[Mb-civic] A samurai's last stand - Helen Schary Motro - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  A samurai's last stand

By Helen Schary Motro  |  January 6, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

WHEN I SPENT a day with Ariel Sharon, I expected it to cement my dislike 
for him. In my mind Sharon represented what was wrong with Israel: a 
blend of swaggering militarism and arrogance. He was the epitome of a 
man with a finger too quick on the draw -- and on the trigger.

Sharon was the darling of the hard-line right-wingers in Israel. More 
than a few moderate and left-wing friends of mine told me darkly: The 
day Sharon becomes prime minister is the day I will pack my bags to 
leave the country. These sentiments were voiced by native-born Israelis, 
Sabras. Sharon seemed the ultimate Sabra who carried their qualities too 
far: bluntness, bravado, and bluster.

So I prepared with distaste for the conference on Japanese-Israeli trade 
in 1987 organized by the Israeli Chamber of Commerce to which I was then 
legal adviser. As minister of trade and industry, Ariel Sharon was to 
chair the conference aimed at encouraging commerce between the two 
countries. He had resigned as minister of defense a few years before 
after being indirectly implicated in the 1982 massacre of Palestinians 
by Israeli-supported Lebanese militia in Sabra and Shatila. Right-wing 
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir then appointed Sharon to a lower-profile 
government portfolio.

What could this career soldier turned sheep rancher possibly have to say 
to corporate directors and entrepreneurs? How could he find a common 
language with Japanese businessmen, many of whom had just landed in 
Israel for the very first time?

It was watching a master at work. This corpulent, allegedly unrefined 
man was the perfect host. Welcoming and well mannered, Sharon was not a 
whit less genteel than his Japanese guests. He made the strongest, most 
convincing case for economic cooperation between the two countries, 
winning his audience with warmth, familiarity with the field, and 
knowledge of key phrases in Japanese. I learned that Sharon was not only 
a former general; while in the army he had attended law school at night 
and graduated with a legal degree. It was just one of the ways in which 
he was both more, and less, than met the eye.

In no time Sharon's Japanese guests had fallen under the spell of his 
charisma. So had I. I came out of that encounter knowing that Sharon 
could use his brains and the power of his character to accomplish 
challenges that would stump most others. The issue was: Would he use his 
strength for compromise or for militarism, for farsightedness or for 
sectarianism, for peace or for war?

If it did not actually cause the second intifadah, Sharon's provocative 
visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in September 2000 is widely 
believed to have at least triggered the Palestinian uprising against 
Israel. Thereafter he achieved his goal of leading the country, and at 
the start did fulfill his warlike intransigent image.

And yet, the last few years have seen an amazing transformation. 
Strong-arm Sharon took the reins of peace in his hands. Despite 
tremendous domestic unrest and opposition, the force of his personality 
single-handedly brought about a peaceful Israeli disengagement from the 
Gaza Strip. Sharon seemed about to accomplish what had stumped so many 
leaders over the decades. He plowed ahead with determination and energy, 
his bulldozer personality apparently unstoppable.

The same Israelis for whom Sharon was almost an anathema were planning 
to vote for him in the upcoming spring elections. His illness now at the 
threshold of Israeli/Palestinian progress is a cruel twist, similar to 
the loss of Yitzhak Rabin, cut down while forging peace a decade 
earlier. The entire country of Israel seems frozen and on hold. The 
abrupt exit of this larger-than-life samurai leaves an enormous void 
behind him.

Helen Schary Motro is author of ''Maneuvering Between the Headlines: An 
American Lives Through the Intifada."  

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/06/a_samurais_last_stand/
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