The Shimon Peres syndrome
Op-ed: Israel ignores regional changes, clings to longtime notions that are obviously irrelevant
On the occasion of the government change in Cairo and in the wake of reports that the ousted president was staying at the Movenpick hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, I was overtaken by nostalgia. I searched through my papers and found a photo I took there in the spring of 1996, a time of terrible terror attacks and en elections campaign.
Dozens of leaders from across the world gathered at the Movenpick for a counter-terrorism conference, which was mostly aimed at saving Shimon Peres from election rival Benjamin Netanyahu. Around noon, everyone gathered at the pool for a group photo: Mubarak, the host, stood in the center, and by his side we had Clinton, Yeltsin, Chirac, Arafat, Hussein, Hassan and the rest.
Well, 15 years have passed since then and all the leaders in the photo retired since then, or died; even Mubarak finally quit, yet only one leader remains in place: Our very own Shimon Peres. We shall wholeheartedly wish him health and longevity, but also ask what his constant presence says about us.
It apparently says that we are terribly conservative and forgiving. Our frustration and jealousy in the wake of the events in Egypt should have been channel in another direction. Instead of lamenting the local indifference and wondering why our own Tahrir Square remains empty in the face of rising fuel prices, we should be wondering why we reconcile ourselves to the fixation of our leadership.
No lessons learned
The leaders had already been toppled in Tunisia and in Egypt, and even Bahrain is facing unrest, yet here nothing has happened. Not only Peres remains in place, but also the shapers of public opinion, the various sages that advice us, and mostly our political and diplomatic worldview.
A generation comes and a generation goes, yet we keep on ardently quoting Tom Friedman’s baseless articles about immediate withdrawals. Meanwhile, our presidential circles cling to the various Saudi initiatives, as if nothing happened in Cairo, Beirut, and Sana’a. The Camp David Accord between Begin and Sadat is facing the risk of being shelved, yet nonetheless we are not seeing a timeout here in respect to preaching for withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
A plethora of perpetual interviewees on television still have qualms with Netanyahu, accusing him of hindering the talks with Abbas. What exactly can we talk to him about at this time? Where is the lesson from what happened on the banks of the Nile?
For the time being, there are no lessons whatsoever. Even after the old world collapsed, we see the continuation of the tendency to submissively come under the leadership wings of Shimon Peres and bow before ancient notions of sweeping withdrawal. The new Middle East remains on the other side of the fence.
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