You have to read Sharon's speech (Haaretz Opinion)

[Fight_n_back]

You have to read Sharon's speech
By Nehemia Strasler

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/614016.html

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In his dry and declamatory way, Ariel Sharon turned the Israeli reality on its head this week.

In the speech that he delivered to the nation, he did not apologize to the settlers (the truth is that they should be apologizing to the citizens of Israel, who were forced to pay - monetarily and in human terms - for the expensive adventure in Gaza). He spoke words of truth that no prime minister before him ever dared to say.
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In the same speech, Sharon expressed compassion for the other side: "They are crowded into especially densely populated refugee camps, in poverty and suffering, in hothouses of increasingly rising hatred, without any horizon of hope."

These, too, are new words, which essentially place responsibility for the suffering and high unemployment that have developed in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli occupation. Not only did we not invest there, not only did we not build or develop, but we exploited them as a cheap labor force, we sold them our `Grade B' and `freshness date expired,' and we did not enable them to build up an industry that might have competed with its Israeli counterpart, heaven forbid. In Gush Katif, 7,500 people gained control over 20 percent of the land in Gaza, and over more than 20 percent of the water. If that is not cruel colonialism, then what is?
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Sharon's speech indicates that he has very belatedly reached the obvious conclusion that the immense gap between the villas and the tin shacks would end with a huge explosion, a bloodbath, and this is what he wishes to prevent. He understood that life "without any horizon of hope" is a proven prescription for turning human beings into walking bombs.
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[jody]

1. Is Sharon's mea culpa enough? n/t

[Fight_n_back]

2. Enough for what?

Enough for you to ask him on a date? or enough to see that quite possibly the middle in Israel has moved extremely far left so that even an old warrior like Sharon can see the end of the occupation as inevitable?

[jody]

3. Enough for his role in the unrest. Sharon is not guiltless. n/t

[Fight_n_back]

4. Here is the thing

Life is this nutty thing that keeps on moving no matter what you do. Even if you try and stop time things around you keep moving. Some people never notice that there is movement, some people notice too late, some people see ahead and go to where the movement goes, some people lead the change.