“Good-bye, giants of 1948”

While I write these lines, Ariel Sharon fights for his life. It is not necessary to be a neurologist to know that the end of his days as Prime Minister are over. He was the last of the 1948 generation’s giants. He was adored and hated. His career was similar to that of Moshe Dayan.
Dayan fought against the Arabs but at the end of his life he defended peace with Egypt and convinced Menahem Begin. He was the first to understand the limits of brute force and the importance of the occupied territories as a card to be played to get peace. By that time, Sharon was a settlement constructor and an extremist that changed when he got control of the state. He understood then that Israel could not destroy terrorism alone and suffered the contempt of nations. His intellectual career was similar to that of Charles De Gaulle with regard to the Algerian problem. Elected as a defender of settlers, he became the opponent of his former supporters and the extreme right.
Only Sharon could implement the evacuation of the settlements in the West Bank without provoking a civil war. Unfortunately, Arabs will always be Arabs and they lost their chance of getting peace.
Amir Peretz and Benjamin Netanyahu will take advantage of Sharon’s disappearance to try to regroup their militants now in Kadima but this party was the result of the circumstances and they have not changed.
Good-bye, giant of 1948.