Sharon the failure.
Yoel Marcus from Haaretz is the latest to wonder why Sharon is so popular, against all odds. The left just can't work it out. They regularly come out with the impassioned cry that Sharon has been a drastic failure on all counts. How is it, they ask with pathos, that he has such popular support when he has not only done nothing to alleviate the problems in security, economy and so on, as they see it, but the situation has become far worse because of him? It's entirely his fault, you see. In this sterile laboratory we inhabit, there are no external influences. No war, no Arafat, no terrorists murdering little children in their beds. It's all down to Sharon. What we need is negotiations with the Palestinian leadership. Give them hope, that's the ticket. Of course, Sharon will kill them all, if we let him. We know this. It's a proven fact. So why, oh, why can't the stupid, uneducated masses see it?

The far right don't get it either. Sharon's a wuss. This isn’t whom we voted for. Bring back the real Sharon. The Palestinians are murdering us freely and we do nothing. Sharon’s inaction is making things worse and worse. We know the answer: What we need is to kick Arafat out and then blow them all to kingdom come, or blow them all to kingdom come and then kick Arafat out. Those murderous bastards. We’ve got to show them who's boss.

But maybe the uneducated masses understand what the far left and the far right fail to understand: That Sharon's way is the only way possible.

The simple logic, clear to the stupid, uneducated masses, but that intellectuals seem quite blind to, is that if we renew negotiations with the present Palestinian leadership, the Palestinian people will see this as a great victory, a sign of Israel's imminent defeat, the best incentive to continue the war. They're breaking, they're breaking. They can't take it, those weak Jews. Just a few more dead, and we'll be there.

On the other hand, it doesn't require a pacifist or a peace activist to grasp that the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian towns and cities, for instance, would be abhorrent and abominable. Israelis would not be happy with this, to say the least. This could create the very breakdown in Israeli society that Arafat and his cronies are hoping for. This has not happened because we Israelis have our limits. Even the stupid, uneducated Israeli masses can’t accept massacres. And can you imagine the effect pictures of hundreds of thousands of people, being turned out of their homes and put on trucks and buses, will have on Israeli households (even those with stupid, uneducated masses inside), in the unlikely event of the so-called population transfer the furthest-right call for, coming to pass? Why are the settlers in Hebron and on the hills so unpopular among Israeli moderates, both right and left? Because they seem to have none of the moral inhibitions even the stupid, uneducated masses have. I've even heard a religious West Bank settler I know, calling them crazy fanatics.

This, by the way, has little to do with what is said about us outside of Israel. The outside world is outraged regardless of what we do or don't do. We have become completely desensitized to their one-sided cries of "atrocity, atrocity!" even when justified (Where was the outrage, yesterday, of the cold-blooded slaughter of two small children in their beds?).

The far left sees Sharon as a murderous criminal. The far right sees him as too restrained and inactive to be effective, thus failing to protect Israel properly.

But Sharon carefully, oh, so carefully, treads the middle way, refusing to be pressured or blackmailed by either side. And neither the left nor the right seem able to understand why the great majority of the Israeli public is so relieved and grateful for this.

"Don't worry," said a very right wing co-worker of mine, when I conveyed to him my fear that Bibi Netanyahu would be voted as the Likud Party leader at the end of this month and not Sharon. I was amazed, certain that at least he would be rooting for Bibi.

The left underestimates the Israeli electorate, of course, made up as it is of the stupid uneducated masses. Don’t worry, when the time comes, we will vote for a government that will know how to make peace, as we have done before. Now we want a government that is not afraid to wage war, but that doesn’t go overboard. Sharon has proved he is the one who can do it, if not perfectly, at least adequately. In this part of the world, that’s a great deal.

These days, what we need most is patience. A lot of it. Not known to be a particularly Israeli characteristic. Both far right and far left seem to be most lacking.

Oh, and they can try and persuade us that Israel’s ruined economy is Sharon’s fault till they’re blue in the face. We know the truth.