Sharon his own man

One of Ariel Sharon’s doctors, after discovering a birth defect that may have caused his stroke, said: “Those enemies of the prime minister, who thought he had no heart, are wrong – he has a small hole in it.”

Underneath the doctor’s one-liner lurks a truth about Sharon’s enemies and, indeed, his friends: They never understood him.

His enemies for 60 years slandered and libeled him as a killer and Jewish chauvinist who was dedicated to war against the Palestinians, a man who would never make peace. His friends thought it was his strength; they loved him for his intransigence, his unswerving view that first and foremost – and always – was the protection of the Israeli people against terrorism.

His friends were Israelis, but so were many of his enemies, the peaceniks who drove him into exile after the Lebanese war in 1982. Today, after his disengagement in Gaza, those who loved him hate him and those who hated him love him.

Irony of ironies, his enemies put him in power and are about to keep him there, together with his former Likud friends who are scratching their heads on how it turned out that way.

In 2001, Sharon, at the urging of the journalist Uri Dan, went to the Temple Mount, Israel’s holiest place, in defense against those in the Labor government who were willing to give half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat responded with the second intifadeh. The result: Sharon defeated the peacenik Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

In 2003, Arafat began the suicide bombing campaign that he thought would lead the beleaguered Israelis into appeasement. Instead, it led Sharon into an overwhelming victory.

This year, Sharon’s decision to leave Gaza turned the Likud Party, which he formed, against him. And he lost his coalition with the Labor Party, which turned against his old opponent, Shimon Peres. The result: Sharon created a new party, Kadima, known as Forward in English. He brought in many members of Likud and the old elite of Labor, including Shimon Peres.

And now the peaceniks write lullabies to him, they assume he is theirs, that Arik Sharon is now a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Like the Palestinians and the Likudniks, they have him all wrong. He neither gives an inch of Jerusalem nor anything that counts in the West Bank.

What he counts on is that Israel’s latest enemy – who will keep the country strong and him in power – is Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas, it is clear, cannot and will not stop Hamas and the other Arab terrorists.

It makes Sharon the unifier of Israel, probably the only one. Is he indispensable?

“The graveyards are full of indispensable men,” said Charles de Gaulle.

But maybe he’ll do until the real thing comes along.