If you want to help Ariel Sharon to remain in power – here is some useful advice.
One: Talk about a “National Unity Government” that will be set up after the elections.
This is a sophisticated trick. It says, in effect, that there is no difference between Likudand Labor. If so, why vote for Labor? If it is nothing but a personal choice between Sharon andMitzna, who will anyhow sit tomorrow side-by-side at the same table, isn’t the experiencedand charismatic Sharon preferable to the inexperienced and prosaic Mitzna? On the otherhand, this is a sure recipe for driving away from the Labor party everyone who detests Sharon.
Furthermore, those who speak about a Unity Government say, in effect, that the Likud is sure towin. Nobody talks about a Unity Government led by Mitzna. It is a foregone conclusion that theUnity Government will be headed by Sharon. Since the floating votes always tend to float to theprospective victor, the message is clear.
This may also prove to be a prophecy that fulfils itself. If Mitzna is defeated, the party willfall again into the hands of the Knights of the Sticky Behinds.
Two: Spread the story about the moderate “New Sharon”, who has practically become a leftistand whose only dream is to enter history as the man who has made peace with the Palestinians.
Anyone familiar with Sharon knows that this is a myth, the creative product of spin-doctors.
Sharon has not become a moderate. For two years now he has waged a relentless war against thePalestinians, with the aim of breaking the Palestinian nation by destroying their nationalleadership, killing their leaders and demolishing their economic infrastructure. He hasblocked every channel of dialogue. He has committed daily provocations. He has builtsettlements at a frantic pace. The “moderate” declarations were designed for America andIsraeli innocents.
Sharons statements about a “Palestinian state” are nonsense. He is prepared, at most, to givethe Palestinians some emasculated autonomy over 40% of the occupied territories (8% ofpre-1948 Palestine), and this only after the Palestinians raise their hands and capitulateunconditionally. He knows perfectly well that no Palestinians will accept that. Therefore,the real aim is to drive the Palestinians out of the country. For this program there is a clearmajority in the Likud, Shas, Mafdal and National Union parties, who may constitute a majorityin the next elections.
The main peddler of the pictures of the Peace-loving Sharon is Shimon Peres. After spendingthe last two years as the National Prostitute, he is longing for more years of the same. He mayturn his private farce into a national tragedy. Since he cannot exist without ministerialrank, he would sell his grandmother – not to mention his party – for one day as Foreign Minister.
Because of this, he talks now as if the defeat of Mitzna were a fait accompli and there wasnothing left but to negotiate the terms of surrender (the Foreign Office for Peres).
Three: Do everything possible to dwarf Mitzna.
Amram Mitzna is the rival candidate. There is no other. One may admire him or not, love him or not- if one wants to defeat Sharon, one must concentrate on raising Mitzna’s stature. Theelection campaign will be first and foremost a personal duel between these two men. If onewants to help Sharon, one has to paint Mitzna as a hapless person, a prisoner of the rightists inhis own party. One has to say that even his own party opposes his policy, that his leftist linewill prove disastrous for Labor.
Four: Trigger a civil war between the parties of the left.
If a war will break out between the Labor party and Meretz, and between the two and Hadash – thatwould be wonderful. They will be busy blackening each other and doing the job of the right.Neither of them will have any energy left to fight against Sharon.
The Beilin affair may prove useful for this end. It is being presented as proving the hypocrisyand/or weakness of Mitzna and showing that the party has turned to the right. This is farremoved from reality. The fall of Beilin (who did not get enough votes in the Labor primaries)was caused by inter-party rivalries. He has become widely unpopular within the party bythreatening to leave if it does not adopt his program. A party that elected Mitzna by anoverwhelming majority does not suddenly become hawkish by dropping Beilin. It is by no meansclear who of the two is the more “leftist”.
But all of this is not really important. In the final analysis, there is almost no differencebetween voting for Labor, Meretz, Hadash and the Arab parties. All of them together willconstitute a parliamentary “preventive bloc” against the right. A war between them now wouldbe a criminal waste.
Five: Say that “they are all the same” and call for abstention.
That will not affect the rightist voters. They would turn up at the polling stations evenduring an earthquake. But such a call could affect leftist voters, who are famouslyfastidious. Any abstention “on principle” will help the right, every blank ballot will be aballot for Sharon.
Six: Call on the Arab voters to boycott the elections.
The million Israeli Arab citizens are a natural partner of the peace camp. Without them, therecan be no effective political left in Israel. He who incites them to stay away from the ballotbox does the job of Sharon.
This is so self-evident, that one could suspect some of those waving the flag of boycott ofbeing agents of Sharon or the Security Service (which is the same). The more extreme thenationalist and/or Islamic fervor of the boycott advocates, the greater my suspicions.
The Arab citizens have many excellent reasons for being furious with the Israeliestablishment, including the Labor party. But the fury must be channeled into an effort to setup a strong parliamentary force, able to fight for their rights and aspirations. A rage thatonly helps to reinforce a rightist government is an infantile exercise in self-indulgence.
For a community threatened by transfer, this is an act of self-destruction. Indeed, it isdifficult to understand leaders who talk about the danger of a “second Nakba”, and at the timebehave as if it’s business as usual.
Well, anyone who wants to help Sharon has a range of methods to choose from.