Geniuses and Statesmen: The Israeli StoryMike Rappaport

Powerline writes:

I think it’s time to note again Israel’s failure to produce astatesman equal to the challenges it has faced over the past 20 years.In every area of modern life the country boasts a genius that on a percapita basis must be unrivaled. Yet on the world stage its politiciansseem almost retarded.

The country has never had a public accounting for the utter disasterthat was Oslo. Its politicians seem to keep the country’s citizens inthe dark about the nature of its national security strategy and theactions taken to pursue it. Ariel Sharon’s coalition deal to makeShimon Peres his “deputy premier” seemed to me a metaphoricalexpression of the problem. Symptomatic of the delusional politicalthinking that has brought Israel so much grief is the fact that therehas as yet been no public accounting for the disaster of Oslo itself.

I agree with much of what Powerline writes here.  The one exception is that I think Ariel Sharon, despite his faults, was potentially a first rate leader.  This is based on my assumption that Sharon would have defeated Hezbollah in the Second Lebanese War, a reasonable assumption given his behavior in the First Lebanese War (assuming he would have even chosen to fight the former war).  While Powerline treats the withdrawal from Gaza as a disaster, that is not clear, especially to the extent that Sharon would have behaved strongly in other situations, including in Lebanon and in response to missile attacks from Gaza. 

But with that possible exception, it is hard to argue with the rest of Powerline’s analysis.