Have Ariel Sharon's successors the strength to continue his peace work?
Panhandling for history in the annual December media rush at the National Archives, I came across something that, while not gold, sparkled a bit.
It was in a stack of messages marking the passing of a man reviled during his life as a killer and an authoritarian with more than a whiff of personal corruption, yet who helped found a state and died a statesman.
"We are happy to think that Eamon de Valera found a particular joy in the verdancy of a forest in Galilee that bears his name," it read in part, over the name Ephraim Katzir, President of Israel.
It is unlikely that the certain passing of Ariel Sharon from the political landscape – though his body continued to fight on as of this writing – will be met by many in this country with a similar warmth.
The note of condolence for de Valera and the 10,000 trees named for him are reminders that there was once a great deal more sympathy in the relationship.
The precise reasons why this changed so dramatically are arguable. The passing from politics of Michael Collins lieutenant, Old IRA hand, Zionist and two-term Dublin Lord Mayor Bob Briscoe – who accompanied de Valera on a 1950 trip to Israel – as well as his son Ben, may have had something to do with it.
The bitter moral dilemmas Israelis have been confronted with since the foundation of the Jewish State – powerfully captured in Stephen Spielberg's new film, Munich, about the response to the slaughter by Palestinians of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, set to open later this month at cinemas – is certainly another.
(One daren't whisper it, of course, but certain Irish policymakers of the day did also realise that Israel was not floating on a pool of oil, but that her Arab enemies were. The 1973 oil embargo may have reinforced that point for those who missed it.)
But as even the most sympathetic observer of Israel must acknowledge, the near-40-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip transformed Israelis in the minds of many from a heroic people of refugees and pioneers to sometimes brutal oppressors. No one personified that new image more than Ariel Sharon.
When Sharon was elected Israel's prime minister in 2001, to the extent he would have been known in Ireland at all it was in large measure through the pen of Robert Fisk. The unimaginably horrific scene Fisk saw, felt and smelled after the 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps outside Beirut – an experience from which Fisk has (quite understandably) never recovered – is never far from the surface of his work. An Israeli inquiry found Sharon ultimately responsible for the slaughter.
That the Israeli electorate turned to just this man in 2001, after the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks that offered Palestinians more than 90 percent of their objectives, after they felt there was no peace to be had with Arafat, was a testament to how much they felt betrayed by the 1993 Oslo accords and how much they wished to be made secure.
That this weekend, capitals from the Middle East to Europe to the US are reeling at the sudden loss of a man whom they know was – despite all – a titan, changing political and strategic facts on the ground with all the subtlety of a tank battalion and now working for peace (albeit on his terms), was a testament to how far Sharon had travelled.
Sharon, who only weeks ago called an election, deserted the right-wing Likud party he helped found and launched a new, centrist party, Kadima, which was instantly expected to win election in March, had become the answer to the central dilemma of Israel's politics.
The left's Labour said it was essential to cease trying to control territory containing 3.8 million Palestinians if Israel were to remain Jewish and a democracy by its own definition. Likud said the Palestinians couldn't be trusted. Sharon, in essence, replied that they were both right.
Following Arafat's death, he decided that Israel would simply leave Gaza, unilaterally. This move in some respects made a virtue of necessity, forcing the abandonment of indefensible – politically and legally as well as tactically – Jewish settlements in Gaza; settlements Sharon had helped found. It also wrong-footed his critics, who assumed he wasn't serious.
At the same time, Sharon hastened construction of a semi-defensible barrier along the length of Israel's border with the West Bank, which dramatically reduced the ability of Palestinian suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians.
Taken together, the Gaza withdrawal and the separation wall led many observers to conclude – born out by media reports in recent days – the plan was to conduct a similar unilateral withdrawal from 90-odd percent of the West Bank as well. And quite simply leave the Palestinians to their destiny, beyond the civil war between Hamas and Fatah that will likely follow.
It is as close to an elegant solution as is likely to be found to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whether Sharon's successors have the strength or wisdom to carry it through is an open question. We should hope they do.
-ends-
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