Reply #: I disagree- specifically: Just because Sharon created Kadima, it...

[Poll_Blind]

...does not absolve him of the damage that he has done ih 30+ years of his conservative Israeli politics. He pandered to the settlers, just as conservatives in the United States pander to the fundamental Christian right. Once the death threats started pouring in from those same fundamentalists, he realized that theirs was a fire too strong to be harnessed or directed and he realized it could burn him just as badly as help him. He realized the schizm between the Israeli far right and the goals of Israel as a nation and backed off, forming Kadima. However because of the timing of his stroke we will never know how he would have fully realized the organization or in what directions he would have taken it.

I trust Sharon to be Sharon- expecting anything more or postulating that he would have made this or that change in direction or methods of executing power is reaching beyond what the facts and history will support.

I'm no fan of Bibi either but being the lesser of two evils, to speak metaphorically, does not make one good. I know you're not stating or even implying that Sharon was friend to any Liberal but I want to make a point about how I see him, even in comparison to his more hardline political bretheren.

What the people of Israel need is not the lesser of two conservative evils but a liberal government to facilitate peace both within the region and within the country itself and bring Israel back as an example of a country founded on recognition of the rights of all men.

PB