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| Ariel Sharon 1928 - 2014 |
He formed his own political party and it looked like he was on the verge of doing something incredible when he was struck down by a stroke. The last image I have was a murky picture of him sitting in the back of the ambulance taking him to the hospital immediately after the stroke. There are strong indications that he planned to withdraw from the more vicious areas all along the West Bank and leave the Palestinians to form their own state unilaterally from all that Israsel was willing to give. It would have been fascinating to see Palestinian Statehood played out amidst the intransigent and internecine feuding arabs who almost personify the phrases, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or, too stupid to stoop to conquer.
He was the last of the uncompromisable founders of the State who could tack into whatever breeze blew over the land of Israel and take the country down a new course without a soul to step into the street and question his motives or integrity. Yes, yes, we know. They poured into the street nonetheless, but we must always keep in mind that fully half the people are stupider than the other half.
I would provide links but he was a nuanced man and the institutions that write about men like this have agendas and a bias that I detest.
4 comments:
Sharon was a great man, indeed.
Yes, toward the end he was being uniformly portrayed as an evil, bullying buffoon by the all usual suspects..
"all the"
I was really looking forward to what he planned to do next. A man like Sharon does not start a process without a very solid idea where he wants to end up. Giving up the Gaza strip was just the beginning. Can you imagine what would have happened if he said screw the diplomats, the US, the UN and just gave back every scrap of land that Israel was not already going to keep anyway for its own defense? "Here you assholes, take this and do with it what you want. Our borders are sealed to you but you go ahead do whatever it is a sovereign power does and if you persist in attacking us we'll attack you back as one country does to another that attacks it."
I wanted to see that.
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