Awake! Oh frail man! Your people have called

Hope not extinguished

Just over 2 months ago, I did say that people are wont to writing the obituaries of great men long before their passing.

Mr. Ariel Sharon’s stroke came as a surprise in some cases along with the media feeding frenzy that almost rivalled the living wake-keeping of Pope John Paul II just around this time last year.

One obituary that was written and displayed so boldly was his political obituary, as analysts and protagonists suggested both him and his fledgling party were finished.

Well in a classic reversal of the machinations of man, what has been proposed has been disposed of.

A miraculous gestation

Mr. Sharon might still lay in coma in hospital in intensive care, but be assured, a man is not dead till he is dead indeed, Mr. Sharon is alive, maybe not well, but his ideas for Kadima embryonic as they might have been seems to have come to term a joyous delivery of Israel from the politics of the firebrand and those who feel they are more Jewish than their neighbours in Israel.

Security has always been the shelter of Jewish franchise, as they have mostly voted for those who would protect the nation of Israel from their occupied and chastised enemies.

We have come full circle; Israel has to seek ways of securing its borders as a nation with or without negotiation with the Palestinians.

The unwilling man of peace

In the process, Mr Sharon, the war general and erstwhile champion of the settlers who fought his old Likud party through a tidal wave of opposition to his decision to disengage from Gaza has single-mindedly won to himself the realisation that the security of Israel is in pragmatism and not hawkish rightwing pronouncements.

Mr Binyamin Netanyahu who once was a prime minister and the nemesis of Mr Sharon eventually took over the reins of Likud and is likely to rank fourth in the election spoils.

The earth is still moving

The political earthquake that had shaken the Middle-East from the death of Rafik Hariri; the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon; the election of Hamas to Palestinian government; the departure of Sharon from the Likud Party; the birth of Kadima and now the coming of Kadima has had aftershocks which seem to measure as earth-shaking as the first movement of the earth.

A worthy lieutenant takes the mantle

Mr Ehud Olmert has been a good under-study, a worthy man to step into the shoes of Ariel Sharon and a humble man enough to work in the shadow of a comatose leader to bring to fruition the plans that hardly a few months looked like a one-man idea suddenly gone absent without leave.

My hearty congratulations go to Kadima, Mr Sharon, Mr Olmert and the people of Israel who have come into political maturity.

The political landscape of Israel has shifted to the centre from the right, just as the policies of the Labour party attracted more towards the centre too.

How they fare

This now is the outlook for Israel in terms of their policies.

Source: The Economist - The polls as at the 24th of March 2006

In Jerusalem as time tells

As an aside, my blog provider located in the UK has rigidly banked on winter time as the clocks changed and advised me to adopt Jerusalem time to in order to adjust to the correct time in Amsterdam – time is on my side, by taking Jerusalem’s space in time (Eastern European - Athens, Helsinki, Jerusalem (or CEST)), I can however rejoice with the Israelis in this new dawn.

Call me pedantic, but the choices have deprecated Central European Summer Time for area names which are in the next time zone and so it follows for other time zones that handle daylight savings.

The Mayoress of our blog community has been accommodating of my histrionics and facetiousness. Hey! That's me, it just has to be right or it is wrong - we agreed to disagree - our compromise.

Not forgetting – Awake! Oh frail man

Not forgetting the so human situation that pervades our humanity, we wish Mr Sharon a restoration to health and well-being as we hail – Behold the man! Awake! Oh frail man! Your people have called.

Shalom Israel – The peace of Israel beckons.

Obituaries for the living

Prognostication of news

With great interest I note the number of times the media has published the obituaries of persons still living as rumour defeats the patience to apply meticulous methods to the gathering of news.

Only too recently, we had the episode of the West Virginia mine disaster where reports of death and life were confused on the numbers of who was dead or alive.

So, it is with poignancy that I heard the admonition of the director of the Hadassah Hospital to act responsibly in the dissemination of news concerning Ariel Sharon and his condition; stating that any changes to his status would be announced promptly by the hospital only.

This was done in disputing the fact that rumour was already pervading the air of the demise of Ariel Sharon, however, he lives; as he tethers at the portal of the great beyond as those who really have their prayers answered pray for a miracle of restoration.

Miracles or debacles

From what one has observed, miracles mean many things to diverse people and the majority opinion lies with the desperation of a situation beyond which there is no hope, whilst the other lies with the expectation of change where hope and faith in God drives the powers of nature to restore strength to what was considered impossible.

Many get their miracles, either by being overwhelmed with helplessness that submits to despair or by being overjoyed with realisation that prayer is really meant to work or else it is useless.

What comes around…?

Just about 14 months ago, as Yasser Arafat was being transported to Paris for treatment, the Israeli cognoscenti predicted he would not return, I observed also the placards in Lebanese Palestinians that called out “Death to Sharon”.

No love lost amongst the children of Abraham, it seems; what a world of compassion we live in, where to be magnanimous is to be foolish and to be bitter is to be human. As a race, we humans have still got a long way to go.

One is not against the preparedness that greets the expectation of a great man’s passing as obituaries are drafted, edited, refined and primed for publication. The news network death vigil that accompanied the passing of Pope John Paul II over 4 days in March/April 2005 gives one pause for thought.

It was like the networks were the ECG machine connected to the dear Pope’s vital systems which were to trigger the outpouring of waves of news analysis and death tributes just as the last breath was about the depart the nostrils even if the heart still had one last beat to pound.

Publish and be mocked

Despite the mistakes of the media in the poor reporting of events, one can almost bet that Ariel Sharon would probably be declared dead long before he has departed just as news networks can call elections for a candidate long before the numbers are properly tallied. American Election 2000, for instance.

No doubt, the mouse is primed to click on the publish button as soon as truth or rumour pervades the atmosphere; that it would be so gratifying to really see Mr Sharon shame all those writers as he rises like Lazarus to take his people to the promised peace that has so far eluded the promised land.

If this mistake does get repeated, one might just advocate a news certification and verification standards body that would eliminate the unpleasant competition for publication in anticipation of consequent fulfilment.

I now know, I do not really want to be the first to know.