Posted on 01/06/2006 6:59:20 AM PST by Lunatic Fringe
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the most powerful Israeli leader in 50 years, has died. He was 77.
Sharon was declared dead by physicians at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital before 1 p.m. Israeli time [6 a.m. EST], Middle East Newsline reported. Authorities have already been notified of the death, and a government announcement was expected to be issued over the next hour.
Be well.
You are wrong. Many if not most Palestinians would love to just live in peace. However, their leadership and their Arab bretheren use them as a political tool to attack Israel and many young, indoctrinated, uneducated Palestinians living in poverty make excellent cannon fodder and suicide bomber candidates.
If you are Palestinian you dare not say anything nice about Israel or Israelis. You had better not stay from the anti-Israel rhetoric. To do so is to be labeled a collaborator or merely "too friendly to the Israelis", both of which can leave you and your family very dead.
Prayers for PM Sharon and the Israeli nation.
He aint dead Jim
Take care!
By removing the settlements he saved more Israeli lives as it was impossible to provide security to the settlements while they were surrounded by hostile palestinians.....I know there are no non hostile palestinians...but you must understand his predicament.
The goal was to save lives, not appease the hard right.
Your hindsight into a matter about which you know nothing is rather amazing.
Anyone even suspected of cooperating with the Israeli's is summarily hung in the town square.
I knew it. He was resurrected again.
I regard Ronald Reagan as the greatest leader of our era but sometimes disagreed with him (although quite rarely). Reagan's passing also deserved respectful attention to his accomplishments even from those who opposed him in life.
I consider me to be "hard right" but I will tell you that I am satisfied that an Israeli leader who does his job of leading, protecting and preserving his nation and his people and competently fighting his and their enemies when necessary has satisfied this hard rightwinger. He had to do what he thought was necessary. I will not presume to make those decisions for a man of Sharon's personal history. I don't presume to understand his dilemma. I don't have to. I trusted Sharon without necessarily agreeing with each act or omission. I rerspect him without reservation.
Finally, I disagree with you on one thing. There are SOME non-hostile palestinians. They are hard to see because they are killed by other palestinians when they become visible.
Do you have any evidence of this?
Several years ago, a couple of Israeli soldiers got lost and ended up in an Arab town. They were arrested and brought to the police station. A large crowd of Arabs went into the police station and stomped them to death. When one of the wives of the soldiers called her husband on his cell, one of the Arabs answered and said, "I just killed your husband".
This is just one example which contradicts your assertion. Can you provide any that support it?
While I'm supportive of a unilateral engagement, though not thrilled with aspect of the Gaza withdrawl, it's worth noting that I don't get to vote in Israel. Among those who do, every one of the many polls I've seen indicated the country was split evenly on this action, with a slight majority favoring it. In a parlimentary system like Israel's, were there overwhelming opposition, the govenment would have fallen. Characterizing Sharon as a loose cannon acting against the will of the people just isn't accurate, whether one agrees with his positions or not.
Reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated.
This thread should be pulled due to the title alone.
Of course I can.
My cousin and his family live in Alfe Menashe. If you don't know Israel that is in Samaria very near Kfar Saba where the 1967 borders made Israel very narrow indeed. It is also very near Qalqilya. My cousin was once administrator of Alfe Menashe and he became very good friends with the muchtar of the neighboring Arab village. The two families used to get together for both Jewish and Muslim holidays. They used to shop together in the Arab market in Qalqilya. There were really no problems.
When the first intifada broke out the muchtar and much of his family were murdered for being "too friendly" to the Israelis. A fence went up around Alfe Menashe.
I visited in 1996 (the visit where I decided to make aliya, BTW) and spent Shabbat with my cousin and his family. We took a long walk on a beautiful fall afternoon. On the wast side of the town you can see from Haifa in the north all the way to Ashdod in the south on a clear day.
On the other side of town we walked up to the fence and saw Palestinians working in the field below. My cousin, a strong, able man in his 50s was practically in tears. He started naming the people below. He said that was the muchtar's family, what was left of it anyway. He added that they are people just like us. All they want is to live in peace. This was from a settler, an Orthodox Jew, not a secular liberal in Haifa.
His experiences, my experiences, those of many Israelis I know who have good Palestinian friends who have no desire to kill us tell me my view is the correct one.
That does not mean there aren't many Palestinians who wish us dead. Of course there are. Their leadership clearly does. Of course, their leaders' entire raison d'etre is the conflict. What I am saying is that to say "all" Palestinians or even "most" Palestinians wish us dead and Israel destroyed is false. Far too many do, of course.
Excellent article, excellent story. Many Palestinians do know where their suffering and grief comes from, and they do know that it is not Israel. What they lack is sufficient numbers who feel that way and have the courage to do something about it.
The road map just went into the ditch.
Things are going to be very complicated in the ME in the next year.
Amen. Free Republic has been invaded by vultures. Very disappointing...
This was the only place that I thought was an alternative to the lamestream media/leftist propagandists, etc. Was...
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