Ariel Sharon is Fighting for His Life
I've been thinking of this entry all day but now I don't know what to say. Whatever comes out..
My prayers are with him. I never particularly loved him, but he is a strong leader who did important, monumental steps that no leader, not even Yitzchak Rabin, made before him. At this point it appears if he does survive it will probably only be as a vegetable. Therefore I pray for the miracle of his survival with sufficient consciousness to spend the rest of his days alert and with his family, (I do not even dream of such a ridiculous notion as a miraculous recovery and return to political life) or death. I pray to G-d he does not survive a vegetable. I would not wish that on my enemies and he is too great a man to end like that.
Israeli newspapers are good at tearjerkers. They've had experience: the bombings - particularly the more memorable ones; at a disco filled with teenagers, at a pizza parlor where 4 out of a family of 5 were wiped out, at a hotel with guests celebrating the Passover Seder - the complete heartbreak of the Disengagement Plan, lynches and particularly horrendous casualties in the territories such as the APC that was blown up, tossing human remains across a large radius resulting in lines of soldiers on their hands and knees, my friends, combing the sand with their fingers for any piece of human remain to be taken back for burial, as well as other inumerous violent upheavels we seem to be riddled with. I've just been tuning into the radio at base, the one television set on a base of a couple thousand soldiers is at an inconvenient distance away and only unlocked in the evening hours, plus I wasn't home for the weekend, so today was my first day reading the paper. I was surprised to find myself tearing up. They're talking about him like he's already dead. Politically, he's finished but I think its indecent to practically eulogize a man still fighting for his life.
One moment that made me proud: watching a CNN interview with Netanyahu. The interviewer kept trying to get Netanyahu to give political speculation: Kadima now weakened with the departure of Sharon from the political arena, the Likud (Netanyahu's party) the weakest of the now three major parties, succession and so forth - and Netanyahu flatly refused, repeatedly, to give any kind of political speculation. As he said, there is a time for politics, but it is not now when this great man, even if a political rival, is battling for his life. That is the soul concern of the country right now. The political future is important, and the time will come soon, but not now. The man deserves this much respect. Netanyahu is a snake and unreliable, but he knows what the Israeli public wants. It could be he was sincere, I don't know. Whether he was or he wasn't, I accept it as the representation of the current Israeli feeling. And it made me damn proud.
My prayers are with him. I never particularly loved him, but he is a strong leader who did important, monumental steps that no leader, not even Yitzchak Rabin, made before him. At this point it appears if he does survive it will probably only be as a vegetable. Therefore I pray for the miracle of his survival with sufficient consciousness to spend the rest of his days alert and with his family, (I do not even dream of such a ridiculous notion as a miraculous recovery and return to political life) or death. I pray to G-d he does not survive a vegetable. I would not wish that on my enemies and he is too great a man to end like that.
Israeli newspapers are good at tearjerkers. They've had experience: the bombings - particularly the more memorable ones; at a disco filled with teenagers, at a pizza parlor where 4 out of a family of 5 were wiped out, at a hotel with guests celebrating the Passover Seder - the complete heartbreak of the Disengagement Plan, lynches and particularly horrendous casualties in the territories such as the APC that was blown up, tossing human remains across a large radius resulting in lines of soldiers on their hands and knees, my friends, combing the sand with their fingers for any piece of human remain to be taken back for burial, as well as other inumerous violent upheavels we seem to be riddled with. I've just been tuning into the radio at base, the one television set on a base of a couple thousand soldiers is at an inconvenient distance away and only unlocked in the evening hours, plus I wasn't home for the weekend, so today was my first day reading the paper. I was surprised to find myself tearing up. They're talking about him like he's already dead. Politically, he's finished but I think its indecent to practically eulogize a man still fighting for his life.
One moment that made me proud: watching a CNN interview with Netanyahu. The interviewer kept trying to get Netanyahu to give political speculation: Kadima now weakened with the departure of Sharon from the political arena, the Likud (Netanyahu's party) the weakest of the now three major parties, succession and so forth - and Netanyahu flatly refused, repeatedly, to give any kind of political speculation. As he said, there is a time for politics, but it is not now when this great man, even if a political rival, is battling for his life. That is the soul concern of the country right now. The political future is important, and the time will come soon, but not now. The man deserves this much respect. Netanyahu is a snake and unreliable, but he knows what the Israeli public wants. It could be he was sincere, I don't know. Whether he was or he wasn't, I accept it as the representation of the current Israeli feeling. And it made me damn proud.