Sharon's legacy - and the future

Regardless of whether Ariel Sharon is dead or survives, it is obvious that a new era in Israel's history has begun. Sharon will never return to lead the State of Israel.

However one looks at Sharon's policies and his leadership, it is impossible to discount his effect on Israel or his service to that nation. It was Ariel Sharon, after all, who was a key figure in turning Israel's fortunes around in the `73 war.

And his life was a lifetime of service to the people of Israel.

It is a traumatic thing for a country to suddenly be bereft of leadership.It is especially traumatic when it comes at a time of great turmoil. There will be time to reflect on Sharon and mourn his passing later.

The issue now that confronts Israel and the Israeli people as a whole is to deal with the country's present challenges. Because they won't wait.

The two greatest challenges facing the State of Israel today is Iran's nuclear weapons program and the upsurge in both the quantity and quality of Palestinian terrorism.

Until Wednesday, there had been lots of rumours floating to the effect that Sharon planned to order an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear installations just before Israel's general elections at the end of March.

This coincides with the date that most intelligence analysts expect Iran to have acheived full nuclear capacity.

Iran's nuclear program constitutes a threat not only to Israel but to the entire civilized world, and the particular threat to Israel increases with each
passing day. And there is little doubt, given the genocidal anti-Semitism of the Iranian regime that the existential danger to Israel is both real and imminent. There's little doubt that the mullahs will not seek to use their newly acquired toys to complete Hitler's work. They have said so on more than one occasion, as has their hand picked mouthpiece, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And there also little doubt that if Iran launched a nuclear strike at Israel tommorow, most of the Muslim and Arab world would rejoice..the hatred for Jews and Israel is that endemic.

It's also true that part of the reason Iran has been able to advance its nuclear weapons program is due to the increased mainstreaming of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiments throughout the Western world. Sixty years after Auschwitz, the idea that there is something acceptable about murdering Jews and seeking to destroy Israel has met with increasing acceptance among large swathes of European society and the ranks of the international Left. Israel's position is increasingly weak diplomatically, due to constant demands from the so-called `international community' that Israel do all it can to appease its enemies, and that Israel should be held to standards demanded of no other nation.

It's amazing to the Freedom Fighter, but it's obvious that a significant number of people have bought into the fiction that the Jihad is all about Israel, and if that small nation ceased to exist peace would reign. Just like Czecholoslovakia in 1938...J O S H U A P U N D I T: History Bites Back

This matters because Israel would find it difficult(though not impossible)to carry out an attack against Iran's nuclear installations without US and possibly NATO backing. General Dan Halutz alluded briefly last week to the Israelis having the ability to undermine Iran's nukes, and hopefully he knows what he's talking about.

The Freedom Fighter has said in the past that he feels that the best way to end Iran's nuclear threat would be an attack on their oilfields and ports rather than an attempt to bomb out hidden nuclear facilities. Perhaps Halutz has something like that in mind.

But the logistics are still difficult. Israeli fighter bombers en route to Iran would need to fly over Iraqi airspace and might even need to refuel in Iraq. Israel has submarines, but it is uncertain whether they alone would be able to carry out an attack. And Israel at present is without the leadership able to handle the diplomatic heavy lifting necessary to finesse backing on this.

The Palestinians are another problem all together.The Palestinian Authority has effectively ceased to exist in any coherent manner and the Egyptian border with Gaza has been wide open for traffic in terrorists and heavy weapons for three months, thanks to the Gaza withdrawal. Hamas has become the most cohesive force in Gaza and the Palestinian areas of Judea and Samaria. Sharon's decision to withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza and northern Samaria is seen by Hamas and their allies as a victory and a retreat by Israel similar to what occurred in South Lebanon.The Gaza Strip has become one of the most active bases for jihadi terrorism in the world, with a strong al Qaeda presence, and the Palestinians have increased their armamments with the addition of Strella anti-aircraft missiles and Katyusha missiles, with increased range and accuracy over the primitive Qassams.

Amazingly, the reaction of the EU, the US and President Bush to all this has been to pressure Abbas to allow an election that Hamas is certain to win, to pressure Israel to allow non-Israeli Arabs in East Jerusalem to vote for an organization pledged to Israel's destruction and to push Israel to allow convoys through the Israeli Negev with little or no security arrangement to travel to the West Bank, within easy range of Israel's most highly populated areas!

Somehow, Israel must deal with these security threats and find leadership capable of healing the rift in Israeli society brought on by the Gaza withdrawal.And do it fairly quickly. And part of that leadership will involve truly understanding-and conveying to the US and other intersted parties- that the hatred aimed at Israel from its enemies is irrational in its scope and that Israel cannot negotiate it away with concessions and still hope to survive.

That's a challenge, to say the least.

On the plus side, even the most fractious elements in Israel realize the simple truth...that there's no choice. Not if the country is going to continue to exist. Having no choice can be a powerful motivator.

During the next few weeks, I look for a decisive leader to emerge out of the morass of Israeli politics, especially in view of the neutering of Sharon's Kadima party. Nature always fills a vacuum in matters like this.