The Sharon Summit

Opponents of both President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are up in arms at the prospect that the two will meet in Washington later this month. Gerald Kaufman of Britain’s governing Labor Party is in a lather over the prospect that this will be seen as vindication of what he reckons is “indiscriminate” killing of Palestinian Arabs by Israel. In Israel, hawks and doves are worried that Mr. Sharon will gain ground in his plan for unilateral disengagement in Gaza and the West Bank. And American Democrats are contending that Mr. Bush is merely posturing.By our lights, the sooner — and more often — Messrs. Bush and Sharon get together, the better. They are the two principal commanders in chief in the current war against terror. They share, we have long argued, an admirable ability to act in the face of the forces of political correctness. And there is a lot to talk about, quite apart from the need to maximize intelligence sharing in respect of Hamas, which is now issuing threats against America and its leadership as well as Israel, Mr. Sharon, and the Jews generally.The issue of unilateral disengagement is clearly one that is driving both sides frantic. It is being widely remarked that no one seems to understand what Mr. Sharon is doing. His critics on the right call it “Land for Nothing,” in contrast to the old left-of-center formulation of “Land for Peace.” In recent weeks, Mr. Bush has dutifully sent over emissaries to learn what Mr. Sharon has in mind and understand its logic. And there are all sorts of practical questions, such as, just to cite an example, who would, if Israel pulls out of the Gaza district, control its air space. Not to mention its ground space, or the ground that Israel would be vacating.One possibility being explored is whether a third country would step up to a receivership, pending a responsible Palestinian or Arab government coming in to take over the land that Israel would be vacating. One possible country is Italy, which has the virtue of being in the hands of a government that is uninfected by a hatred for Israel. We have come to the remarkable pass in which the forces of anti-Semitism are running so rampantly in Europe that almost no other government on the Continent could be counted on as a stabilizing influence in respect of the Jewish state.It will be remarked that the prime minister of Italy, Mr. Berlusconi, is facing a probe for criminal charges, just like Mr. Sharon himself. It’s always possible that some of these charges will find their mark, but from our remove it looks like a case of two countries having caught the American disease of political combat through litigation and scandal-mongering. In the case of Mr. Sharon, the debate has already begun as to whether he should stay in office. The best way to view it, until a charge is proven in a court, is as a burden of modern leadership, which Mr. Sharon seems to be bearing well.The floundering around for a strategy for dealing with the Palestinian Arabs, in any event, is not necessarily the most pressing matter for Messrs. Bush and Sharon. The bigger issue is a common strategy in respect of the larger war against terror, the one that erupted on September 11, 2001. We’ve seen enormous progress so far, with the toppling of the Taliban and the Baathist regime in Iraq, during which not so incidentally we also dealt with Ansar al-Islam, which had been funded by Saddam’s operatives and given sanctuary by Iran after the war. These victories have had favorable impact elsewhere, particularly in Libya, where Prime Minister Blair was photographed over the weekend strolling with Colonel Gadhafi, whose son is now issuing invitations for the Jews to return.And also in Syria, where oppressed minorities, such as the Kurds, are now beginning to test what might be possible in respect of toppling the Baathist regime in Damascus. An ouster of the Alawite minority regime in Syria would provide the hope of a more liberal and pro-Western regime coming into power not only there but also in Lebanon. These kinds of developments may take some months or years to ripen, but once they do the remnant tyranny of the Palestinian Arab kleptocrats in Ramallah will fall into perspective, if, after disengagement, they survive at all.Mr. Bush has so far avoided falling into the trap, of all too many American leaders in both parties, of underestimating Mr. Sharon. Mr. Sharon may be in heavy seas, but he has been there before, only to pull a stunt like crossing the Suez Canal when no one was expecting it or retreating to his farm, and his principles, and waiting for the world to come around to him. The striking thing about the political landscape in Israel is that there is at the moment no intellectual or political contender with a plan to rival Mr. Sharon’s strategy of disengagement or with a more steadfast record in regard to Mr. Bush or America.

The Sharon Summit

The Sharon Summit

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