So today Ariel Sharon is hoping or somehow thinking that Yasir Arafat will solve his problem for him. He’s offering him a ‘one way ticket into exile.’ Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, one of the really wise and good people on the Palestinian side, denounced the idea. And frankly, so do I.
I’m not certain that it’s wrong (Arafat’s done everything he can to justify Sharon’s actions). But I’m quite sure that it’s stupid.
And this is one of the great pities of the present moment. Right when Israel needs a great and strong leader, a Yitzhak Rabin, it has a weak and incapable one.
No doubt, Sharon is a man of great conviction — unlike the charlatan and opportunist Bibi Netanyahu, who’s again hitting the airwaves. And in a narrow military sense he has a touch of greatness. But he is also small-minded and brutal — incapable, I think, of understanding the moment he’s in. The problem isn’t even really that Sharon has a bad plan. It would be bad if he did but he doesn’t. It’s that — as the last 18 months have shown — he has no plan.
In that regard, he shares a great deal with his nemesis, Arafat.
