What has Sharon actually achieved so far? [Archive]

View Full Version : What has Sharon actually achieved so far?

NewsGuy

02-19-2002, 02:46 PM

Despite political sniping from the Israeli leftists, and in spite of the worst barrage of Arab terrorism against Israeli citizens in history, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has completed his first year in office with several important achievements:

1. He has built a broad-based unity government representing the wishes of the majority of Israelis.

2. He has helped Israel survive the worst Arab terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians ever.

3. He has shown the world the true face of Arafat as a despicable terrorist and a liar.

4. He has demonstrated to the world that Israel has amazing restraint and that any upcoming retaliation for Arab terrorism is done only with no other option left.

5. He has revealed to the world the dangerous collaboration between the Palestinians and Iran.

6. He has passed a substantial fiscal budget for the country.

7. Despite some miscalculations, he has managed to strengthen US-Israeli ties.

8. He has weakened US-Palestinian ties.

Negev

02-20-2002, 08:57 AM

the main reason for not yet achieving an end to terrorism is that he has been operating the IDF with one hand tied behind its back because of the leftist/peres blackmail.

fair

03-04-2002, 07:33 AM

Sharon
spoiled the world Image of Israel
He didn't achieve security at about one and half year during his era despite he promised one month before
He achieved huge Israeli loses in people and assets than any other presidents with out any results or progress
Sharon has hated personality internationaly

Ezra

03-07-2002, 10:50 PM

Originally posted by fair
Sharon
spoiled the world Image of Israel
He didn't achieve security at about one and half year during his era despite he promised one month before
He achieved huge Israeli loses in people and assets than any other presidents with out any results or progress
Sharon has hated personality internationaly

I'm not sure on what bases did you say what you said Mr. Fair! Do you know anything about how Americans see Sharon? Ok.. Let me tell you.

First, Israel has always and still having the image of a small but a very smart country. A country that instead of all terrorism around and inside it still have a very powerful economy and a very impressive technology. A country that treats and honors human rights like nearly no other country in the world. A country that is considered a very civilized nation surrounded by 100 times larger barbarian nation.

True he didn't achieve security that's because, unfortunately, he cares about civilian Palestine. Otherwise, I guess one single F-16 is sufficient to erase any Palestinian territories from the face of earth.

Do you really think Sharon has an internationally hated personality? Well, I'm not surprised that your blind idiot media tells you that. Well dear friend, guess what? Your media is as usual a BIG liar!

Do you want to know who is really internationally hated? Check the CNN and tell me how many article is written about your president (Mubarak) visit to the US!!!! See how badly he was ignored!

Do you want to know how dummy is your media?! Your media called this a VERY SUCCEFULL VISIT, and the top official of the US government were waiting in the reception of the president in Washington DC â€¦ and bla bla blaâ€¦ Well guess who was in the reception of your president in the airport!
The US president? Nope!
The US vice president? Nope!
A US secretary? Nope!
A US Army chief? Nope!
A US governor? Nope!
A US mayor? Nope!
Washington DC Fire department chief? YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Mr. Fair, tell your media which showed your president as the UNIVERSAL KING visiting the poor US that it was the Washington DC Fire department Chief who was in the reception of your president in the airport!

NewsGuy

03-09-2002, 01:42 PM

Originally posted by Ezra

Well guess who was in the reception of your president in the airport!
The US president? Nope!
The US vice president? Nope!
A US secretary? Nope!
A US Army chief? Nope!
A US governor? Nope!
A US mayor? Nope!
Washington DC Fire department chief? YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

LOL! :D

The fire chief was there to make sure to warn the Egyptian delegation against throwing any wild campfire shish kabob parties.

Belgium@EU

05-02-2002, 10:21 AM

I think what fair was saying, is what all the people think here in Europe. France, UK, Germany ... we all have one common point: we don't like Sharon's actions.

Our media is not so baised as yours. CNN for example, showed images of Palestinian children celebrating the sept.11 attacks in their refugee camps. These pictures were manipulated, they were taken years ago and had nothing to do with sept.11.

BBC is a very reliable source on the whole conflict, and so are the French broadcasting channels. The difference between European and American media is that we go to the people, and make documentaries. The Americans shoot pictures from a distance, without discussing the cause if what's happening.

Let me give you an example.
On sept11 the American media was covering thousands of live reports from NY and DC, asking big questions, as "what will Bush do?" "Can we handle this situation on our own?". "What do our allies think?" In Europe, the first question was "Why??" How was this possible? Because of the arrogance of some Americans? Because of their politics towards the middle east?

I understand the Israeli's, I also think that they should have their own country, and should be able to live in peace. But what they are doing (Jenin, ...) now is wrong. The world knows it (Europe, Asia ...). At the end, the only ally Israel will have is the US. A big ally, but they already lost lots of sympathy here. Why do you think thousands of people are protesting in the streets of Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, Rome ????

cerulean

05-02-2002, 10:30 AM

Gatorade

05-02-2002, 11:06 AM

Here is another site that says that it was a myth that was old footage

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/cnnpalestinianvideo.htm

Vic

05-02-2002, 03:18 PM

Originally posted by NewsGuy
Despite political sniping from the Israeli leftists, and in spite of the worst barrage of Arab terrorism against Israeli citizens in history, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has completed his first year in office with several important achievements:

1. He has built a broad-based unity government representing the wishes of the majority of Israelis.
This is a horrifying situation. "Unity" is a bad joke. No country can afford a government whose senior mebers are tearing each other apart the whole time and cannot agree on common policy. In any situation having the Foreign and the Defense ministers complain about thr Prime minister to the international(!) media would be destabilizing enough, but under Israel's catastrophical conditions it's murder. And - any truly democratic government needs a strong opposition.

2. He has helped Israel survive the worst Arab terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians ever.

Provided the Arab terrorists didn't interprete the situation described above as a sign of weakness and act accordingly. Besides his government is doing too little to protect civilians.

3. He has shown the world the true face of Arafat as a despicable terrorist and a liar.

What world? Parts of the USA - maybe. A bunch of European conservatives - just because it comes useful for anti-immigration policy at the moment. Who else?
In my part of the world Arafat is to the majority of the population the next thing to a national hero. Didn't you see the mass anti-Israel demonstrations with his portraits carried by demonstrators who were as European as can be? Even the keffiya is back into fashion.

4. He has demonstrated to the world that Israel has amazing restraint and that any upcoming retaliation for Arab terrorism is done only with no other option left.

See above.

5. He has revealed to the world the dangerous collaboration between the Palestinians and Iran.

Ditto. Sorry, he didn't. Just looking around in this forum should be enough to convince anyone of the opposite ;-)

6. He has passed a substantial fiscal budget for the country.

I understand that a considerable part of the Israeli population already lives well below the poverty line, and the situation is expected to worsen precisely through this budget.

7. Despite some miscalculations, he has managed to strengthen US-Israeli ties.
8. He has weakened US-Palestinian ties.
Let's hope so.

Vic

05-25-2002, 05:36 PM

A breath of fresh mountain air

By Yoel Marcus

Sharon's decision to fire the ministers from Shas was no doubt his greatest moment. He did something none of his predecessors ever dared, and by doing so, put some color back into the cheeks of the people, or at least a large (very large, say the polls) segment of it, which was sick and tired of the parasitical methods of an extortionate party that threatened every prime minister in Israel. That doesn't mean Shas is gone from our lives and won't return to the government. But right now it's like the neighborhood bully, who for years terrorized everyone in his path, until one day, someone came along and hit back. The neighborhood may not be rid of the bully, but he won't be king of the block anymore.

There hasn't been a prime minister whom Shas didn't betray, extort, incite against, and dictate terms. It's a unique political creation, totally uninvolved in the Zionist experience, which managed to bend the state to its parochial needs. The difficult security and economic situation, worsened by the intifada, exposed its chutzpah: There are those who carry the burden, receiving emergency call-up orders, paying taxes and fulfilling all their other civic duties, and there are those who are slain in the tents of the Torah while they suck on the state's teat.

"He just got fed up," is how one of Sharon's aides described his angry reaction - using much cruder slang to say so - after Shas voted against the economic emergency package. His aides advised him to delay the firing, especially after Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's emotional letter arrived. But Sharon insisted: "It's about time to impose some proper government procedures. It's impossible to be in the government and vote against it. Ministers must support government decisions." Sharon heard from senior economists that the economy is on the verge of collapse. Politics-shmolitics, he didn't want the state to come to an end, said one of his aides, some things have to be done immediately. At 12:20 A.M. the dismissals went into effect. The shock of humiliation on the faces of the Shas leaders, their threats and curses, were like fresh mountain air in the political dunghill.

This column once wrote that Sharon is more like a regimental commander than a prime minister. Now it's been proved he is even better as a disciplinary sergeant than a regimental commander. But in the 14th month of his term, the question remains, if we aren't witnessing a gradual change in Sharon as a leader. The three tests he faced recently - Operation Defensive Shield, his duel with Netanyahu over a Palestinian state, and now the battle for the economic package - all indicate there has been a metamorphosis in his approach to the job. The change taking place before our eyes is the evolution from a politician only concerned with his personal survival, to a leader who wants to fulfill the promises he made to the country. Says one of his associates, "He's adopted Ben-Gurion's approach: `It doesn't matter what the people want, I'm doing what the people need.'"

His confrontation with Bibi was a forthright expression of this principle. He not only exposed Bibi as a punk who loses his cool, and shoved him into the extreme right, but also declared his independence as leader of a state: "I won't accept the Likud Central Committee's decision against the establishment of a Palestinian state. I am the prime minister and I will do what has to be done for the good of the state." Sharon accepts a Palestinian state in principle, and has coordinated with Bush on what and when. The trouble is that Bush is in no hurry to get anywhere, and Sharon certainly isn't. He believes that no agreement can be reached from a position of inferior security. The withdrawal form Lebanon (two years ago today) raised Palestinian ambitions to get rid of us in the same way, through attacks and attrition. Operation Defensive Shield was an important step to prove that there won't be any Lebanon-style, one-sided surrender here.

Proper government, putting state interests over partisan interests, making the state the number one priority - all this positions Sharon as a leader who seems ripe to fulfill his commitment to the "painful concessions," without which there won't be peace. The ground is burning and he cannot delay initiating some creative ideas to stop the deterioration to bloodshed. Not that it will be easy. But for someone who has the courage to fire Shas, the sky's the limit.

http://news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=167685&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=167685

Any opinions on this?

NewsGuy

05-25-2002, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by Vic

Any opinions on this?
To read Yoel Marcus praising Sharon is a very rare occurrence.

I, too, congratulate Sharon for his bravery and I hope that sticking by his principles will continue to serve him well.

It is time for Shas, which Marcus is correct to call a bully -- and a treacherous one at that -- to be put in its place. But what are the factors that led to the Shas menace in the first place?

1. Israel's precarious parliamentary system, which allows for governments to be toppled at any point in time. This is most unhealthy and should be changed -- hopefully to a U.S.-style term of 4 years without the possibility of being toppled at will.

2. The Israeli version of liberal, multi-party democracy is fine in concept, but in practice results in a fractured parliament, where small parties representing special interest groups, wield a disproporatianate amount of power as "lynchpin" voters.

Because Israelis are spread so thin in their loyalties to so many political parties, coalitions are needed, i.e., a block of ministers committed to back the Prime Minister. But form as parties representing special interest groups, which are really not so unnified in their positions, the situation is always difficult maintain to when it comes to major issue votes.

And so, Shas, has been historically courted by each prime minister for a long time now, even though they represent a relatively small amount of the electorate. Their participation in the ruling coalition has been the key to a narrow majority for Netanyahu, Barak, and now Sharon.

But Sharon is so popular and represents the views of so much of the electorate (and their chosen ministers), that he can afford to risk firing Shas. He still has a narrow margin to defeat the traitorous Meretz' votes of no-confidence, but it was a risk on his part.

I predict that Shas will return to the fold, this time with more humility, because they know very well that the only way they can continue to get the huge amount of funding for their projects is to curry favor with the prime minister. Also, just as importantly, Shas cannot afford to have the government collapse and general elections called, because they themselves as a party have been slipping in the poles, and it is felt that they would get relatively few votes and thus lose influence if general elections were held today. For those reasons, Shas is likely to cooperate with Sharon again, who set an excellent precedent for expectations of loyalty from coalition partners.

Sharon did well and he deserves all the praise for his principled leadership.

JustPat

05-25-2002, 07:15 PM

JustPat

05-30-2002, 08:46 PM

Originally posted by Belgium@EU I think what fair was saying, is what all the people think here in Europe. France, UK, Germany ... we all have one common point: we don't like Sharon's actions. SO? If you were living in Israel I would say you had a beef. But you are but an onlooker who can speak with relative disinterest being virtually untouched by the actions of the Israeli government. It's a nice place to sermonize, but it gives your opinion little weight. Thos living in Israel are the ones I want to hear talk about Sharon. He affects their daily lives.

Originally posted by Belgium@EU I understand the Israeli's, I also think that they should have their own country, and should be able to live in peace. But what they are doing (Jenin, ...) now is wrong. The world knows it (Europe, Asia ...). At the end, the only ally Israel will have is the US. A big ally, but they already lost lots of sympathy here. Why do you think thousands of people are protesting in the streets of Brussels, Paris, London, Berlin, Rome ???? Doesn't sound to me like you understand Israel. :rolleyes:

ibrodsky

06-01-2002, 01:59 PM

Originally posted by Belgium@EU

Our media is not so baised as yours. CNN for example, showed images of Palestinian children celebrating the sept.11 attacks in their refugee camps. These pictures were manipulated, they were taken years ago and had nothing to do with sept.11.

This was a lie that started from an e-mail message; the author discovered he was wrong and retracted it, but by then it was being re-distributed like crazy. Your "unbiased" media reported the lie but didn't have the decency to give the correction sufficient coverage.

The fact that you still don't know that these pictures were real shows not only that your media is biased, but that you were duped!

Reuters rejects as utterly baseless an allegation being circulated by e-mail and the Internet claiming that it circulated 10-year-old videotape to illustrate Palestinians celebrating in the wake of the September 11 tragedies in the United States.

JustPat

06-01-2002, 05:25 PM

Originally posted by ibrodsky Reuters rejects as utterly baseless an allegation being circulated by e-mail and the Internet claiming that it circulated 10-year-old videotape to illustrate Palestinians celebrating in the wake of the September 11 tragedies in the United States. I have to wonder, if Hearst, and CBS, and other "reputable" news sources didn't fabricate stories to hype their point, where would journalism be today. The sensationalism of today's "journalists" lives by the maxim, "If you don't find a story, create one."

elke

06-06-2002, 11:42 AM

I don't think that the outside world gives justice to Sharon. The Sharon that we know from the news reports and such, is the hardened military mastermind of the Lebanon war, friend to the settlers, tough on the Palestinians in general and Arafat in particular, and steadfastly opposed to any peace moves whatever.

When one delves into the actual facts, one finds that it was Sharon who was given the order to dismantle the Sinai settlements, Sharon who saved the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, and it's Sharon today who stands behind the two-state solution.

IMO, Sharon should sue the media outlets for character assassination. One can argue that his ability as Prime Minister is limited, or that his politics are too conservative, whatever. Be that as it may, while Sharon is no "dove", he is a reasonable man who has Israel's interests at heart, and not the monster "bulldozer" as he has been portrayed by the international media.