War Drums or Drumming for Peace?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced this week that Former General and well known hard line right wing Likud Member Ariel Sharon is to take over the Foreign Minister slot in his Cabinet.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has held both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister positions since David Levy left the coalition government over a dispute with Netanyahu and this has led to two opposing views on the significance of this decision. One view holds that the Israeli government is now in a better position to pull off a deal since Sharon's right wing clout could assist and bolster Netanyahu in making a deal with or without support of the vocal extreme right wing minority. The alternative view finds that this is just another attempt of the Netanyahu government to avoid settling with the Palestinian Authority and continuing the impasse.

Sharon is definitely a controversial choice for this important position due to the sensitive nature of the peace process and the long standing impasse that has dogged the Netanyahu government. He was the General who led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that has led to an ongoing large scale military expenditure and involvement in Lebanon that has sapped the Israeli Defense Forces of its professionalism - many troops stationed there are quite relieved to be transferred to other posts, including those on the West Bank, and the garrison duty there is considered the most strenuous in the military. The low intensity conflict in Southern Lebanon continues to take the lives of Israeli soldiers, Lebanese citizens and militiamen aligned to both Israel and their opponents.

In other news, the Iranians and Afghanistanigovernments have been continuing border skirmishes. The Iranian military has launched a series of raids against the Taliban forces that control most of Afghanistan and the tensions arise partially out of the fact that the Taliban are Sunni Moslems and Iranians are Shi'ite Moslems. Meanwhile, Turkey and Syria are locked in a dispute over Kurdish rebels crossing into the Turkish border and Turkey launching raids against Kurdish bases along their common border. Both Egypt and Iran have offered to mediate in this dispute which has gotten much worse since the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

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