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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Oct-04
Ariel Sharon's Gaza victory and Yasser Arafat's illness are roiling the Mideast

Web Log - October, 2004

Ariel Sharon's Gaza victory and Yasser Arafat's illness are roiling the Mideast

The two ancient lions holding back chaos are facing new troubles.

Ariel Sharon's spectacular U.S.-backed victory in the Knesset Tuesday moves Israel along the path of a Gaza pullout in 2005. Under this plan, 8,000 Jewish settlers will evacuate their Gaza settlements and move back into Israel.

Sharon's unilateral Gaza disengagement plan has caused massive protests in both the Jewish and Palestinian communities, for completely different reasons.

The radical proposal is splitting Israel's party lines and may threaten Sharon's coalition, as thousands of Jewish settlers have been demonstrating in Jerusalem to protest against being forced to give up the Gaza settlements.

Even Sharon himself has voiced fears of an Israeli civil war, and is rejecting a national referendum on the Gaza pullout apparently for this very reason: "My position on the referendum is unchanged - I am opposed because it will lead to terrible tensions and a rupture in the public."

This comes at a time when Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has been experiencing severe health problems. The official party line is that Arafat has the stomach flu, but the secrecy surrounding Arafat has lead some to speculate that his illness may be much worse, even life-threatening.

A loss of power and control by Arafat would lead to a violent generational power struggle among the Palestinians. This became evident last summer when the Palestinians appeared to be close to civil war over Arafat's attempt to shake up his security forces.

For several years there has always been a strange irony in America's view of both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat. American politicians support Sharon, but many express a view that he's harsh and uncooperative, and that Israel would be better served by a younger leader. Arafat is being officially shunned by Washington these days, and it's been official American policy for several years that the Palestinians would be better off if Arafat would leave and be replaced by a younger leader.

For some reason that baffles me, people seem to believe that young leaders are more likely to be flexible and peaceful, even though history has shown that massive civil wars and uprisings are always led by younger leaders.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the Palestine region has been replaying the events of the 1930s and 1940s that led to a massive regional war. The earlier conflict began in 1936 with rock throwing. The level of violence increased over the years until the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of Israel in 1948 triggered a full-scale crisis war.

Today's conflict could be said to have started with the first Intifada in 1989. The level of violence increased significantly with the second Intifada that began in 2000, and has been increasing ever since.

Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat hate each other, but they're the only two major leaders left who lived through the massive genocidal war of the 1940s, and who would rather do anything than see such a war occur again.

Generational Dynamics predicts that such a war will occur again, with near 100% certainty. What will trigger the renewed war is not yet known, but it could happen tomorrow, next month, next year, or in two or three years. Since 2002 I've been saying that I consider the most likely time to be in the months following the disappearance (through death or retirement) of Yasser Arafat, since he's the only leader sufficiently respected to keep the Palestinian factions under control.

Historians of the future will look back and see what steps led to the new Mideast war, but we can see the trend lines coming together now. Arafat's health is weakening, and therefore his power is weakening, leading to open splits among the Palestinians. Sharon's plan is succeeding, but it's infuriating the traditional Jews, leading to open splits among the Israelis. So we have Palestinian against Palestinian, Jew against Jew, and Palestinian against Jew, and those conflicts have only been getting worse. (27-Oct-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Oct-04 Ariel Sharon's Gaza victory and Yasser Arafat's illness are roiling the Mideast

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Oct-04
Ariel Sharon's Gaza victory and Yasser Arafat's illness are roiling the Mideast