Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 25, 1983, Winnipeg, Manitoba Sharon still holds israelis loyalties by Michael Precker Dallas morning news six months after he was forced out As defence Ariel Sharon has few friends in the israeli a government position with virtually no responsibility and Little influence on the course of the War that he helped to but on the streets of Sharon Charisma still enough of his admirers remain undeterred by events of the last year to make the controversial former Gener Al a major Force in the ruling liked party in All a future candidate for prime Sharon has been demonstrating his clout at a series of rallies for liked candidates in municipal elections scheduled for in working class port City of Abi but 25 Miles South of Tel about 400 party faithful cheered wednesday night at the moment Sharon entered the other recent appearances by Sharon have drawn thousands theres no doubt that Arik Sharon nickname is one of the most important leaders in said Yosef Likus candidate for mayor of he was in the he is now and he will be in the fun Vitans assessment of Sharon fun is not shared by Many including leading Fig ures in the government and the Mili were greatly relieved when Sharon resigned in disgrace As de Fence minister in the commission that investigated the september massacre in Beirut of hundreds of palestinians held Sharon accountable and demanded his oust and Sharon bitter struggle to keep his Job caused a Public As the War in Lebanon grew More costly and Many israelis blamed Sharon for Embr oiling Israel in a futile and unnecessary although Sharon remains in the Cabinet As minister without he has no official is estranged from Many fellow and often skips Cabinet unhappy with his loss of Sharon rarely goes to his Jerusalem he spends much time at his farm in the Negev at the Ashdod Sharon joked that he came to lend a hand to the not because 1 have nothing to i was working in my concern in some quarters that Sharon would continue to have consid Erable influence in defence policies has proven defence min ister Moshe Arens quietly has re placed the ministry top Echelon with his own team and has charted an Independent in Arens won Cabinet approval for the withdrawal agreement with Sharon his later Public criticism of the Accord angered Many sources close to Sharon said he had considered resigning during the sum but decided to remain in the Cabinet to exercise what influence he does have and to deny his rivals the satisfaction of seeing him prime minister Menachem begin reportedly has been unhappy with some of Sharon actions and has been near a total split with his former defence minister on several Occa Sharon has accumulated Many political and his prospects in the ongoing liked party Battle Over who will be begins successor have declined yet throughout Sharon Stormy Ca reer in the army and in each prediction that lie was that he had finally gone too proved to be Ive seen too Many people rejoicing at Ariks departure said Uri a Veteran israeli journalist who served As Sharon defence ministry i was always amused to see their faces when he came Well see it for those who rejected him As Mili tary chief of staff had him As defence Dan and those who rejected him As defence minister will have him As prime in due time and through the democratic pro he is a Man of a Public opinion Survey conducted in april indicated that half of All israelis believed the massacre inquiry commissions judgment of Sharon was too in a Survey of liked voters showed Sharon leading his party rivals As the Choice for begins Sharon garnered 34 per cent support in the Independent 8 per cent More than in his hour Long speech at Sharon stressed several he spoke of liked achieve ments in signing a peace treaty with of destroying Iraq nuclear of expanding jewish Settle ment in the occupied West Bank and Sharon fall from Power has not affected his of uprooting the Palestine liberation organization from Beirut and South Ern he complained that Many people seem to have forgotten the terrorist threat to Israel and that Beirut served As an International Centre of terror but there was Little men Tion of the involvement in the War that has become known As his disputes with other ministers and fea7s that Israel is mired in the lebanese quagmire nor did Sharon discuss the commis Sion that forced his in a recent television Sharon bitterly declared that lie was the Only defence minis Ter in modern times who left his Job because christians killed at another election Sharon told an enthusiastic crowd that the com missions verdict will be revised by democratic at the Sharon had angry words for the labor party and other government he attempt to Blacken this causes great not to the government but to the state of Israel and the it will take years to Over of the press and which he blames for his Sharon said sometimes they Call me the Only thing acting with brutality is the its strange How such a Small group of maybe 50 people succeed in spreading such such destruct it is a dictatorship of the intellectuals abandon French socialists by William Pfaff special to the free press Paris compulsive summer read ing for Frances political class has been a newspaper debate Over Why the country intellectuals have abandoned the socialist the govern ment itself launched the us official Max in private life a wrote in be Monde that Frances intellectuals have lost their sense of political com they Are no longer Hommes As were the Gides and Malraux at the time of the popular he blamed this on the disillusionment of intellectuals with marxism in the and on the failure of the student rebellion of to prod uce much of lasting he As that it has become fashionable to be on the he said that it was time for intellectuals again to take a hand in Public affairs in support of the because it is not perhaps too much to say that the Success of the left and the destiny of France itself depends in great measure on the movement of the response to this must have Poi soned the holidays of president fran Cois Mitterrand and his instead of Gallos Arti Cle evoked a series of attacks upon the socialist communist government As intellectuals explained Why they indeed did not support or preferred at Best to keep their distance from there was also a cruel account in be Monde of just How hard the socialists have tried to recruit major intellectuals to government How strikingly they have and How bitterly disappointed they the key Case was that of Michel the philos Well known in Canada and the United who was with out to become cultural counsellor in the French embassy in Wash other figures with world including the historian Emmanuel Leroy Laurie and the distinguished political Raymond have from the Start been critics of the socialist those intellectuals who accepted government posts were mostly from the second Regis the writer and some time latin american who is a counsellor to president Mit and Jack a Man of the now minister of have been the governments most publicized intellectual members other than Mitterrand neither carried much weight in intellectual circles be fore coming to the government has turned to scientists to find inviting them to its dinners and naming them to its committees and cultural missions together with people from the theatre and i he and what Bray himself Calls the Basso literally the Low intelligentsia of and who in fact make up the real base of the socialist a principal reason the socialists have sacrificed the wide sympathy they enjoyed before coming to Power is their governmental coalition with the but they have also lost because of what one of their critics in the current debate a critic on the left ferociously Calls the same myths the same icons the sacrifice of the Economy to an ideology from beyond the grave and then this Cron the socialists naming of their pals to committees and commis Sions pedagogues of every who denounce Only the privileges they dont yet the things being said against the socialists in this affair which goes on offer Little that is the criticisms reveal How Distant the socialist party is from the serious intellectual life of the and How inadequate its intellectual preparation for Power really but they also show How Little the intellectuals themselves seem to be Able to contribute to the policy de in Gallo can find his justification and his part of the explanation for this undoubtedly lies in the fact that so Many overriding prob lems of the present Day Are economic in and intellectuals certainly As these Are identified in France Are infrequently interested in economics or competent to Deal with economic ques another contributor to the debate quoted Sain just that nobody governs this truth has contributed to the political disengagement of Many their turn to the private and the following the col lapse of the utopian political thought of the still another wrote that socialism and culture Are metaphysically contradictory and historically irreconcilable because the egalitarianism of the former will not tolerate the except but that could just As Well be said against democracy and has Gallo has brought out something that is not peculiarly a French prob but is most evident in where the role of the intelligentsia in political and on the has been so the issues that dominate society today do not really fit into the established formulas of political and social policy for that of yet Little of substance is offered in place of those old Papandreou takes Greece closer to West by Marvine Howe new York times Athens prime minister Andreas Papandreou a socialist which took office in october is approaching midterm with a reputation of Independence but with a record of having renewed Greece traditional ties with the the socialists have not put into effect the pledges they made during the election Campaign to close Down the american military bases in Greece and withdraw from the North Atlantic treaty organization and the european economic the Papandreou government recently concluded a five year agree ment with the United states for continuation of the bases in it has assumed the presidency of the common Market for a six month term and obtained vital economic Aid from the it has established almost Normal working relations with nato and has even begun to talk to the nations chief the mainly on cultural and Trade sex at the same Papandreou has urged Western Europe to take a Strong stand against involvement in Central and he has backed the idea of a freeze in nuclear there has apparently been some Ero Sion of the socialists particularly among members of the Radi Cal especially the whose leaders have accused the government of abandoning its program of change and remaining in the West Ern a series of strikes has also indicated growing Public impatience with what is viewed As the governments failure to come to grips with the serious prob lems of unemployment and unemployment stands at 10 per cent and is and inflation is now running at an annual rate of 21 per in the latest about 70 per cent of the nations Bakers shut Down for Long summer holidays during the month of August in a protest Oyer government control of bread apparently in response to such Dis prime minister Papandreou said recently that the government would concentrate on the Economy now that the negotiations Over the bases were out of the despite a majority of greeks still seem to like the Papandreou blend of socialist nationalism and pragmatic Accord ing to Western Papandreou the panhellenic socialist has a comfortable margin in and the main opposition the conservative new whose leaders Are at appears to be in no position to present an alternative to the according to the diplomats and opposition the main Challenge has come from the communist with its ability to organize protest demonstrations against the government through the Large measure of control it exercises in labor Papandreou hard bargaining with Greece allies May have produced some positive results but it has also fostered a climate of particularly in conservative business Cir As to where the country is according to greek and foreign businessmen and the Western doubts were reinforced by official talk about the econ already in difficulty because of the world economic has suffered 4 Ftp August f my Davis ignores patronage question Eric Dowd in Ontario Toronto William who keeps an Alert ear to the ground to ensure his own continued political cart be very deaf when he wants to consider the Case of Albert the Liberal opposition member of the legis lature for Ottawa East and his tabling almost a year ago of a question asking which candidates for the progressive conservative Defeated in elections during Daviss years As Premier since have been recompensed with Public posts by the Davis govern roys curiosity had been aroused particularly by the Case of Morley who ran unsuccessfully for the conservatives in Kitchener in 1981 and was later appointed by Davis to a Job on the Ontario municipal and who i discreetly wrote a which became stating that Davis and other prominent tories had promised him a Post if he Davis said Rosenberg must have been an explanation which is possibly believed by the premiers wife and even his Roy was also intrigued by the fact that the candidate the conservatives put up against him in Ottawa East in Omer who had Given up the chairmanship of the Council for franc ontarian affairs to was quickly afterwards made Ontario agent general in Brussels at an annual salary and expenses of about far More than he would have made As an no enthusiasm the government showed no enthusiasm for answering the maps ques it kept saying the information would take some digging Roy persisted and in May he got an answer the names of All government appointees Are a matter of Public but identifying who among them was a Defeated conservative candidate would take time and Effort that would not be commensurate with the benefits to be derived it would in fact have taken very Little time and Effort for the which has All the lists of its appointees to ministries and boards and commis to run Over them match them with a list of Defeated pc Candi it preferred not to do so because the numbers of appointees to boards particularly would have been a Little embarrassing to the conservative a party in Power obviously is going to appoint some of its own including Defeated to posts on boards some of which Are Lucra Tive to see that its own political Philo sophies Are As a or to keep them in the Public Eye for another some Are also going to be but there Are dangers in appointing too political affiliation May be come the main criterion and people get appointed primarily because they Long to the government party and not on might Back away supporters of the government party on boards and commissions May see their main responsibility As being to the in cases where the govern ment should be for they May tend to Back away to the detriment of promoting Good Public there is also a danger a government particularly one As comfortably entrenched As the Ontario conserva by offering jobs to entice people to give itself an unfair advantage Over opposition it is difficult to believe this advantage was not used in the cases of who switched from the new democratic party and whose let Ter said clearly the tories promised him a Job if he ran and and who presumably would not have Given up his chairmanship to run against Roy in a Riding where the Liberal normally has a vote winning unless the tories gave him some Assurance he would not wind up collecting unemployment in what is particularly noteworthy is that the conservative strategy of not naming All the Defeated candidates it has Given jobs worked to a Large de if it had disgorged a huge list of it would probably have been in every newspaper in the province and embarrassed the government a but most papers noted Only the governments refusal to give Only two or three bothered to go through the onerous task of getting lists themselves and checking and finding that Davis so far has Given some Type of government Post to about on third of the people who ran for him in elections and sometimes it pays the govern ment not to have information at its i one israeli journalist called such remarks ominous and reported that even party leaders were sur prised by the enthusiastic response generated by the Jerusalem Post quoted Sharon opponents in the party As saying they were giving him enough rope to hang in the opposite was As the evening wore the crowd sat quietly but erupted in a standing ova Tion when Sharon from the stage to the chauffeur driven Volvo waiting Sharon was engulfed by i Hope youre elected prime minis one Young Man told Sharon ear Nestly As they Shook As Sharon smiled and moved another Man said there goes the next prime Francois Mitterrand where Are the new innovators we still live off ideas from the 18th and 19th and in those of the Early the major intellectual figures today Are literary philosophers and Public affairs Are left to second William Pfaffs a freelance journalist based in from the uncertainty this created among although the government has not implemented a policy of nationalization and has gone out of its Way to encourage private invest ment has remained under the rotation sys Greece took Over the presidency of the european economic Community on july and it has made every Effort to project an image of competence and last Greece pledged full sup port to Portugal in its efforts to gain admission into the common who will preside Over a meeting of the markets Heads of government Here in had assured his socialist prime minister Mario scares of that Greece would do everything pos sible to Speed up the Long and difficult process for Lisbon i ;