Lesser of Two Evils

I find myself, today, having to side with Ariel Sharon in the latest edition of selecting the lesser of two evils (for another example, I refer you to Bush vs. Kerry).

The more I think about it, the more I realize that many of the objections I have to Sharon's planned pullout from Gaza and parts of the West Bank as well as the "security barrier" (wall/fence) have to do largely with the fact that Sharon can't be trusted to carry them out lawfully.

I'm not willing to condemn either action out of hand. I can envision circumstances under which a leader could enact both of these plans in a way that improves the lives of not only Israelis, but the Palestinian populations that they currently occupy. Sharon is not a man who can do that in the same way that George W. Bush cannot be trusted to wage a "war on terrorism." They are both far too corrupt.

But what is the alternative at this point? Israel and Israeli politics have long been held hostage by the ultra-Orthodox minority which includes violent militants of its own. Sharon is currently at odds with this fringe of the Israeli population -- would it really be a good thing for him to give in to their demands and abandon the Gaza pullout? The following from this article in Haaretz:

Over the past week, the head of the Shin Bet was quoted as telling legislators that in the wake of the disengagement initiative, that there at present a few dozen right-wing extremists backed by as many as 200 supporters, who "want to see the prime minister dead."

Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who oversees the police, took reporters aback Saturday night by telling a national television audience:

"We sense that the level of threat to the Temple Mount from the standpoint of extreme and fanatic Jewish elements carrying out a terrorist attack in order to 'reshuffle the cards,' to serve as a catalyst to a change in the entire political initiative (the disengagement process) - this level has risen in recent months and more so in recent weeks."

Most of the attacks planned by the Jewish terrorists center upon the destruction of the Dome of the Rock and the deaths of a maximum number of Muslim worshippers.

I don't think that I can overestimate the catastrophic consequences were Jewish terrorists to succeed in destroying the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aqsa mosque.

More than six months ago, Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter issued the first public warning of the renewed threat to attack the Muslim shrines.

Speaking of the extremists dream to remove the "abomination" as they call it, from the Temple Mount, Dichter declared that Jewish terror could pose a significant strategic threat to Israel as well as the Jews of the Diaspora, "turning the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians into a confrontation between 13 million Jews and one billion Muslims around the world."

Some are even likening that confrontation to the battle of armageddon.

So I find myself stuck between not trusting Sharon to do anything right on one hand, and not wanting to see the ultra-Orthodox Jewish terrorists appeased on the other.

Fundamentalism (Christian, Jewish and Islamic) is an enemy to the world. If my options are only two (Sharon's plan or an emboldened group of fundamentalist Jewish terrorists), I think it's obvious which is the lesser evil.

Yehuda Etzion, one of the leaders of the 1980s plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock, the gilded, jewel-like mosque at the heart of the Temple Mount compound, remained chillingly unapologetic Sunday about his group's aim.

"The Dome of the Rock is the wrong structure in the wrong place at the wrong time, because it is right and proper that our Third Temple should stand there," he told Army Radio.

Asked if he would turn in others who now wished to carry out an attack on the Temple Mount in order to thwart the disengagement, Etzion declined to answer directly. "Losing one's patience after so many years of distortion is something understandable," he said.

"Is this a proper act? First of all, it is proper. On the other hand, it is improper as an act to thwart the disengagement. If it is proper, it is proper for its own sake, in and of itself."