Reflection on Sharon's Speech

Ariel Sharon recently delivered a speech at the UN General assembly. I thought it was a good speech, though it had a few too many references to God for my liking. This is bizarre, especially since Ariel Sharon never gave a rats ass about God and would never set foot in a shul except for a photo-op. In this way, he is like every previous Israeli Prime Minister, thoroughly secular, but forced to kow-two to the religious on occasion.

As for the actual content of the speech, well Sharon reved up his Jewish pride, called for a Palestinian state but also insisted that it was up to the Palestinians to turn to peace and that the fence would continue in the wake of terror. The standard commentary runs that the right-wingers thought him too concialitory and that he has essentially cut his ties with Likud, while the lefties thought him not concilliatory enough. So, logically, did Sharon run that correct, moderate path somewhere in the middle? I don't know. I probably also think he, and Israeli policy, could be more concilliatory. But I have to give the man credit. I am not Israeli, but if I were, I would never have voted for him, and I would never vote for him in the future. But the man seems to be committed to peace of some kind, maybe to shore up his legacy, but still, moving in bascially the correct direction. Yitzhak Rabin once said that "you don't make peace with your friends," implying that peace is made with the enemy. Ariel Sharon has been an enemy of the left for a long time. Maybe, just maybe, it's time we made peace with him.