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Bush’s Alpha Male
 What’s
the proper form of address for a
terrorist with a long record of mass murder? Emily Post doesn’t
cover this one, but in the state of Israel his title may be “Mr. Prime
Minister.”
The political career of Ariel Sharon,
successor  of
such democratic leaders as Menachem Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir, appears to have ended at last. As he lies in a Jerusalem
hospital after a possibly fatal stroke, the future of his country, the Middle
East, and much more may depend on his fate.
Not since Joseph Stalin have
American politicians and opinion leaders fawned so revoltingly over a foreign
ruler. President George W. Bush calls Sharon “a man of courage and
peace.” Neoconservatives regard him as a hero, almost beyond
criticism — except when he makes concessions to Palestinians. The
New York Daily News hails him as “the world’s
best hope for peace in the Middle East,” “a leader of
unparalleled vision and courage,” and “the personification of the
nation’s centrist aspirations.” Like Stalin, who had his own
Amen Corner, Sharon has many well-placed apologists in this country, ready
to justify him at every turn. Rush Limbaugh has likened him to George
Washington.
Sharon achieved his greatest
worldwide fame in 1982 when he led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and
arranged the grisly slaughter of about 2,000 refugees, including women and
children of all ages, in the Sabra and Shatila camps near Beirut. Hundreds of
thousands of shocked Israelis protested in the streets, but after an official
inquiry he got off with a reprimand.
But his ruthlessness also added to
his popularity, and he came back from apparent political ruin to become
leader of the Likud Party and finally, five years ago, prime minister. He
showed his courage and vision by adopting such policies as the “target
assassinations” of Palestinian leaders (along with any unfortunate
bystanders), including, last year, the killing of a blind quadriplegic in a
wheelchair.
![[Breaker quote for Bush's Alpha Male: The end of the Sharon era]](2006breakers/060105.gif) Bush
and Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair,
tried to terrify the world with the prospect that Saddam Hussein might
acquire a single nuclear weapon. But neither of them has ever expressed the
slightest anxiety that the fanatical Sharon should possess one of the
greatest nuclear arsenals on Earth, enough to annihilate the Arab world
— as the Arabs are well aware. Is it any wonder that Anglo-American
hypocrisy has become so notorious?
There is grim comedy in the way
Bush has praised Sharon as a great humanitarian, while at the same time
trying to coax him to behave in a minimally civilized manner. Like a feckless
parent trying to control a spoiled child by indulging him (to the disgust and
annoyance of his company), Bush has too little self-respect to mind very
much when his Israeli pal makes him look like a fool. He has tried to keep
smiling through every indignity Sharon could inflict on him.
In this respect, though Blair has
nothing to be proud of, he has much less to be ashamed of. A residual sense
of the absurd has prevented him from lauding Sharon with Bush’s
egregious extravagance. British public opinion is humane enough to
sympathize with the Palestinians and to be embarrassed by its alliance with
Israel, especially under a brute like Sharon. If British politics isn’t
exactly moral, it’s at least restrained by some good taste.
Besides, Bush is intimidated by
Sharon, as Franklin Roosevelt was by Stalin. Ruthless men can have this
daunting effect on weak men, causing them to say things they know to be
the opposite of the truth; and Sharon has known what is only too obvious to
everyone, that Bush can’t stand up to him. He has been Bush’s
Alpha Male.
We can hope that Bush will be at
least a little less timid with Sharon’s successor. He must sense that
his timidity before a tiny country has earned him the world’s
contempt, and maybe a part of him will even feel relief if Sharon dies.
He’ll no longer have to be the 97-pound weakling in the relationship,
hoping he won’t be humiliated.
America doesn’t have much
to show for its expensive entanglement with Israel, but it has given us a good
look at the stuff our rulers are made of. No patriot can take much pride in it.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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