The Mountain and the Mouse

[Violet_Crumble]

Ariel Sharon's speech at the "Herzliya Conference", an annual gathering of Israel's financial, political and academic aristocracy, proved again his wondrous ability to conjure up an imaginary world and divert attention away from the real one. Like every successful con-man, he knows that the audience desperately wants to believe good tidings and will be happy to ignore bad ones.

It was an optimistic message, as the bewitched commentators proclaimed. According to him, we are on our way to paradise, 2005 will be a year of tremendous progress in all fields and all our problems will be solved.

<snip>

The most important part of the speech was the part that was not there. There was no peace offer to the Palestinians. He did not talk about peace at all.

Throughout the world, the conviction is spreading that there now exists a "window of opportunity", that this is the time for a new, redeeming peace initiative. Indeed, Sharon mentioned with great satisfaction that Yasser Arafat is dead and that there is now a chance for the emergence of a "moderate Palestinian leadership". So what did he offer this moderate leadership in his speech?

Not a thing.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=6909

[Annus Horribilis]

1. No Bias Here...

Con-man? Maybe I should post something from Fox News.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. How about addressing what the article says?

Post from foxnews all you want, but do it somewhere else than in this thread. I'm more interested in people who take the time to read what Uri Avnery says and can coherently talk about why they don't agree with what he's saying, rather than reactionary knee-jerk reactions...

Violet...

[Lithos]

3. Seems a bit of a double standard here on Uri's part

Sad, because I think Sharon needs to have his feet held to the fire.

Ben Gurion's quote basically says, don't believe what is sad, believe what we do, which is ignore the words and promises said to us, the future is in our hands to make.

To bring in this quote means that Avnery needs to not worry about what Sharon says or doesn't say, but what he does. Yet, he lambasts him for not making a promise.

Quibbling I know.

L-

[bemildred]

4. I rather like Mr. Avnery.

But he does go off the deep end a bit now & then, and he has
a few blind spots (and I suspect he doesn't like Sharon much
at all.)

[Lithos]

5. He has his good points

I wasn't criticizing his body of work, just his use of the quote in context with the thesis of the article. I think Uri could have done a better job.

On Edit: Ben Gurion's quote is actually an interesting one which covers many, many layers of Jewish and Israeli history.

[bemildred]

6. I suggest that his evident dislike for Sharon led him astray there.

Uri is rather fervent in this piece.
I would agree that the quote was misused there.

Edit: the thing is, he makes a sort of word play on it, which
does not work well.

[Lithos]

7. Could easily be that way

To me this is Sharon playing to one half of his base, sort of like Shrub, with the exception that he doesn't make the same gaffe's. I agree with Uri that Sharon was only going to make statements which portray a version of reality not in touch with the rest of Israel.

Sort of along the lines that what he said was for the have's, and what he didn't say was for the have-not's.

L-

[bemildred]

8. Well, I would agree with your comment in #3.

In the sense that Uri accepts too uncritically Sharon's view
of reality, Sharon's claimed ability to carry out his plans,
Sharon's positive assessment of the present situation; where
it would be both straightforward and useful to offer a more
pessimistic point of view on the effects of Sharon's policies
and on the strategic weaknesses Sharon has embraced.

And it does appear to me that Uri does that for rhetorical purposes,
to better conduct a personal attack, a thing I have seen him do
a time or two before. In a way it makes Uri's argument easier to
dismiss.

But I can't say I begrudge him a good rant now & then.

[Lithos]

9. LOL

But I can't say I begrudge him a good rant now & then.

True...