Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon “has always been on the front line as a very courageous officer and warrior,” said Alon Galron, Milwaukee’s emissary from Israel and director of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Center.
Perhaps that is why it is difficult for many around the world and in Milwaukee to foresee what may be next in Israel’s political future, and reflect on the legacy Sharon will leave if, as appears probable, his health forces him to end his political career.
Though Galron thought it was “a bit too early to talk about legacy,” he acknowledged that Sharon “won’t likely be back to office.” But Galron is confident that the transition to Ehud Olmert as acting prime minister will be “smooth and according to procedure,”
though he is “not sure Olmert will have that same special aura that Sharon had for the last few years.”
Though “the current polls show that even without Sharon his party [Kadima] is the leading party,” Galron said, “things might change — this has always been the case in Israel.”
Warren Jacobson, president of the Zionist Organization of America-Milwaukee District, agreed, saying “there will be an orderly transition,” no matter who is elected prime minister in the March elections.
“All factions of the parliament will have to rally around the new chosen leader,” Jacobson said, adding that a failure to do so could cause a “weakening within” and it is “enough that we have problems without.
“We need a statesperson, not a politician, to be our leader,” Jacobson said. “We don’t need ego, we need team players.”
But for Israeli Shlomi Ben-Ari, an accountant who has lived in Glendale for more than five years, the future is “complicated,” he said.
“I don’t see any serious Israeli leader that can take [Sharon’s] part,” Ben-Ari said. “Not Bibi [Benjamin] Netanyahu [of the Likud Party], not Ehud Olmert, not Amir Peretz [of the Labor Party] — so for me it’s scary. The future is unknown.”
‘Last giant leader’
“I see [Sharon as] the last giant leader” who had the ability to “establish and build Israel,” said Ben-Ari. “For me he was a hero and I am sure that Israel will miss him.”
Upon first hearing the news of Sharon’s second stroke last week, Ben-Ari said that it was difficult not to be in Israel, where his family still lives.
“I really wanted to feel what the environment in Israel [was] when it happened,” he said.
Now, more than a week afterward, his family has told him their lives “just go on. People go to work, the young people do their own stuff, kids are going to school as usual.”
But regardless of who will be elected as the next prime minister of Israel, Ben-Ari said, “I would like to see the next leader follow Sharon’s legacy — to move forward towards peace, but slowly, in a sure way.”
Jacobson said Sharon was “definitely a legend in his own time. Personally, I feel he has done an exceptional job.”
Jacobson said he thought Sharon would most “be remembered for unilateral pullout in Gaza” as well as for “not worrying about what the enemy thinks and what the world thinks.”
To David Lerman, president of Americans for Peace Now-Wisconsin Chapter, Sharon’s greatest legacy will be “The disengagement and finally recognizing the position of the ‘left’” — that Israel must somehow cease ruling the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. “To make that step was phenomenal.”
Galron said “the fact that he insisted on the disengagement and it went out according to plan added to his image.”
Always “seen as Mr. Security,” said Galron, “the Israeli people were safe and secure with him as prime minister.”
“On one hand,” Galron said, “he would not surrender to violence” but he also recognized his duty “to take care of Israel” and to “change course to recognize Israel has to find ways to compromise.”
And even this health crisis may not spell the end for Sharon. “A warrior for all these years … he will fight his current situation better then one expects,” Galron said.
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