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Horovitz from page 42
that very vagueness was
that, as he noted just a few days ago,
overflows with ex-security chiefs. But
while both his desire to alleviate eco-
nomic inequalities here and his posi-
tions on peacemaking will bring him
some support, his own inexperience in
defense-related issues, indeed his lack
of any ministerial-level experience,
limit his appeal.
The Likud, meanwhile, has resolved
its internal conflict and returned to
some of its traditional positions under
new-old leader Binyamin Netanyahu.
Many longtime supporters will have
sighed with relief that Sharon's depar-
ture and Netanyahu's succession had
put an end to the aberration of the past
two years, when a party dedicated to
thwarting the establishment of a
Palestinian state west of the Jordan
River was led by a prime minister with
the opposite intent. But others, who had
embraced what they saw as Sharon's
pragmatism, will have been alienated.
Between those Labor and Likud
poles, the same electorate that was so
masterfully wooed by Sharon now waits
and worries.
The cynics derided Ehud Olmert and
Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres and Haim
Ramon and Tzahi Hanegbi as oppor-
tunists united only by their sense that
Ariel Sharon represented their best
ticket to continued political poN;ver and
influence. A descent into bickering over
the succession, replete with the kind of
personal mudslinging that Sharon had
sought to nip in the bud, will vindicate
those critics and destroy Kadima elec-
torally. Not so, however, a consensual
organization of the Knesset slate, cham-
pioning the platform Kadima's mem-
What Future Holds
bers say has long been taking shape.
Sharon's self-declared personal ambi-
The electorate will tolerate far less
tion to set Israel's permanent borders
from other Kadima leaders of the cali-
will not be realized now. Time has run
brated vagueness they forgave in
out on that dream. History turned too
Sharon. At the same time, the party will
slowly for him.
necessarily lose support the more clear-
And as is always the way, the spotlight
ly it sets out its positions. But there is,
now moves on, and the question of
nonetheless, a wide swathe of central
Sharon's abiding influence hinges on
ground that Sharon bestrode and that
what happens inside the vehicle,
Kadima could still occupy if it were to
Kadima, that he had assembled and tai-
try to derive positive momentum from
lored to his personal political contours.
his demise.
Just a few days before he suffered the
His rivals will seek to prevent
massive stroke, Sharon scolded Ehud,
Tzipi and the other Kadima children for Kadima's flourishing now. Will the fact
that the prime minister so dominated
squabbling over who was daddy's
that nascent party now doom it? Or will
favorite, telling them to put their egos
his colleagues demonstrate that there is
aside and remember that he would be
running things for many years to come. life for Ariel Sharon's party, and his
vaguely defined vision, without Ariel
Orphaned, they face the immense test
Sharon. ❑
of political life without him.
Though Kadima was all-too plainly
David Horovitz is editor of the Jerusalem
Sharon's party, it has a logic that poten-
Post, where this column first appeared on
tially survives him.
Jan. 5.
Amir Peretz heads a Labor party
one of the
secrets of his popularity. Trust me, the
implicit message ran. Keep me in
power, and everything will be all right.
And the Israeli public was ready to do
so — notwithstanding that history of
zigzagging, and more. By rights, he
should have alienated just about every
voter by now — the left by invading
Lebanon, the right by leaving Gaza, the
environmentalists by throwing the bull-
dozers at every housing problem, not to
mention most everyone who expects
standards of integrity from their leaders
by allegedly playing fast and loose with
campaign finance laws and embroiling
himself in a series of unsavory financial
and influence-trading escapades.
Despite all that, more Israelis were
backing him than any of his rivals — a
reflection not only of the power and res-
onance of Sharon's personality, but of the
perceived paucity of the alternatives.
Had he specified exactly what policies
he intended to follow, come cleaner with
the electorate, he would have been doing
our democracy a service and he would,
of course, have left far less of a vacuum
now He would also have dented that
extraordinary perception, so widely felt,
of his own indispensability.
But no man is indispensable. And no
man can forever defy those mortal limi-
tations — no matter how lightly he may
shrug off the unavoidable toll of advanc-
ing years or dismiss the particular
strains of an unhealthy lifestyle and eat-
ing habits or appear so easily to shoulder
the uniquely onerous burden of leading
embattled Israel.
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