanyahu, and therefore I hoped
that he would be elected leader of the Likud. I am sorry that
Sharon won the primary election instead.
How's that? After all, Netanyahu presented
himself as a man of the extreme right and demanded to "expel"
(the code-word for "kill") Yasser Arafat. He is ready
to fight to the last drop of (our) blood against the creation
of a Palestinian state. Unlike Sharon, who says that he is ready
to accept a Palestinian state and does not talk anymore about
expelling Arafat.
So why did I prefer Netanyahu?
Because Netanyahu is an unprincipled
politician, ready to change his positions any time. He reminds
me of Groucho Marx, who once declared: "These are my views.
If you don't like them, I have others, too." He could easily
exchange his rightist slogan for leftist ones.
Sharon is very different: he has a rigid
outlook, which he has not changed for decades. He resembles an
IDF bulldozer in Jenin, destroying  walls on his way and demolishing houses
on top of their inhabitants. His aim in life is to destroy the
Palestinian entity and imprison the Palestinians in isolated
enclaves, until the time is ripe for their expulsion from the
country altogether. Nowadays he hides his unwavering attachment
to this plan behind the mask of a benevolent, moderate grandfather,
who has settled down and wants nothing more than to crown his
career by making peace.
I prefer at the head of the Likud an
unprincipled politician to a disguised true believer. He would
have been easier for Mitzna to defeat.
In the competition for the Likud leadership,
Netanyahu was a sheep in wolf's clothing, while Sharon was a
wolf in sheep's clothing. The Likud members preferred the clothing
of the sheep to that of the wolf. And that is significant.
Netanyahu did not understand that the
mood of the Likud members has changed. He made a big mistake
- one of many - when he decided, in the middle of the campaign,
to adopt ultra-right positions, demanding Arafat's expulsion
and coming out against a Palestinian state. It appears that most
of the Likud members do not believe anymore that that is practical
- a conclusion confirmed the next day by a public opinion poll
that showed that half of the Likud members accept a Palestinian
state and agree to evacuate settlements.
Sharon, on the other hand, knows how
to read maps. He pretends to accept a Palestinian state and to
make "concessions that hurt". This, of course, is a
mere make-believe. He made his acceptance of the Palestinian
state dependent on so many impossible "ifs" that it
has been emptied of any content. Sharon remains the same Sharon
and will never be anything but the same Sharon. The leopard will
not change his spots**, but he understands that he has to hide
them. To the trusting public he presented himself as a moderate,
as against the extreme Netanyahu. And, wonder of wonders, the
Likud, the party of the extreme right, preferred the candidate
posing as a moderate to the candidate posing as an extremist.
This is not the only miracle: a few days
before, something very similar happened in the Labor party, when
Binjamin Ben-Eliezer was trounced by Amram Mitzna.
There is some similarity between the
two Binyamins: Ben-Eliezer, like Netanyahu, is a man without
principles, who is ready to change his views like socks. Mitzna,
on the other side, is a man of clear principles.
Mitzna is a declared dove. As against
the right-wing line of Ben-Eliezer, he presents to the voters
a clear, left-wing alternative: negotiations with Arafat, evacuation
of most settlements, immediate withdrawal from the whole Gaza
strip, compromise over Jerusalem, a Palestinian state. Yet by
an overwhelming majority, the Labor party voters chose him over
Ben-Eliezer.
Let there be no mistake: Mitzna is not
a Gush Shalom member. Some of his slogans are anathema to me.
But he is firmly located on the left of the political arena.
If one does not grasp the significance of his election as Labor
leader, one does not understand what's happening under the surface
of Israeli society.
One miracle can be accidental. Two testify
to a tendency. If in both the big parties - Likud and Labor -
the candidates with the more "leftist" program defeats
the candidates with a more "rightist" one, it proves
that new public currents are at work.
One may add the happenings in the National
Religious party. Once upon a time, this was a very moderate party.
In the50 s, when the moderate Moshe Sharett was struggling against
the extremist line of David Ben-Gurion, it generally supported
Sharett. Since then it has - like almost the whole religious
camp - moved steadily to the extreme right. A year ago it crowned
as its leader Effi Eytam, compared to whom Haider and Le Pen
look like bleeding-heart liberals. Yet lo and behold: this week,
when choosing its candidates for the Knesset elections, it turned
against its new leader and filled the most coveted spots on the
list with people who are (comparatively) more moderate.
If one puts all these facts together,
what do they say? They say that the whole system is slowly moving
to the left. The public is fed up with the war, the unceasing
bloodshed, the economic crisis and the social breakdown. People
want a solution. They are looking for compromise. They are ready
to pay for it.
This gives Mitzna a chance. It will be
very difficult for him to win, but it is definitely possible.
And even if he does not succeed this time, he can do it the next
time, which may be in a year or so. Provided, of course, he does
not fall into the trap of a National Unity government.
Something is changing in the country.
People are speaking again about things which had seemingly died:
the Green Line, evacuation of (most) settlements, exchange of
territory, speaking with Arafat, the Taba and Clinton plans,
international monitors.
Ahead of us the tunnel is still dark.
But after two years of anguish and despair, it seems that at
least a small light has appeared at the end of the tunnel.
To quote Winston Churchill once more:
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
* An Israeli author and activist. He
is the head of the Israeli peace movement, "Gush Shalom".
** Jeremiah, 13, 23.
Uri Avnery
has closely followed the career of Sharon for four decades. Over
the years, he has written three extensive biographical essays
about him, two (1973, 1981) with his cooperation. Avnery is featured
in the new book, The
Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent.
Yesterday's
Features
Alexander Cockburn
American
Journal: Berrigan, America's Greatest Arms Inspector
Michael Neumann
Who Hates
Ya, Baby?
The Baffling Patriotism of Daniel Pipes
Kevin Gray
Clinton and Blacks:
Soul Brothers?
Will Youmans
Israel's Demographic Obsession
Ron Jacobs
Berrigan: Blessed are the Peacemakers
Walt Brasch
Jackass: the People
William Cook
World Wide Intifada?
John Stauber / Sheldon
Rampton
Flashback: How PR Sold the Gulf War
Terry Jones
Bombs Away!
Ralph Nader
The Robo-Candidate
Anis Shivani
Information Prozac
Harvey, Engel, Alam
Poets' Basement
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
December 1,
2002
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal
Gabriel Kolko
Another
Century of War?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes & Lies: The Attack on the Liberty Revisited
Steve Perry
Spank
the Democrats
M. Shahid
Alam
A Predatory
Orientalism
Kurt Nimmo
The Murder
of Iain Hook
Ali Abunimah
Death
& Lies in Palestine
Anthony Gancarski
The
Return of Al Gore?
Joanne Mariner
In Defense
of the Filibuster
Ahmad Faruqui
The Apocalyptic
Vision of the Neo----Con Ideologues
Dave Marsh
Eminem's
Body & Soul
David Vest
On the Lam
from Uncle Sam
Julian Samuel
Bowling
for Columbine
Adam Engel
Piss Off,
NSA!
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Grassroots
Challenge to Iran's Theocracy
Wayne Saunders
This
Mad, Limitless War
Dan Brook
Celebrate
Genocide!
Uri Avnery
"Likud
Has Failed"
Philip Farruggio
Turkeys
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|