WI No Sharon Stroke

Suppose Ariel Sharon doesn't have an incapacitating stroke in 2006? How would the Palestinian conflict play out differently? Would Sharon respond any differently to Hezbollah and the captured Israeli soldiers in the following year -- if so, would he "overreact"* more, or, given his established military image, would his reaction be more targeted? Would his young party still win the next election (within a year of the PoD), and if so could the margin be bigger? And what about Israeli domestic policy? One idea I had -- if Kadima gets more seats, I can see the new coalition weaken Shas' influence by making more conceivable an alignment with Mererz, allowing for more Kadima secular policies.

I realize RB has brought this up before, but I thought after a couple of Bibi years, the idea could be revisited...

EDIT ADD: *note, I'm not weighing in on whether or not the War with Hezbollah authorized by Olmert actually was an overreaction or not, I was just trying to be succinct
 
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A butterfly unforeseen?

One big domestic policy change this can create is if he gracefully stepped down for the following elections. Then maybe the Knesset would not have felt the need to hold a referendum to stop having premier elections on a separate ballot. As the separate ballot gave people a chance to vote across party lines past the primaries it can create huge changes on who would be the next prime minister and basically continue to alter such relations with the Knesset and military.:rolleyes:
 
^^That would make for more interesting Israeli politics -- though I had a hope Sharon could serve longer than Begin, until the next Presidential election, or even until his 80th birthday (becoming the 4th, 3rd, or 2nd longest serving PM, respectively).

The biggest part of his legacy, I think, would be how handles Gaza. Hamas would still "win" the upcoming elections,* but is it possible a full scale war doesn't break out in June, or later in the year?

*as they're less than a month following the PoD -- though butterflies might allow for Fatah to get more "votes"
 
It was a major headache.

I don't think Sharon wanted to order the eviction of residents and demolition of Gush Katif. But the writing was on the wall as far as international opinion and as well as many domestic were concerned, with the whole orange vs. blue ordeal. I think it is obvious to both of us he wouldn't have touched or perhaps just made a few tent and trailer settlers in the West Bank move. At that point there was already friction between elements of Hamas and Fatah, only the international community as well as a strong IDF presence in both territories kept a lid on sectarian strife (as was seen IOTL after disengagement). Some people think Arik foresaw this as a strategic asset in setting a unified Palestinian voice for statehood back. On that alone I think he probably would have stepped down anyway so the next generation can handle that headache.

Unless something in the space time continuum changes so that an IDF Humvee doesn't patrol so close to the border on that day I doubt the circumstances of June 2006 could be avoided, maybe they would be delayed. It is interesting to note this article that there were attempts before.
 
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^^If the abductions still happened, would Sharon react in roughly the same way though? Would he have gone even more all out? Or maybe, secure in his reputation, sought to keep operations limited to special forces and the like?

CONSOLIDATION: A tangential thought -- if the next election brings to power a Kadima led without Shas (aligning with, say, Labour, Gil, and Meretz), could Israel end up passing same-sex marriage legislation?
 
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Marriage is a problem there period

Heterogeneous marriages have enough trouble being done in Israel if the couple are not of the same religion, the same religion but of different sects and numerous other factors that are at the whim of the respective religious courts. One way many people get around this is by getting hitched abroad in some place such as Cyprus or somewhere in Europe and the US. That way upon return their foreign marriage contracts they go through the civil courts that work under common law and can be handled as such.

From 1994 until 2006 same-sex marriages were recognized as unregistered cohabitation, the same status awarded to unmarried hetero-couples. But in 2006, the Israel Supreme Court ruled that all foreign marriage certificates (including same-sex) be recognized upon entering the country. The only way I can see challenging it is if the Knesset introduces a bill explicitly banning it and then another to limit the authority of the Supreme Court, which they are kind of trying to do now.

That is because as you probably have an inkling of the Supreme Court and the rest of the Israeli judiciary system is typically liberal or leftist leaning while the religious courts are usually, not?:eek:
 
^^Ah that's right -- but don't Meretz, Labour, and (I believe recently) Kadima have civil marriage as part of their official platforms?

Of course, all this is peanuts next to Gaza and Lebanon...
 
The main plank of Kadima was that of unilateral disengagement - the idea was for Israel to evacuate all the settlements outside the West Bank wall and simply withdraw. All WB territory lying on the Israeli side of the wall would be declared Israeli territory.

OTL, the Lebanon War ended this. Not only did it destroy Olmert's popularity and authority, but it discredited the idea of unilateral disengagement, since the withdrawals from both Gaza and S. Lebanon were unilateral yet were followed by continued rocket attacks.

Had Sharon somehow managed to avoid blundering into war and held his ground, then a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank occurs, leaving Israel with about 10% of the territory. The Palestinian government - not yet having split - probably reasserts independence while continuing to make claims for E. Jerusalem and the remainder of the West Bank.

The situation is probably better for the West Bank Palestinians. If the Palestinian government can avoid the Gaza Civil War then perhaps Gaza will be better too; if not, then Gaza is the same as OTL.

Whatever the case, this would hardly mean a final settlement. Neither the U.S. nor Western powers would recognize the Israeli annexations. Nor would the U.S. or most Western powers recognize the Palestinian state. Negotiations would likely still be stalled, although perhaps Kadima under Livni would remain dominant (the party having bypassed Olmert, who would have since been indicted on corruption chartes) leaving somewhat brighter prospects in the years ahead.
 
^^Sounds about right to me; though given everything else described of TTL, I'd be a little more optimistic about the possibility of Palestinian recognition, maybe -- maybe -- even by the UN in 2011...
 
^^Sounds about right to me; though given everything else described of TTL, I'd be a little more optimistic about the possibility of Palestinian recognition, maybe -- maybe -- even by the UN in 2011...

The problem is that there are a lot of unknowns here. I do think Kadima would be stronger no matter what, but a lot depends on whether Sharon would avoid the OTL Lebanon War and whether the Palestinians could avoid the Hamas/Fatah split.

Had the Lebanon War been shorter and less botched, and had the Palestinians not split, then yes, I could maybe see final status negotiations perhaps occurring now, about 5 years after the initial withdrawal. Perhaps the Palestinian Unity government hobbles on. Israel and the international community still avoid Hamas, but use the PLO as a negotiating proxy (something that was proposed OTL before the Gaza Civil War). In the end, Palestinians agree to a somewhat larger Israeli annexation than they're inclined to accept, but also get a larger chunk of compensatory territory as part of a land swap deal.

The problem is that unilateral disengagement would make the Israeli public even more complacent and probably resistant to further withdrawals. Plus the Israeli government would probably have tried to appease the settler lobby by doubling down on settlements in the annexed WB areas, making a final status agreement even harder.

And this ignores the fact that a unilateral withdrawal might well have strenghthened Hamas even in the WB, similar to how it did in Gaza. Keep in mind its not just RW'ers who say that - no less a leftist than Yossi Beilin opposed unilateral withdrawals for the same reason - if you give up territory in response to fighting without negotiating, you just signify that violence works where negotiations don't.
 
^^True enough -- wherever we'd be TTL, the most optimistic scenario is there would still be ongoing negotiations that are years away from any kind of final resolution; if we're really optimistic, maybe Israel's doubling down on settlements, but with there's an emerging, if weak, consensus* that the final peace will involve land swaps...

That brings up some follow up questions for me -- supposing Sharon leads Kadima thru the 2007 elections to victory, then departs as PM to become President. Is that plausible? Who would succeed him? How would the years leading to the next election (in 2011) go, and who'd be pose towin them? And how would the world be describing Sharon's legacy today?

*sort of like the two-state solution
 
Sharon's modus operandi as PM versus Hamas was all about the surgical strike.

It got to the point where the movement that built its fame on martyrs ended up demanding that Sharon stop assassinating its leaders.

I think there was at least one other terrorist leader who got blown out of commission after sponsoring a violent attack, was it George Habash? One minute, Habash thinks he's back in business, and he's even sitting in an office in a building behind his desk, etc., and, the next minute, an IDF helicopter fires a missile right at where Habash is seated.

For a while, it all seemed like Sharon had a clipboard with pages from "Who's Who Of Hamas" and he was just crossing them out one by one.

"NEXT!"

It was fantastic.

The absolute mind-vacuuming stupidity of Olmert is that instead of doing ANYTHING that actually targeted the culprits --leaders of the involved terrorist organizations-- he acted like he was accomplishing something by destroying civilian infrastructure!!! And the dumbass not only does that in Gaza, a place which is already a hellhole, but he goes and does it to Lebanon, a country whose growth and stability is in the interest of every right-thinking person on the damn planet.

Sharon would not have made spazzing out a f___ing plank of policy.

He would have done what was needed and not been a moron.

Oh, and I assume he would have gotten a solid peace agreement on the West Bank and we know he had the cojones to deal with the settlers. (After all, he put a bunch of them there in the first place. Nixon to China and all that.)
 
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