Israel: In limbo

Six days after Ariel Sharon suffered a potentially fatal stroke Israel -- as a people and a polity -- hovers in a state of limbo. On Monday doctors said they would try to arouse the stricken Israeli leader from the coma induced on his arrival at Jerusalem's Hadassa Hospital on 5 January. The "awakening" could take up to eight hours. Only then is it possible to assess "how the prime minister's brain is functioning" and the extent of its impairment.

Over the weekend the cautious consensus was that while Sharon's chances of survival had improved the likelihood of his return to any kind of political life had not. "He will not continue to be prime minister, but maybe he will be able to understand and speak," neurosurgeon Jose Cohen told Israel's The Jerusalem Post newspaper on Sunday. Other medics said such a diagnosis was "optimistic" and there were no guarantees Sharon would ever regain consciousness.

The same uncertainty characterised the government. "We are hoping and wishing that the prime minister will recover, strengthen and return to preside over the Israeli government and lead the state," acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet on Sunday. However, "if I could talk to him today, I am sure Arik [Sharon] would tell me: 'thanks for your wishes but you must work to safeguard the safety and economy of Israel, and that is what we will do". In other words: business as usual.

But business is anything but usual in Israel today. This is not simply because of the enormous influence Sharon had on all spheres of Israeli politics, and never more so than at his fall. It is also because of the extreme fragility of the new dispensation he has bequeathed Israel 78 days before the 28 March general elections.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/777/fr2.htm