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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jan-06
Ariel Sharon nears death as his political career ends

Web Log - January, 2006

Ariel Sharon nears death as his political career ends

Now both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat are gone, and the Mideast descends into chaos.

Several years ago, I wrote that Generational Analysis predicts that the Mideast peace plan of side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states would fail, with almost mathematical certainty. I added the following about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yassir Arafat:

"These two men hate each other, but they're the ones cooperating with each other (consciously or not) to prevent a major Mideast conflagration. Both of them remember the [genocidal Arab - Jewish] wars of the 1940s, and neither of them wants to see anything like that happen again. And it won't happen again, as long as both of these men are in charge.

The disappearance of these two men will be part of an overall generational change in the Mideast that will lead to a major conflagration within a few years. It's possible that the disappearance of Arafat alone will trigger a war, just as the election of Lincoln ignited the American Civil War. (It's currently American policy to get rid of Arafat. My response is this: Be careful what you wish for.)"

It's now been a little more than a year since Arafat died, and hardly a day goes by that the violence and chaos doesn't get worse.

Indeed, things are going from bad to worse:

The Lebanese militia group Hizbullah will be stepping up its terrorist attacks on Israel this year, according to analysis by Israeli Military Intelligence. More about this below.

Gaza is descending into total anarchy, as the Palestinian Authority government under Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor, continues to disintegrate from within. Weapons have been pouring in from Egypt, and the region is effectively under control of Hamas and other militia groups. Yesterday, militia groups engaged Egyptian troops on the border, killing two. This is significant because Egypt has carefully avoided going anywhere near Gaza for 30 years, for fear of triggering a war with either Israel or the Palestinians, and now Egypt is becoming significantly more involved on a day to day basis.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a series of statements about Israel that have outraged even the Europeans. In these statements, Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be pushed into the sea, that the Holocaust never happened, and that the entire state of Israel should be moved to Europe or Alaska. Iran has also indicated that it plans to go ahead developing the technology to build nuclear weapons, despite outrage from America, Europe, and even Russia. Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to goad Israel or America into making an air strike on Iran, since he seems to believe that he has a devastating counterattack in his arsenal.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader of "al-Qaeda Mesopotamia" or "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is is redirecting his operations increasingly toward Israel. Recent operations include the bombing of an Amman, Jordan, hotel on November 9, and the the massive bombing at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

These specific incidents could not have been predicted by Generational Dynamics, but the failure of the Mideast peace plan and the inevitable drift to a major regional war is an easy prediction that can be made by applying the principles of Generational Dynamics. I'm not a psychic and don't have any special power, and yet I got this prediction right, and in fact anyone could have applied the same principles and reached the same conclusions.

It was a year ago at this time that I had discussions, in person and through e-mail, with several people who essentially told me I was nuts. With Arafat gone, they told me, the Palestinians would get increasingly peaceful. My explanations of the generational changes that brought the increasingly militant "young guard" into power had no effect on these people, who evidently thought they were hearing the words of a raving maniac. And yet, here we are, and my predictions have come true. In fact, every prediction made on this web site in the last three years has either come true or is coming true; not a single one has been proven wrong. It's not magic. It's all done by straightforward application of simple principles of Generational Dynamics that are clearly explained on this web site.

So yesterday the news was that Ariel Sharon may be near death after suffering a massive stroke. We can expect the disappearance of Sharon from Israeli politics to have the same kind of effect that the disappearance of Arafat had on Palestine. Not that Israel will descend into anarchy controlled by lawless militias, but that the Israeli government will descend into dysfunctional political anarchy, like Palestine, Europe and America.

This is a theme that I've discussing frequently lately. In country after country that fought in World War II, as the generation of leaders who grew up during that war are all disappearing (retiring or dying) all at once, each country is becoming politically paralyzed.

Israel has been one of the few countries left that could actually accomplish something (withdraw from Gaza, build the barrier around Israel), as long as Ariel Sharon, born in 1928, was in charge.

There is no one in Israel who can replace Sharon. Whether you consider him a hero or a terrorist, from the point of view of Generational Dynamics there is no doubt at all that he was pursuing an aggressive policy to make Israel safe, with or without a Palestinian state. Without Sharon, all of those policies will be frozen in place, or will continue on "cruise control" until they collapse.

Let's take one example of how they might collapse, by returning to one of the items listed above, that the militia group Hizbullah will be stepping up its terrorist attacks on Israel this year. According to the analysis by Israeli Military Intelligence, Hizbullah Chief Hasan Nasrallah plans a 'controlled escalation' in 2006, and he sees the northern front as a controlled front in which Israel will not 'go mad.'

This kind of "controlled escalation" is something that Sharon could handle in a controlled way himself. He lived through the genocidal Arab-Jewish wars of the late 1940s, and developed the wisdom and skill to respond to an escalation without triggering a new war like the one in the 1940s. But the people who will replace him won't have those skills, and will make heavy-handed responses that cause much greater escalations than Nasrallah had contemplated. Once the right kind of miscalculation occurs on either side, a small escalation can quickly escalate into all out war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, nothing has changed. The Mideast is headed for a new, genocidal war between Arabs and Jews, probably sooner rather than later. This war will draw in countries from the entire region, as well as Europe and America, leading to a "clash of civilizations" world war. The incapacitation of Ariel Sharon gives us some information about how the Generational Dynamics prediction will come about. (5-Jan-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jan-06 Ariel Sharon nears death as his political career ends

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 5-Jan-06
Ariel Sharon nears death as his political career ends