| Last April, she said, Ariel Sharon phoned her to praise an article she had written in the weekly Italian publication Panorama about the problem of European and Arab anti-Semitism. She said she answered the phone and said, "‘Hey, Sharon! How are you? Are you as fat?’ Because I know him. Sharon said, ‘Oriana, I called you to say, "Damn, you have guts; damn, you are courageous; damn, do I thank you."’ I said, ‘Ariel, you thank me—I apologize with you. I was too tough to you 20 years ago.’ And he was, as usual, a gentleman." The night before the phone call, there had been an attack on a kibbutz. "I said, ‘Listen, dear, I know what happened last night in that kibbutz. Will you please permit me to express to you and to your people my condolences?’ Sharon started crying. I don’t know, I didn’t see the tears. But the voice was of a crying man, and he started to shout: ‘Oriana! You are the only one who says the word condolences! Do you know, these bloody heads of states, I just spoke with the British and the Americans’—meaning Blair and Bush—‘they did not say that word to me.’ And then with broken voice he said, ‘Do you know who were the dead last night? One was the grandmother who was in Dachau and who still had the number on her arm. The second one was her daughter, who was seven months pregnant. And the third one was the child of the daughter, who was 5 years old. And they are all dead! All dead! All dead!’ He was crying." He told her he would be coming to America soon. "I said, ‘Ariel, we’ve got a problem: How do we see each other in New York without the journalists knowing it?’ So we have organized 007 story—beautiful. And the night before—do you remember what happened, the great massacre in Jerusalem? I remember that his assistant, this woman, she called me. I answered the phone and she said, ‘We’re leaving, we must go back, we don’t come to New York, do you know what has happened?’ I said, ‘I know, I heard it, tell the Prime Minister I shall come to Jerusalem.’ I never went. I couldn’t."
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Damn, I admire her!