Sharon Watch Continues
Jan. 6th, 2006 03:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theoriginalblurkerAfter a third operation, Sharon is showing some improvement.
I have been following this situation with strongly ambivalent feelings. It's never comfortable to watch the head of the state of Israel go through a debilitating injury, but in this case it's more than just that. I have never been sure how I felt about Sharon as a political leader. I expected him to be a hard line "all or nothing" type of politician, but he has surprised me over the past few years in his willingness to work with the Palestinians. At times I was concerned that he may have been too willing to give in to Palestinian demands.
But I am not an Israeli. I am only a Jew who does not want to see the destruction of what I still recognize as the land of my origin. I do not live among the bombings and the bloodshed. Nor am I being asked to leave my home to appease people who claim to be my enemy and wish my people to be driven into the sea. I do not know how I would react if I was living in the midst of this continual battle.
Even if he survives, I don't expect that Sharon will be able to continue as Prime Minister. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated I thought the peace process was over. Israel continues to put people into office who surprise me with their efforts to stabilize the region. I can only hope that this process continues, and is completed within my lifetime. Without being driven into the sea.
The third surgery lasted more than four hours. "The intracranial pressure was reduced," Mor-Yosef said. "Some of the clots were drained from the previous operation. At the conclusion of the operation there was no active hemorrhaging and the intracranial hemorrhaging has been eliminated and the pressure has gone back to normal."
A brain scan following the procedure showed "significant improvement in the appearance of the scan as interpreted by the neurologists and experts in neurosurgery and imaging," he said.
I have been following this situation with strongly ambivalent feelings. It's never comfortable to watch the head of the state of Israel go through a debilitating injury, but in this case it's more than just that. I have never been sure how I felt about Sharon as a political leader. I expected him to be a hard line "all or nothing" type of politician, but he has surprised me over the past few years in his willingness to work with the Palestinians. At times I was concerned that he may have been too willing to give in to Palestinian demands.
But I am not an Israeli. I am only a Jew who does not want to see the destruction of what I still recognize as the land of my origin. I do not live among the bombings and the bloodshed. Nor am I being asked to leave my home to appease people who claim to be my enemy and wish my people to be driven into the sea. I do not know how I would react if I was living in the midst of this continual battle.
Even if he survives, I don't expect that Sharon will be able to continue as Prime Minister. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated I thought the peace process was over. Israel continues to put people into office who surprise me with their efforts to stabilize the region. I can only hope that this process continues, and is completed within my lifetime. Without being driven into the sea.
