Ariel Sharon: Sore loser
Why am I personally not surprised by the news that he'll be departing from the Likud, along with several other members, and forming his own party [anew*]? I don't know, but I can say this: he's being a real sore loser about not wanting to accept that the Likud as a whole does not find his policies acceptable. And he was certainly being disrespectful when he refused to honor the vote of the central committee in 2004, in which the members, both employees and rank-and-file citizens, made it clear that they were against his wanting to withdraw, which he did, from Gaza in August of this year.
I think the reasons for Sharon's running away from the party he helped found in 1973 could be this: not neccasarily because he didn't think he could win a sufficient majority to be relected as party leader, but because he knew he couldn't get rid of the Likud members he apparently does not want to work with any longer so easily. So he took the easy road, and left. But that's just being a sore loser, by not accepting that his party and especially the public that voted for him is now disillusioned with him for betraying a lot of the platforms on which he was elected, especially strong security for the state of Israel and a refusal to cave in to the demands of the PLO and its supporters abroad for more concessions without receiving anything positive in return.
Worse, he left a lot of the people he expelled from their homes in Gush Katif without a new place of residence. This topic from Blog Free from late October gives some important news on how they ended up having to live in tents in Ir Haemuna (City of Faith), a special tent-city put together in which a lot of refugees have had to live for quite awhile now. Sharon's government put ads on TV for new houses being built in which they could move to in another village, but it all turned out to be phony at best. Is a politician who just goes along and throws people out of their houses at any cost someone for whom you'd want to vote for, if he could possibly do the same to even the next people to vote for him?
Also, there's Ariel Sharon's age: he recently turned seventy-eight. Let's say you lived in France right now, and Jacques Chirac, who's around that age too, were running for president just now. His positions aside, would you consider Chirac a viable candidate for leader of the country if he's at an age that's around eighty years old? That could've been one of the reasons why US senator Bob Dole lost the bid for presidency in 1996: he was already pushing seventy, which is very old to be running these days, when younger candidates are usually thought the ideal choice, especially if they have inspiring ideas and platforms on which to run, which Sharon, by contrast, is not offering at his age, and certainly not now.
The Likud members leaving with Sharon, if you ask me, are not impressive, and are basically nobodies from a political perspective. Ehud Olmert, the former Jerusalem mayor, turned against the positions he was being cheered for years ago, and as a government minister, has done very little, if at all, to impress. And as for whatever Sharon has to show for his tenure as a premier, Caroline Glick once wrote a column in which she pointed out that, as a government leader, he made little to no effort to prove himself in fields like welfare and social affairs, to name but a few.
By contrast, Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the few, certainly following 2003, who proved himself in his job as finance minister. But Sharon, when it came to such issues as finance, made no attempt on his part to impress in that field. And he was even less successful in security issues, that's for sure. Under Netanyahu, security was far better, but under Sharon, it was quite slapdash.
And as for Omri Sharon, who's been charged recently with illegal fundraising, but so far hasn't resigned from the Knesset, MK Aryeh Eldad suggests that for now, it could be because the Sharons are hoping to rip off more money from their parent party:
Until that puzzle can be figured out, the proposed name of Ariel Sharon's new party is a real hoot:
Update: the Hezbollah launched a mortar attack a short while ago against the Galilee, injuring eleven people. There's another security related issue that Sharon did not do a good enough job on during these past few years.
Another update: Dr. Aaron Lerner's got a good article that brings up some interesting observations on the likelihood that Sharon is launching a campaign based on a lie. Make sure you read this, as it's important to be on the alert for any additional deceptions he might pull off.
And another update: Knesset member Tvi Hendel, who was among those evicted from Gush Katif by Sharon in August, sums it up well regarding Sharon's bolting from his former party: Sharon is no ideologue, and is motivated by nothing more than personal gain. And Yehuda Poch, in this opinion column, also offers an excellent take on the issue.
* In the mid-70s, Sharon tried to start his own party called "Shlomtzion". It wasn't very successful, and with the very uninspiring way he's launching his own campaign now, it wouldn't surprise me if this new party didn't turn out to be much of a success either.
Also available at Basil's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, bRight and Early, Cao's Blog, Choose Life, Don Surber, Euphoric Reality, Jo's Cafe, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, NIF, The Political Teen, The Right Nation, Robinik.Net, Something and Half of Something, Third World County, Wizbang. Others on the subject include The Last Amazon, Cosmic X, Isreally Cool, Bloghead, Jewlicious, Outside the Beltway.
I think the reasons for Sharon's running away from the party he helped found in 1973 could be this: not neccasarily because he didn't think he could win a sufficient majority to be relected as party leader, but because he knew he couldn't get rid of the Likud members he apparently does not want to work with any longer so easily. So he took the easy road, and left. But that's just being a sore loser, by not accepting that his party and especially the public that voted for him is now disillusioned with him for betraying a lot of the platforms on which he was elected, especially strong security for the state of Israel and a refusal to cave in to the demands of the PLO and its supporters abroad for more concessions without receiving anything positive in return.
Worse, he left a lot of the people he expelled from their homes in Gush Katif without a new place of residence. This topic from Blog Free from late October gives some important news on how they ended up having to live in tents in Ir Haemuna (City of Faith), a special tent-city put together in which a lot of refugees have had to live for quite awhile now. Sharon's government put ads on TV for new houses being built in which they could move to in another village, but it all turned out to be phony at best. Is a politician who just goes along and throws people out of their houses at any cost someone for whom you'd want to vote for, if he could possibly do the same to even the next people to vote for him?
Also, there's Ariel Sharon's age: he recently turned seventy-eight. Let's say you lived in France right now, and Jacques Chirac, who's around that age too, were running for president just now. His positions aside, would you consider Chirac a viable candidate for leader of the country if he's at an age that's around eighty years old? That could've been one of the reasons why US senator Bob Dole lost the bid for presidency in 1996: he was already pushing seventy, which is very old to be running these days, when younger candidates are usually thought the ideal choice, especially if they have inspiring ideas and platforms on which to run, which Sharon, by contrast, is not offering at his age, and certainly not now.
The Likud members leaving with Sharon, if you ask me, are not impressive, and are basically nobodies from a political perspective. Ehud Olmert, the former Jerusalem mayor, turned against the positions he was being cheered for years ago, and as a government minister, has done very little, if at all, to impress. And as for whatever Sharon has to show for his tenure as a premier, Caroline Glick once wrote a column in which she pointed out that, as a government leader, he made little to no effort to prove himself in fields like welfare and social affairs, to name but a few.
By contrast, Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the few, certainly following 2003, who proved himself in his job as finance minister. But Sharon, when it came to such issues as finance, made no attempt on his part to impress in that field. And he was even less successful in security issues, that's for sure. Under Netanyahu, security was far better, but under Sharon, it was quite slapdash.
And as for Omri Sharon, who's been charged recently with illegal fundraising, but so far hasn't resigned from the Knesset, MK Aryeh Eldad suggests that for now, it could be because the Sharons are hoping to rip off more money from their parent party:
MK Omri Sharon, the Prime Minister's son who pleaded guilty last week to violating campaign funding laws on behalf of his father's primaries victory in a previous election, has not resigned from the Knesset as a result - and MK Aryeh Eldad thinks he knows why: "This way, he can be possibly the 14th MK to join his father's new party - and if in fact the new party gets that many MKs, that is more than a third of the Likud. According to election laws, if one-third of a party breaks away, it receives one-third of the parent party's campaign funding and broadcast time - and in the case of the Likud, of course, this adds up to a lot. That's apparently why Omri Sharon didn't resign - to keep the millions for his father's new party."If this turns out to be the case, you could pretty much say that the Sharons are still wallowing in corruption, or are certainly trying to.
Until that puzzle can be figured out, the proposed name of Ariel Sharon's new party is a real hoot:
In the meanwhile, Sharon convened his new party faction, or most of it, for the first time today at noon. The name of the new party: The National Responsibility. Between 10 and 14 Likud MKs are expected to join Sharon, but many of them are still wavering.Considering that Sharon did not do as good a job as Netanyahu's government did in security issues, that's certainly asking a lot from the public, isn't it?
Update: the Hezbollah launched a mortar attack a short while ago against the Galilee, injuring eleven people. There's another security related issue that Sharon did not do a good enough job on during these past few years.
Another update: Dr. Aaron Lerner's got a good article that brings up some interesting observations on the likelihood that Sharon is launching a campaign based on a lie. Make sure you read this, as it's important to be on the alert for any additional deceptions he might pull off.
And another update: Knesset member Tvi Hendel, who was among those evicted from Gush Katif by Sharon in August, sums it up well regarding Sharon's bolting from his former party: Sharon is no ideologue, and is motivated by nothing more than personal gain. And Yehuda Poch, in this opinion column, also offers an excellent take on the issue.
* In the mid-70s, Sharon tried to start his own party called "Shlomtzion". It wasn't very successful, and with the very uninspiring way he's launching his own campaign now, it wouldn't surprise me if this new party didn't turn out to be much of a success either.
Also available at Basil's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, bRight and Early, Cao's Blog, Choose Life, Don Surber, Euphoric Reality, Jo's Cafe, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, NIF, The Political Teen, The Right Nation, Robinik.Net, Something and Half of Something, Third World County, Wizbang. Others on the subject include The Last Amazon, Cosmic X, Isreally Cool, Bloghead, Jewlicious, Outside the Beltway.
Labels: Israel, political corruption
