The Question of Ariel Sharon

For Ariel Sharon diplomacy, to invert the famous saying by Karl von Clausewitz, is the extension of war by other means. The burly, 76-year old Israeli leader has had a chequered career as a soldier and a politician but he has never thought of himself as a diplomat. The title Sharon chose for his autobiography…

The Geneva Accord is Sharon’s nightmare. On the eve of the Likud referendum on Sharon’s disengagement plan, he threatened that if it failed, Geneva was the alternative. Sharon is so worried about Geneva (or similar initiatives like the Nusseibeh-Ayalon plan) that he insisted that President Bush include the following sentence in the letter the President…