Sharon suffers massive brain hemmorhage

Cronus333

What does this mean?? the end of Kadima before it even begins? Netanyahu in power again <shudder>? What?

Maskhadov

he is a good example of what happens when you dont do your 30 minutes of exercise every day.

Zombrex

Bloody typical ... we finial get a Israeli leader with a bit of balls to take the country in a new direction with relation to Palestine and he goes and dies on us just as he is about to usher in a new era of Israeli politics

God this is worse than the irish football team throwing away a 2 goal lead to Latvia

MrPudding

Wicknight wrote:

Bloody typical ... we finial get a Israeli leader with a bit of balls to take the country in a new direction with relation to Palestine and he goes and dies on us just as he is about to usher in a new era of Israeli politics

God this is worse than the irish football team throwing away a 2 goal lead to Latvia

Who would his replacement be and how likely would he/she be to carry on the work?

But the real question is, did a bird fly into his house before the stroke? And if it did what does that mean?

MrP

Zombrex

MrPudding wrote:

But the real question is, did a bird fly into his house before the stroke? And if it did what does that mean?

Er .. umm ... sorry you .. er you want the other "Wicknight" .. yes .. I'm Wicknight Shabadoo .. distant relation ...

(few! got out of that one well .. wait, did i type that ... d'oh!)

MrPudding wrote:

Who would his replacement be and how likely would he/she be to carry on the work?

I don't really know much about his party except that is was only formed a few months ago. Does anyone know if Sharon has a mini-Sharon waiting in the background who could possibly continue what he started. Or was it all on his sholders?

flogen

Wicknight wrote:

I don't really know much about his party except that is was only formed a few months ago. Does anyone know if Sharon has a mini-Sharon waiting in the background who could possibly continue what he started. Or was it all on his sholders?

I think the appeal of his party rested heavily on Sharon himself, but Israeli politics are probably the most sensitive and volatile going so I don't know.

I think the Likud party is unlikely to win, Sharon probably has someone that isn't as popular as he is but who could still carry his campaign and win. It really is in the air at the moment

Eoin

flogen wrote:

I think the appeal of his party rested heavily on Sharon himself, but Israeli politics are probably the most sensitive and volatile going so I don't know.

I think the Likud party is unlikely to win, Sharon probably has someone that isn't as popular as he is but who could still carry his campaign and win. It really is in the air at the moment

Absolutely, from an article on RTE News, it looks like the party he was in was largely irrelevant.

Such is his popularity with the Israeli public that when he departed the right-wing Likud party, late last year, opinion polls immediately suggested his new centre-right party, Kidema, would easily win the elections planned for March.

Now Kidema is in complete disarray; it had not even drawn up a list of its candidates for the election.

Similarly, the party that Sharon jettisoned, Likud, has been severely weakened and the only other alternative - the left-wing Labour party - has only recently elected a new leader who is largely untested.

@Wicknight, he's not actually dead yet!

FatherTed

Right now his powers have shifted to the Deputy PM Ehud Olmert who followed Sharon to the new Kidema party. Who I would also guess would be his new successor as the head of that party.

Olmert profile: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/05/olmert.profile.ap/index.html

Hobbes

You have to laugh at the US media.. According to Pat Robinson God is punishing him. You can't make this stuff up.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200601050004

Snickers Man

Hobbes wrote:

You have to laugh at the US media.. According to Pat Robinson God is punishing him. You can't make this stuff up.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200601050004

Robertson is citing the Book of Joel as evidence for the fact that God doesn't want 'his' land divided.

OK Here it is in black and white.

Joel 3:2
2 I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
There I will enter into judgment against them
concerning my inheritance, my people Israel,
for they scattered my people among the nations
and divided up my land.

Yup. A Clear reference to a hugely overweight 78 year old suffering a brain haemhorrage.

Christian crackpots. You gotta love 'em.

Hagar

Bloody nano suicide-bombers.

Sand

Christian crackpots. You gotta love 'em.

I saw a documentary on some hardline US based Christian groups who actively support and lobby for aggressive Israeli actions against the Palestinians as they feel it will spark Armageddon and the Second Coming. Sharon met them on a US trip and was hailed by screaming crowds of loonies like a rock star. They might be slightly less enamoured with him these days.

Its a pity Sharon is out of the picture - despite his association with massacres in Lebannon, he was the best hope if not for peace at least for a sustainable stalemate - between the wall and forced evacuation of exposed settlements it would make the situation more stable. I dont think theres any other Israeli politician out there with the mixture of hardline credibility and the sheer bloodymindness to face down the Likud/Ultra Orthodox crowd. I think the message delivered to those hardliners by the collapse of Likuds support is clear though - the Israelis want a more pragmatic approach, one that doesnt rely on Palestinian promises for security but also one that doesnt take its directions from Old Testment quotations.

I guess its wait and see with Olmert, he doesnt have name recognition, but then the Israeli-Palestinian players and conflict is rarely examined here in anything other than partisan tones. He must have impressed Sharon somehow, so he may yet follow in his footsteps. That wont be all good though, the Israelis seem to be doing their best to make sure East Jeruselam is unsustainable as a seperate capital by planting it full of Israelis. I dont think theyll go back to the negotiating table until theyve loaded the "facts on the ground".

archdukefranz

This is oddly like the situation when arafat died, Israel was being led by Sharon, not Kadima, just as Arafat led the PLO, no leader can hope to live up to him...
Netanyahu however as a personality is pretty high up...

Snickers Man

Sand wrote:

Its a pity Sharon is out of the picture - despite his association with massacres in Lebannon, he was the best hope if not for peace at least for a sustainable stalemate - between the wall and forced evacuation of exposed settlements it would make the situation more stable. I dont think theres any other Israeli politician out there with the mixture of hardline credibility and the sheer bloodymindness to face down the Likud/Ultra Orthodox crowd.

Some time ago I read a book by one of the better Israeli commentators, Amos Elon. In it, while talking about the fact that it was the former terroris Begin who signed the Camp David Agreements with Sadat, he quoted the old French maxim: 'C'est toujours le droit qui fait la paix.'

Mind you he was sharp enough to add the obvious corrolary 'C'est d'habitude le droit qui fait la guerre.'

I will shed no tears for Sharon. He has provoked several wars because he reckoned Israel could win them and impose more 'facts on the ground' with which to make further demands on the Palestinians. Giving the Palestinians Gaza and insisting that they give up pretty much all their demands on the West Bank as a consequence is not to be viewed as the actions of a peacemaker. It's the policy of a consistent Israeli expansionist.

He's just paving the way for more and more decades of 'terrorism'.

randombassist

The latest polling information actually shows kadima ever further ahead of Likud than they were before Sharon had the stoke. That could be a reaction to his current situation, but hopefully it will carry on into March and the elections. Likud are still in a complete mess at the moment, with Netanyahu trying to fire 4 of the senior cabinet ministers, and them refusing to go. When things like that happen so close to an election, the public are i) more aware of it and ii) even less likely to vote for you.

However I'll have to take issue with Wicknut's comment about moving things in a different direction. With his unilateral pullout in Gaza, the lack of implementation of the border deal struck by Rice, and the massive encirclement of East Jeruselam with settlements in the last year, he's not exactly your role model of helping the Palestinians. He was desperate to hold onto the major west bank settlements, and got assurances from America that he could in return for the Gaza pullout. 8,000 people moved to secure 225,000 isn't too bad a deal.

The encirclement of East Jeruselam is even more worrying, as it tried to cut off over 200,000 Palestinians from what will form the bulk of their country in the future, to try and make sure they can't have it as a capital. He was actively trying to pre-empt negotiations by creating the 'facts on the ground'.

Pazaz 21

This whole issue seems to be a double edged sword, on one had it seems Sharon was trying to help the palestinians, and maybe leave a legacy of unification rather than division. But it also looks like he was just giving a little to gain a lot, the Gaza Strip for the majority of the West Bank ain't a bad deal, especially if you build a wall around it so it can't be disputed in the future. Who knows what sharon was trying to achieve, he never told anybody about his "vision for Israel" but i'm sure it favours the Israeli's rather than the palestinians, but perhaps we'll never know.

Sand

This whole issue seems to be a double edged sword, on one had it seems Sharon was trying to help the palestinians, and maybe leave a legacy of unification rather than division. But it also looks like he was just giving a little to gain a lot, the Gaza Strip for the majority of the West Bank ain't a bad deal, especially if you build a wall around it so it can't be disputed in the future. Who knows what sharon was trying to achieve, he never told anybody about his "vision for Israel" but i'm sure it favours the Israeli's rather than the palestinians, but perhaps we'll never know

I dont think theres much confusion over Sharons aims - he felt the peace negotiations werent going to benefit Israel, but that settlements isolated in Gaza and the West Bank were unsustainable. Hence the pullback, build a wall and hunker down on one side of it until the Palestinians give up. A practical rather than a visionary plan and view - especially as the intifida seems to have crumbled. I cant see Sharon ever helping the Palestinians without helping himself substansially, and vice versa.

Snickers Man

Sand wrote:

I cant see Sharon ever helping the Palestinians without helping himself substansially, and vice versa.

Reminds me of what an Israeli friend told me 20+ years ago when I asked in my naivete "Who's this Ariel Sharon guy you're slagging off?" The reply was: "He's a particularly nasty person who has had a lot of people killed, both Israeli and Arab because he believes in one only one thing, and that's Ariel Sharon."

As true now as then.