The Pied Piper

By Uri Avnery

SOME 721 YEARS ago, the town of Hamelin in Germany was
suffering from a plague of rats. A citizen called
Bunting offered to get rid of them for an agreed fee.
When he played on his flute, the entranced rats came
out of their holes and followed him to the river where
they drowned. But when the piper presented his bill to
the town fathers, they wouldn’t pay him.

The piper wrought a terrible revenge. He played his
pipe once again, and this time all the children of the
town came out and followed him. He led them to a cave
in a mountain, and none of them was ever seen again.

ARIEL SHARON is a modern version of the piper. After
they had suffered a terrible election defeat, the Likud
fathers called on him and begged him to come to their
rescue. And, indeed, he blew his pipe and the voters
followed him to the ballot box. In two election
campaigns he led his party from 19 to 38 Knesset seats
(soon joined by Nathan Sharansky’s 3 seats).

Did the Likud fathers pay his fee? Nothing of the kind.
They turned his life into hell, obstructed him at every
turn and, in the end, the Likud Knesset faction itself
turned against its own Prime Minister.

Now the day of revenge has dawned. Sharon is blowing
his magic pipe and the Likud voters are following him
in droves, accompanied by some of the Likud fathers
themselves. The remaining Likud may well be drifting
down the river, mourned by few.

Not only the children of the Right follow the Pied
Piper, but also many of the children of the Left. He is
leading them to the mountain that threatens to swallow
them up like the poor children of Hamelin.

YESTERDAY, WHEN I was walking in the street, someone
shouted after me: "Hey, when are you joining Sharon?"

"Why would I do that?" I asked him.

"Because he is implementing your plan!" he answered
triumphantly.

This illusion is gaining ground. Many Leftists, who
have spent the last few years luxuriating in a warm and
comfortable despair that releases them from any duty to
stand up and fight, have now found an even more
agreeable solution: Sharon, the man of the Right, will
realize the dream of the Left. One has only to vote for
Sharon, and then the longed-for peace will come. No
need to make any effort, to struggle, even to lift a
finger.

"Haaretz" published an article this week by a Leftist,
explaining why he will vote for Sharon. It goes like
this: Sharon is like de Gaulle. De Gaulle, contrary to
his promises, got France out of Algeria and made peace
with the insurgents. He lied and cheated for the good
cause. Sharon, too, lies and cheats. Ergo, Sharon will
get Israel out of the Palestinian territories and make
peace. Ain’t it logical?

If anyone is looking for proof, he could find it in
this week’s statement by one Kalman Gayer, an American
who advises Sharon on opinion polls. He disclosed
Sharon’s "real" plan in Newsweek: to give the
Palestinians back 90% of the West Bank and to
compromise over Jerusalem.

The Likud uttered a heart-rending cry, the Left was
bewildered. What? Really? Sharon prepared to "give up"
more than Ehud Barak? But someone who is familiar with
the peculiar language of Sharon could easily interpret
the code: According to Gayer himself, Sharon does not
believe that this will happen in his lifetime, because
there is no Palestinian partner for peace. So he is
prepared, in the meantime, to give back only half of
the West Bank.

Thus, miraculously, we come back to Sharon’s original
formula: to annex unilaterally 58% of the West Bank,
not to conduct any peace negotiations with the
Palestinians and to keep the whole of Jerusalem.

In the meantime, Sharon (through his Minister of
Defense, who has now followed him out of the Likud) is
distributing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of building
permits in the settlements, continuing the construction
of the wall, destroying Palestinian homes in Jerusalem
and maintaining the blockade of the Gaza Strip. His
continuous silent effort to undermine the position of
Mahmoud Abbas is already bearing fruit. But who cares,
when the intoxicating music of the flute is befuddling
the senses and the brain of so many peace-loving
Leftists?

IF SHARON wins the elections, 101 days from now, and
returns as Prime Minister - what will he do?

The simple truth is: nobody knows. Certainly not the
bunch of "confidants", "strategists", "advisors" and
other hangers-on. Only Sharon himself knows - and
perhaps not even he.

Perhaps pressures will be exerted on him that he will
be unable to withstand. Perhaps the opposite will
happen, and he will easily fend of the pressures.
Perhaps he will take possession of the defeated Likud.
Perhaps he will set up a coalition with Labor. The
possibilities are almost endless.

The real danger lies in the set-up of Sharon’s party
itself. It has no ideology but Sharon. No program but
Sharon. No plan but Sharon.

This is a party of one leader, committed to nothing.
His word is its command. He alone will compose its list
of candidates. He alone will draft the party program -
which will be irrelevant anyhow, since Sharon alone
will decide what to do at any time.

Sharon has never been much of a democrat. Right from
the beginning, he has had a profound contempt for
parties and politicians. He was and has remained a
foreign body in the Knesset. From his early youth he
has been firmly convinced that he must become the
leader of the people and the state, since he, and he
alone, is the one who can save them from perdition. He
did not see himself as a leader bound by all kinds of
democratic nonsense, like Gulliver bound by the
Lilliputians, but as a free agent, released from all
bonds, able to fulfill his historic mission: to fix the
borders of the Jewish State with the maximum possible
area.

He does not hide his intention to change the political
system of Israel and to establish a presidential
regime. In Israel, a country with neither a
constitution nor a strong parliament like the US
Congress, such a system means one-man rule. If he
succeeds in winning a decisive enough victory in the
coming elections, he may be able, with the help of a
few bribed lawmakers, to change the laws of the country
and turn himself into an all-powerful president - for
four years, for seven, for a lifetime.

This danger would not have been so real, if the Israeli
democracy had not lost its inner strength. The
politicians are detested by the public, the big parties
evoke loathing, political corruption has become
proverbial. In such a crisis, the public tends to long
for a strongman. The man from the Sycamore Ranch is
only too happy to oblige.

SHARON DOES not resemble the great dictators of the
between-the-wars era. As has been already pointed out
this week (and by a right-wing commentator, of all
people) he has much more in common with Juan Peron, the
Argentinian dictator of the 1940s and 1950s - a
Rightist general in a Leftist disguise, an untrammeled
autocrat, who put an end to all vestiges of democracy.

Only one thing is certain for anyone who knows the man:
he will never abandon his historic aim: to annex as
much territory as possible, with as few Arabs as
possible. He has executed the Disengagement Plan with
utmost vigor not in order to bring peace, but to
realize this principle. Everything else is "pragmatic"
– and one should not forget that this term is rooted in
the Greek word "pragma", which means "deed".

Not the talking is important, but the actions. In
dealing with Sharon, one should not listen to his words
but pay close attention to his hands. And what his
hands do may be quite different from what innocent
Leftists may imagine, those that are marching now with
eyes closed behind the man with the magic flute.

From: "G u s h S h a l o m"