By Stan Goodenough
Jan 19, 2006
Something interesting occurred in the Middle East around 3000 years ago, and is recorded in the 10th chapter of the second book of Chronicles:
Rehoboam had succeeded his father Solomon to the throne and was wildly popular with the majority of the people of Israel. When they came to crown him, his subjects asked him to ease the heavy burden of service put on them by his father. Rehoboam?s older and wiser counselors advised him to be kind and good to the people. ?If you are, they will be your servants forever,? they said.
Younger advisors however gainsaid the older, telling the king: "...thus you shall say to them: 'My little finger shall be thicker than my father's waist! ? my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!'" (verses 10,11)
The writer tells us that Rehoboam chose not to have compassion on his people because ?the turn of events was from God, that the LORD might fulfill His word?? (15)
When his people saw his lack of compassion they separated themselves from the tribe of Judah saying: "What share have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to your tents, O Israel! Now see to your own house, O David!?
Thus did civil strife break out in Israel, and the 10 tribes break away to form the northern kingdom.
Turning to today:
He is supposed to be ?acting prime minister,? a caretaker whose job it is to simply keep the governing system in Israel ticking over until the general election on March 28, when voters go to the polls to elect the prime minister they actually want to lead the country in the years ahead.
But instead of minding the shop following Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s collapse two weeks ago, Ehud Olmert has already hung an ?under new management? sign in the window and set out to remodel it to his own design.
The polls tell him he is going to win and win big, and he appears to be performing on the strength of those figures. Could it be he has decided there is little point in waiting until he is elected when, by the time voting day comes along, the policies that will help transform ?Sharon?s legacy? into ?Olmert?s bequest? can already be in the works, proving his own governing capability and so helping ensure a landslide victory?
It does look as if Olmert, who is relatively inexperienced in national leadership, has identified and seized the chance to institute his own political path by taking on the Jews in Samaria and Judea, many of whom live in those "occupied territories" in loyalty to their nation and to their God.
By setting his sights on Jewish Hebron ? that most uncompromising of ?settlements? ? and by vowing a harsh crackdown even as Prime Minister Sharon lies comatose in a Jerusalem hospital ? Olmert seemingly aims to outdo his incapacitated chief by sending an unequivocal message to the tens of thousands of other Israeli citizens living in the biblical and historic heartland of Samaria and Judea.
The acting prime minister says the settlers are behaving like hooligans and criminals and need to be brought to book.
The settlers say Olmert has declared war on them and wants to use the confrontation as part of his election campaign.
Questions put by observers of events in and around Hebron over the last few days beg to be answered:
Ariel Sharon turned against the settlers. Ehud Olmert is turning on them.
Why?