[DentsRun]

Also, Ariel Sharon has been complaining all his life about the left-liberal Israeli establishment, and how they keep him down, and not allow him power. If only! While making all these complaints, he has gone from strength to strength. I don't like him, so that's my view. I wish someone had managed to keep him down.

Sharon has been a diaster for Israel. As minister of housing he's the one would started diverting money to build all the settlements in the occupied territories. He said he did it to establish "facts on the ground," meaning it would much harder for any future prime minister to ever consider giving back the land if settlers had build their homes there. He was right too. What he didn't forsee was that the formerly compliant and docile Palestinians, who in some cases welcomed the IDF with cups of coffee and cries of shalom in the 1967 war, would eventually turn against the checkpoints and permits and quotas and Israeli-only highways. Now, I really don't think there's any solution to the problem (at least not a humane one). The Palestinians are so furious and bereft of hope they are willing to blow themselves up in order to kill Israelis. The Israelis say, quite correctly, you can't just expect us not to defend ourselfs while suicide bombers blow up our children. Both sides see their (self-defeating) actions as completly justified. So the Palestinian bombings go on and the Israeli attacks on Palestinian cities go on. And the person who put both sides in this incredible mess from which there is no exit is Ariel Sharon.

[BlackVeil]

'Sharon has been a disaster ... he's the one who started diverting money to build all the settlements in the occupied territories. He said he did it to establish "facts on the ground,"' And he did establish facts on the ground. As you say - what a problem. Sharon even put settlements in Gaza - the world's most densely populated place and he clears a space to put settlements. He was a failure in his military campaign in Lebanon too. He didn't achieve his objectives, and he put the Israeli army in a position where they faced steady losses, so then they withdrew. Sending a message to the Palestinians that while negotiations are no good (they don't alter facts on the ground) violence certainly works.