A master illusionist
By Gideon Samet
Haaretz, January 14, 2004
While anything goes in the media today, lately we have been bombarded by some of the worst kind of remarks ever made by supposedly balanced people. What gets them going is the fear lest there be any progress whatsoever toward an agreement. Some of them - the prime minister, for example - have learned to softly utter the most dreadful statements without batting an eyelid. Others, like the historian Benny Morris, do not mind your suffering ears. All of them gradually get the Israeli street accustomed to the idea that it is possible not to be shocked by what a normal society should not tolerate.
Sharon once again took the initiative, leading his flock of stray sheep. With complacent contempt for the public's ability to remember what he had said the previous day, he contradicted in the Knesset the spin he had presented at the Herzliya Conference and Likud Convention over the nature of an agreement. He once again ridiculed the attempt to understand what he was getting at. In so doing, he strengthened the assumption, if not to say the certainty, that he is intent on blocking any channel of progress. To this end, with considerable success, Sharon continues to create illusions among his listeners from here to Washington. As the leader of a powerful nation, he, and not Yasser Arafat, has become the chief promoter of the effort to convince the public that there is no chance for an agreement with the Palestinians or the Syrians.
When Bashar Assad, for reasons of his own, considerably softened his opening position for negotiations, Sharon did not even do the minimum. The media printed the intelligence leaks from his bureau about Iranian weapons deliveries to Hezbollah via Syrian rescue planes sent to help the earthquake victims. During Saturday's meeting with U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, Assad flatly declared that he did not need this: Iranian arms can arrive from Tehran on regular flights.
This intentional leak is yet another marginal example of the manipulation of intelligence data. But the speed at which it was utilized once again taught a more important lesson: The Sharon regime is prepared to use any trick to sabotage the slightest chance of a diplomatic settlement.
Since the time of Yitzhak Rabin, no prime minister has related with such abhorrence to the possibility of an agreement with Syria as Sharon does. He permits himself to do this, since he has been managing to get away with any trick and survive. He will not move even if Assad offers him half of the Golan Heights. There is hardly an act or a mishap, not even the tape recordings revealed by private detective David Spector, that is capable of arousing public opposition against him. By the same token, Israelis glance drowsily at the abuse of Palestinians in the territories. The army, which carries out the abuse, issues deceitful statements. When there is an investigation, it is carried out sloppily, even in the most appalling cases.
For this reason, Morris apparently felt that no crazy statement, even from an apparently balanced authority, could outrage the Israeli public. As an academic, Morris should be checked out. But it is sufficient to read what he said in last weekend's Haaretz magazine to realize that the "new historian," who in the past brought a fresh eye to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian arena, has turned into one who recycles inferior texts. He knows, without the need for proof, that "they" - "the entire Palestinian elite" - do not tolerate the existence of a Jewish state, and want a Palestinian state in the entire area of Israel. "The barbarians," the historian said, "want to take our lives," and Palestinian society should be treated "the way we treat individuals who are serial killers... They are wild beasts, and something like a cage has to be built for them."
If stupid remarks like these, and a plethora of similar ones, bear repetition, it is only because they have taken hold in the public perception. Many Israelis have become accustomed to them, adding them to previously held habits of obtuseness. Indeed, this is Sharon's cardinal sin: His major contribution over the past few years has been to force-feed Israelis with a pulp of deception that seems to help soothe their frustrated hunger for an agreement.
