Israel plunges into political turmoil

Israel: Sharon's stroke plunges Israel into political turmoil.

A life-threatening stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 4 has provoked a predictable deluge of hypocritical statements of concern for the fate of a “warrior” turned peacemaker.

The latest stroke has caused massive bleeding in his brain, and there are reports that he is at least partially paralysed.

Even if he recovers, his continued leadership of the Kadima party he created after splitting with Likud is in doubt, as is the outcome of the March election it was projected to win.

Since coming to power in 2001, Sharon, who deliberately provoked the second Intifada in September 2000 with his visit to the Al Aqsa mosque, has presided over a bloodbath that has claimed the lives of close to 3,500 Palestinians and around 450 Israeli civilians. He has also encouraged a massive expansion of Zionist settlements in the occupied territories, with almost half a million settlers now in the West Bank and Jerusalem. His much-lauded pullout of a few thousand settlers from Gaza has provided a cover for the United States to support a land grab that will permanently annex both Jerusalem and at least half of the West Bank to Israel. At the same time, it has provided the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) with the ability to actually step up its military offensive against the Palestinians without factoring in concern for Jewish settlers trapped in Gaza.

The economic suffering caused by Sharon is equally terrible.

Behind the hypocritical eulogies for Sharon and the attempts to unite the disparate factions within Israel’s ruling circles lay grave concerns over the political stability of Israel and the entire Middle East. Tel Aviv’s stock market plunged in early trading January 5, with a 6 percent drop

The conditions are therefore maturing for major social and political struggles within Israel itself.

On top of this, Sharon’s drive to destabilise the Palestinian Authority (PA) and to reduce the Palestinian people to penury has been all too successful. Its impact has produced a broad-based radicalisation and deep-felt anger and hatred of Israeli repression and oppression.

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