Did Sharon Earn the Jewish People's Trust?

Ariel Sharon may go down in history as the greatest Jewish unifier since King David. Like David, he was a shepherd boy turned military hero, and he has managed to become a leader that the wrangling Jewish tribes of his day have been willing to acknowledge and follow.

Sharon entered Israeli politics as a unifier. But once the Likud party he had helped create out of a mixed bag of Greater Israel expansionists, free-marketers, and former leftists came to power in 1977 he abandoned that persona for a hard-line nationalism and militarism that made him a hero to the right and a pariah to the left. His admirers dubbed him "bulldozer" for his single-minded construction of Jewish settlements in the territories; for his opponents, the nickname indicated Sharon's lack of regard for law, proper administrative procedures, and the judgment of pretty much everyone else.

After he achieved his ultimate ambition and became prime minister, he reversed himself. He surprised the left and shocked the right by discarding his previous view that Israel should remain in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip forever, and that Jews live everywhere in those territories. When he announced that Israel would abandon both its fruitless, and in his mind dangerous, attempts to negotiate a deal with the Palestinians, he was able to bring together a broad spectrum of Israeli society stretching from left to right.

He also resolved Diaspora Jewry's existential dilemma. During Israel's early years, support for Israel was an essential element of Jewish identity everywhere, and supporting Israel meant supporting whatever policies Israel's government pursued. Whatever their doctrinal divisions when it came to their religion, Jews were nearly unanimous in their commitment to the Jewish state and its leaders.

That unanimity first cracked when the conservative Likud came to power under Menachem Begin in 1977. For the next decade and a half Israel's own citizenry was split. The left believed Israel's future would best be secured by compromise with the Palestinians; the right believed that Israel had to absorb and settle the territories. Diaspora Jews suddenly found themselves in an awkward position-if they supported the Israeli government, they were at odds with a large swathe of the Israeli citizenry.

When Yitzhak Rabin's government signed the Oslo agreements with Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Jews around the world discovered that Israel could no longer unify them as a community. They had to decide what kind of Israel they supported. That meant that Israel ceased to be a unifying myth of Jewish identity and became another arena of doctrinal dispute.

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