November 26, 2005
FROM UNDOABLE TO DONE IN JUST FOUR YEARS:
Prime minister plans to draw 'the final shape of Israel' (Harry de Quetteville, 27/11/2005, Daily Telegraph)
Sixty years after the state of Israel was created, Ariel Sharon is effectively drawing its final borders, say his advisers, diplomats, friends … and the cartographers.They believe that Mr Sharon, who as a general played a leading role in the expansion of Israel's borders in successive wars since 1948, is now - as a politician - determined to set the country's hitherto elastic frontiers in stone.
What is more, judging by his track record and the way public opinion is shifting, there is a real chance that he may succeed.
Remember way back when when the unilaterally-imposed-state solution was new and radical?
MORE:
How Reality Cut Likud's Vision Down to Size (STEVEN ERLANGER, 11/27/05, NY Times)
EYAL ARAD joined Likud 30 years ago, at the age of 17.Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2005 8:39 PM"We had a dream - Jewish sovereignty in the biblical Land of Israel, on both banks of the Jordan River, and Palestinians could have self-rule and not independence," he said. "I believe it was a beautiful and just dream, but it crashed against the walls of reality."
There were many such walls, not least of them a rapidly growing Arab population, a falling rate of Jewish immigration and the Palestinian demand for a sovereign state. The experience was painful, said Mr. Arad, now an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "But we're grown-ups, and we had to wake up from the dream," he said.
Mr Sharon, who as a general played a leading role in the expansion of Israel's borders in successive wars since 1948...
Let us not forget a central fact that Harry de Quetteville does not at all make clear: Those "successive wars since 1948" were DEFENSIVE conflicts, not wars of aggression.
It's just that the combined Arab armies attacking Israel were so poorly commanded, with such incompetent troops, that Israel was many times able to seize and keep territory formerly claimed by the aggressing nations.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 26, 2005 9:03 PM
Except for the invasion of Lebanon, and even then it was provoked by cross-border violence against Israelis that the Lebanese gov't could or would not prevent.
The USA did much the same against Mexico, and for the same reasons, in 1914, 1916, 1918, and 1919.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 26, 2005 11:26 PM
At 77, Mr. Sharon should retire. There's too much history behind him and others of his generation. The same people have been working and re-working the same tired ideas decade after decade. Sharon is to be commended for a hero and a statesman, but enough already. Time to leave the world stage gracefully and retire to play with his grandchildren and watch the sun rise and set over the desert sands.
My little four year old granddaughter explained it very well when she told me that it is because her eyes are new that she can see something I can't.
Let the next generation in Israel and the rest of the Middle East look for solutions with their new eyes before their eyes too get dim with age.