Ariel (Arik) Sharon 1928--2014
I just read that our former prime minister and military hero
Ariel (Arik) Sharon finally died today. Actually, he has been dead with no
brain activity since January 4, 2006, when he suffered a massive cerebral
hemorrhage. Arik Sharon was a controversial leader and I was never one of his
supporters, but I feel sad that he was kept “alive” on life support for all
these years.
Some cynics claim that the reason he was kept alive at the
expense of the state was so that his family would be able to collect his hefty
pension every month. I hope that it was not the case, and prefer to believe
that his sons hoped that their hero father would miraculously come back to
life.
After prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, it was
a great comfort to me to think in spite of the horrific act of his killer,
Rabin died like a hero. He never grew old, and died at an important moment in
history in the midst of a huge demonstration for peace where he was loved and
admired by tens of thousands of his supporters.
Toward the end of his life, Arik Sharon too made a move to
bring about peace: in 2003 he began to promote his plan for unilateral Israeli
disengagement from the Gaza Strip. And in August 2005, all Israeli settlements
in Gaza were evacuated, along with some settlements in the northern West Bank.
This was a big change for the militant Sharon, but he did not live to enjoy any
fruits of his actions, as four months later he suffered the stroke that killed
him.
As they get older, leaders spend time reflecting on and
planning their legacy. I am afraid that whoever kept Sharon alive robbed him of
his. He was an extremely brave man, and it seems to me that he would have
preferred to die like king Saul on the
battlefield rather than be a victim of the technological advances of modern
medicine.
"How the mighty have fallen" says the lamentation
of David over Saul and Jonathan, but in this case perhaps it is another
incentive to leave the family a living will.
PS. Listening to the radio the day after Sharon's death, I
keep hearing politicians talk about
Arik's "heroic fight" in the
last 8 years. No one dares utter a word about the futility of such a fight. I
hope that after the politicians, the saner voices of those who challenge the
merit of such heroism will ultimately be heard.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4472203,00.html
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