Where is our alternative leadership?

[Classical_Liberal]

Where is our alternative leadership?

By Doron Rosenblum

Never have we had a leader who has missed, year after year, every opportunity that has come our way for change, for dialogue to put an end to terror, for political initiative, for some way out of the cycle of bloodshed.


The staggering military blows Israel has taken this week and the results of the Likud disengagement referendum have created a bizarre tendency, even among the left, to nod understandingly and sympathize with Prime Minister Sharon in his new role as loser. And this after being admired in his previous role as a mow-them-down winner.




Strangely enough, even the military setback in Gaza has somehow contributed to Sharon's new image as a creative pragmatist whose brilliant plans are being wrecked by low-brow extremists. But actually, nothing could be further from the truth: The disengagement plan and the whole business around it do not invalidate the claim that Sharon has been an ineffectual and unsuccessful leader - it only makes the case against him stronger.

So keep your tears and pity for someone else. Don't waste them on someone who has shown no compassion whatsoever, in three long years of political wheeling and dealing, for you, the Israeli. Of all Israel's leaders, there has never been anyone who has squandered the time granted to him by the voter more cynically or unproductively. Never have we had a leader who has missed, year after year, every opportunity that has come our way for change, for dialogue to put an end to terror, for political initiative, for some way out of the cycle of bloodshed........

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/427435.html