Sharon grave ..... somber music on national radio

[Botany]

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/01/05/ap2431090.html

Associated Press
Update 66: Israeli Leader Sharon Fights for His Life
By RAVI NESSMAN , 01.05.2006, 05:12 PM

"Doctors said Thursday that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be kept in a coma-like state for
up to three days to prevent further damage from a massive stroke. His sons held a bedside vigil
and state media broadcast mournful songs."

[...of J.Temperance]

1. It doesn't sound good...sometimes we must put political differences to

One side and so I wish Ariel Sharon a peaceful journey into the next life and I hope that his soul rests in peace.

I'm human and that's what I hope for Mr. Sharon.

[Botany]

2. Although I disagreed w/ Mr. Sharon's actions .....

..... I hope that he and his family find peace and that Israel & the Palestinians can
find peace as well ..... we are all God's children. i wonder where it all went so wrong?

[...of J.Temperance]

3. That was nice Botany

And yes I wonder that too.

[Cults4Bush]

22. Yep and I said the same for Arafat, I hope they wind up in the same place

so they can finally figure out their differences without suicide bombers and f-16s.

[Tom Joad]

4. I am praying for the Palestinian children who are hospitalized

because of the work of this very old and fat man

The Children who are in rehabilitation, the ones who cannot walk, who cannot see, because of Sharon's brutality and the orders he gives the troops. I am thinking of the families who have been made homeless because Sharon decided their homes should be demolished.

[Botany]

5. Me too

but please don't get this thread locked ..... i too found Sharon's actions awful .....
but now is time to move on.

[Tom Joad]

6. Are we going to have a prayer session for Pinochet, too?

If so, i would want, first and foremost, to remember his victims.

[pretzel4gore]

7. don't forget tom, sharon was a boy during the 2nd world war

born in 1928 i believe; sharon's entire personality was formed by the holocaust, i imagine; if anyone is to be held to a standard, it's the rightwing punks who think 'holocausts' are a good idea...pinochet of course is just an old nasty fool who murdered for the hell of it

[Tom Joad]

My main point is not to whitewash his behavior or current crimes.

I know criminality is formed by violence, and i abhor the violence that created Sharon's personality of brutality towards Palestinians, which continued until the very end --this was a man who did not merely commit crimes in the past... but was actively pursuing policies of dispossession of the Palestinian people until the very last day.

I regret that he did not live long enough for an international court to take his childhood trauma into consideration before sentence was announced.

[madokie]

20. Me too

[pretzel4gore]

21. wait a sec....i betcha sharon would have loved to have concluded a peace

treaty with the palestinians, if that could have been engineered...you make it sound as if sharon hated the arabs and schemed to dispossess them or something (which was exactly what happened to the Jewish people on too many occasions, which thus would have made sharon a goof, which he certainly wasn't) It's likelier that Sharon, like Begin and Shamir etc, thought that until the Palestinians themselves, in force backed by popular sentiment, abandoned the idea of eliminating Israel from the mid east equation, and regardless of how Israel came to be in the first place, or the nasty things israel has done to the arabs (sometimes, apparently, just to provoke the young arab firebrands etc) and found within themselves whatever it takes to agree to live in peace with her, then israel could and would do likewise, but you can see the problem! sharon certainly saw that the very ruthlessness that israel employed to fight the palestinians was itself seen as evidence that israel itself was just an 'oven state' no different from nazi germany and so on....yet he thought it was necessary (some of us at DU including yours truly, sometimes forget that Israel is literally fighting for its life; if she loses one battle, there isn't any going back... and talks of using nuke weapons on her nearest neighbors, ie the 'Samson' option, is plain silly) the fact is a peace treaty will have to be imposed upon the israelis/palestinians, by a world community which isn't at the same time in a hundred plus different ways covertly exploiting the tragic situation for some imagined localised benefit, which bring us back to where we are now.....nowhere

[Tom Joad]

23. It is Palestinians who are, and long have been, fighting for their

survival.
700,000 made refugees in 1948, many, many more since. They are the ones who have, quite literally, been pushed out into the sea.

[question everything]

24. And there were about 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries

The difference is - the Jewish refugees were absorbed in the new, struggling state of Israel and became contributing citizens, while the Palestinian refugees were kept in refugee camps, with most Arab countries refusing to even grant them citizenship so that they could join their societies. Later, of course, the "Palestinian problem" has been a convenient distraction to absolute rulers - from the right and the left - from the problems and injustice in their own countries.

And Sharon at least realized that one nation cannot rule another and was working on, if not peace, at least a peaceful co-existence. Right now any peace process or negotiations have been shoved back months, perhaps years.

In contrast to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and many in Israel, Sharon was never guided by any religious message. He never claimed to get his instructions from god. Rather a pragmatist who did what he did to guard the security of Israel.

[dennis4868]

10. why only the palestinian children??

what about the jewish children who are hospitalized because of palestinian leadership?

[Tom Joad]

11. True, Jewish children also suffer the pain of the unjust occupation.

See this link.
http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/

The soldiers who are sent to kill and brutalize and die for nothing.
http://www.yeshgvul.org.il/english/

All these people are in my thoughts.

[...of J.Temperance]

13. Tom Joad...can we just give it a rest for ONE night okay?

I'm sorry, yes I agree that I often think of the Palestinians and I've never agreed with what the Israeli's have been doing to the Palestinian's...but c'mon Mr. Joad, let's just for one night try and be peaceful and respectful about someone's impending death.

And no, I won't have a "Prayer Vigil" for Augusto Pinochet, to respond to your other comments.

[donheld]

27. Palestinian children, Israeli children. All the children of the world.

Bless the beasts and the children
For in this world they have no voice
They have no choice

Bless the beasts and the children
For the world can never be
The world they see

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them
Give them love
Let it shine all around them

Bless the beasts and the children
Give them shelter from a storm
Keep them safe
Keep them warm

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them
Give them love
Let it shine all around them

Bless the beasts and the children
Give them shelter from a storm
Keep them safe
Keep them warm

The children
The children

[Shakespeare]

8. oooh, that's very USSR of them. n/t

[Botany]

9. It is isn't it.

:bounce:

[DemGirl7]

12. Though I don't like his actions, I do feel sorry for him

I'm not going to wish death on him, I hope for the best for his family. And I find it sickning that there are people on this message board that have to respond with nasty responses to this post. I don't like the actions he has taken in the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict just like you, but when you wish death on people you are no better than people like Pat Robertson and his ilk. So let's just put politics aside for the moment.

[Botany]

14. Thanx DemGirl

I too feel that many of his actions were awful and contributed to the hatred in the Mid East.

But i just thought (hoped) that with his passing we all might try to make a fresh start and work
on a peaceful future because we can do nothing about the past.

[...of J.Temperance]

16. Botany we will do that, because there are always going to be

People like us here :)

[DemGirl7]

18. Well it's the classy thing to do

Heck, if the Palestian Prime Minister Abbas, can put his diffences with Sharon, and politics aside and send his condolences to Sharon's family, which I heard he has, anyone can. Because its the classy thing to do. I do too hope that this might mark a fresh start in achieving some sort of peace in the region.

[Behind the Aegis]

25. Thank you!

I have found some the posts here no different than I would see at the "bad" sites had this been a popular "progressive" in dire medical needs. Seems a few don't know anything about Sharon, other than they are supposed to "hate" him.

Thank you for your post!

[Jacobin]

15. Why isn't smirky Shiavoing Sharon?

I mean, they're gonna take him off life support.

[Behind the Aegis]

26. If your going to mock something, get it right.

There is no such think as "Shiavoing." It is called "sitting Shiva." Also, it doesn't happen until after the person is buried, which means he has to be dead first. Furthermore, sitting Shiva is, generally, reserved for immediate family.

[bemildred]

17. He's dead, they don't want to spring it on us all at once.

There may be some jockeying behind the scenes about who gets to be the big-shot next, and in any case he can't just be allowed to die like us ordinary peons would.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

19. While I don't care for the man's politics, my sympathies to those

who were close to the man.