BEIRUT: Few Arabs were saying prayers for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recovery from a stroke on Thursday but many feared that his death could set back peace prospects.
Sharon was fighting for his life after a seven-hour operation to stop bleeding in his brain.
Ordinary Arabs have hated Sharon ever since he masterminded Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, during which pro-Israeli Christian militiamen massacred Palestinians in two Beirut refugee camps, killing more than 700 people.
“I have always wished to live to see the day that Sharon was dying,” Umm Ali Mikdad, 60, a Lebanese woman who survived the the Sabra and Shatila camp killings, told Reuters. “But I wished he would be killed by a fighter’s bullet, not die in his bed.”
Sharon was also considered a champion of Israeli settlements up until he engineered last year’s pullout from Gaza and was renowned as an army commander.
From Israel’s peace partners Egypt and Jordan to arch foe Syria, Mikdad’s sentiments were shared among ordinary people despite Sharon’s shift from the right to the centre of Israeli politics in recent years and his orders for a historic end to 38 years of Israeli occupation in Gaza.
But many said the future of the peace process would be stormy, whoever leads the Jewish state.
“I was hoping he would suffer tremendously before he dies so that he can get a feel for the suffering he caused Palestinians,” Jordanian Rana Mahmoud, 29, said.
“But I am sure that his successor will not be any better. He would probably have a worse attitude towards the Palestinians and Arabs in general.”
Arab analysts said Sharon’s exit from the Israeli political scene would leave a vacuum where there is no obvious successor who can demonstrate the strength or display the credentials needed to move the peace process forward quickly.
“The future of the peace process and the future of the Palestinian state will face the unknown after Sharon,” Lebanese analyst George Alam said.
“Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could be the biggest loser because he will miss the Israeli negotiator whom he knew and cooperated with.”
But an official in Saudi Arabia said that whoever takes over from Sharon would have no option but to advance peace with the Palestinians.
Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo, said it could take some time for Israeli politics to take a new shape after Sharon.
“It is going to be a bit troublesome to try and find someone who can make up his mind, take decisions and then implement these decisions,” he said. “The Israelis are going to go through a very unsettling period until the ball rests somewhere.”
But prominent Syrian political analyst Imad Shuaibi said that change in Israel would not make a real difference unless Washington was interested in pushing for peace in the region.
“If the United States is not interested in peace then if Jesus himself comes there will be no change,” Shuaibi said.
Khaled, a 50-year-old Palestinian living in a refugee camp near Damascus, said that though the future remained bleak for Palestinians, he would savour Sharon’s troubles. “I fear that if Sharon is gone there will be 100 other Sharons to succeed him,” he said. “In Islam you can’t gloat about death but this man is our enemy and an enemy of God, so for sure I will celebrate when he dies.”—Reuters
