****Excerpts from \"Meet Barak\'s legacy\" by Charles Krauthammer,
published by http://www.jewishworldreview.com
LANDSLIDES are rare in Israel... [Yet] Barak was slaughtered. To lose by 25 points in such a finely balanced political system as Israel\'s is to suffer a repudiation that can only be termed epic.
Barak had come into office with a reputation as a brainy, supremely self-confident thinker with secret plans to bring peace within 15 months. He turned out to be a grandiose fool. He offered to give away critical strategic assets (such as the Jordan Valley) and profound national symbols (such as the Temple Mount) without popular or parliamentary support, in complete contradiction to his own campaign promises, and, fatally and most foolishly, in return for nothing from the Palestinians.
Well, not nothing. He got an ongoing four-month-old guerrilla war in the heartland of Israel… Israelis are tired, and desperate for peace. But they are a brave people and they don\'t like to be played for fools. Barak\'s cowering response to Palestinian violence, rebuffs and insults (such as denying the Jews\' connection to the Temple Mount, their holy of holies) was more than Israelis could take...
So calamitous has Barak\'s tenure been that even Sharon -- of all people, Sharon -- won the greatest landslide in Israeli history. Sharon is the most improbable Israeli prime minister ever elected… There is not one Israeli in 10 who would have written in his name if given a free choice for prime minister. Barak\'s final legacy is to have made Sharon prime minister.
Barak\'s accomplice in this, of course, was Arafat. Arafat will soon begin complaining -- loudly, bitterly and surely violently -- about the man he just helped elect… Too bad. He [Arafat] had almost two years with the most dovish Israeli leader in history, who had offered to share Jerusalem, and Arafat destroyed him by responding with disdain, impossible demands and finally violence.
The last straw came just days before the election. Barak had made yet more concessions in last-ditch talks at Taba, Egypt... Then the very next day, Arafat was at the Davos economic conference delivering an anti-Israel diatribe so hostile and vitriolic -- calling Barak\'s Israel \"fascist\" -- that it left the international attendees stunned.
It left Israelis disgusted. In just 21 months, they had lost practically all of their bargaining chips, their own personal security, and now their dignity too. Hence Sharon. His mandate is to restore the security, relative stability and national sanity that prevailed before Barak\'s willful utopianism plunged Israel into its current state of despondent isolation and guerrilla war. He has a lot to repair.
published by http://www.jewishworldreview.com
LANDSLIDES are rare in Israel... [Yet] Barak was slaughtered. To lose by 25 points in such a finely balanced political system as Israel\'s is to suffer a repudiation that can only be termed epic.
Barak had come into office with a reputation as a brainy, supremely self-confident thinker with secret plans to bring peace within 15 months. He turned out to be a grandiose fool. He offered to give away critical strategic assets (such as the Jordan Valley) and profound national symbols (such as the Temple Mount) without popular or parliamentary support, in complete contradiction to his own campaign promises, and, fatally and most foolishly, in return for nothing from the Palestinians.
Well, not nothing. He got an ongoing four-month-old guerrilla war in the heartland of Israel… Israelis are tired, and desperate for peace. But they are a brave people and they don\'t like to be played for fools. Barak\'s cowering response to Palestinian violence, rebuffs and insults (such as denying the Jews\' connection to the Temple Mount, their holy of holies) was more than Israelis could take...
So calamitous has Barak\'s tenure been that even Sharon -- of all people, Sharon -- won the greatest landslide in Israeli history. Sharon is the most improbable Israeli prime minister ever elected… There is not one Israeli in 10 who would have written in his name if given a free choice for prime minister. Barak\'s final legacy is to have made Sharon prime minister.
Barak\'s accomplice in this, of course, was Arafat. Arafat will soon begin complaining -- loudly, bitterly and surely violently -- about the man he just helped elect… Too bad. He [Arafat] had almost two years with the most dovish Israeli leader in history, who had offered to share Jerusalem, and Arafat destroyed him by responding with disdain, impossible demands and finally violence.
The last straw came just days before the election. Barak had made yet more concessions in last-ditch talks at Taba, Egypt... Then the very next day, Arafat was at the Davos economic conference delivering an anti-Israel diatribe so hostile and vitriolic -- calling Barak\'s Israel \"fascist\" -- that it left the international attendees stunned.
It left Israelis disgusted. In just 21 months, they had lost practically all of their bargaining chips, their own personal security, and now their dignity too. Hence Sharon. His mandate is to restore the security, relative stability and national sanity that prevailed before Barak\'s willful utopianism plunged Israel into its current state of despondent isolation and guerrilla war. He has a lot to repair.