On Mon, 13 May 2002, Michael Pollak wrote:
> I hope they keep it up. That's much easier to argue with.
I should add that unfortunately they probably won't keep it up. It was all a Byzantine political ruse -- Netanyahoo getting his right-centrist committee members to act like extreme right wingers to embarrass Sharon in front of America. And then Sharon trumped him by saying in effect I'm such a right winger I don't have to prove it to anyone -- I can veto your resolution and it won't have any effect. Nobody will ever think I've become a liberal. That's a good one.
Except maybe in Berkeley, of course, but they don't vote :o) (And besides, you were only entertaining the possibility, not accepting it.)
The only good sign in this whole mess is that, combined with the report Bryan posted about the Peace Now demonstration, they look on the surface like the distant rumblings of an election. Logically Sharon wouldn't call one for years, his ratings are huge, his majority is huge. But Israeli politics are always volatile. Yahoo is getting restless (he was originally sure Sharon couldn't last more than a few months). And everyone seems to think that something might happen that could cause a vote of confidence to come out of nowhere -- a proposal for a peace conference that couldn't be turned down, for example. So they want to starting getting ready if the logjam bursts. And since this government is beyond hopeless when it comes to conducting negotiations that could ever lead to a solution, change could only be for the better.
But mind you, even for a professional optimist, this is really sewer diving for a silver lining.
Michael