Gambling For Greater Israel

[Violet_Crumble]

I know this is a stretch, but imagine, if you will, that Ariel Sharon is one of those suave, high-rolling gamblers at a Monte Carlo casino. Slim in his white dinner jacket, he sips from his martini, his eye never leaving the roulette wheel. Standing beside him, one supportive hand on his shoulder, is his elegant partner: the Likud party.
Sharon is on a winning streak: each spin brings more chips to his pile. He calmly stacks up his winnings, calculating the odds. His partner is not so cool: she's getting excited. Finally, Sharon decides he has hit his peak; the heap of chips before him is not going to get any bigger. He wants to cash in his winnings.

"You can't leave now!" insists his companion, firmly pushing him back into his seat. "We're winning. Let's keep playing! Who knows? We might take the lot!" Sharon is determined to quit while he's ahead; his Likud partner won't let him.

OK, so the bit about Sharon looking slim in his tux is a bit fanciful - but that, in essence, is the situation currently playing out in Israeli politics. Ariel Sharon has spent the best part of four decades gambling for the prize that is Greater Israel: a Jewish state in roomier, more spacious borders than those that confined it until 1967. Bit by bit his pile of chips - in the form of the network of settlements that dot the West Bank and Gaza - has got larger.

About a year ago he calculated that it was time to visit the cashier and realise his gains. Sure, he would have to leave behind the last prize on the table - the Gaza Strip - but, in return, he would be able to keep choice cuts of the West Bank. Not Greatest Israel, perhaps, but Greater Israel most definitely. What's more, he would do so with the explicit backing of the US president, defying all those who insisted that any gains Israel made after 1967 would eventually have to be handed back.

http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-freedland250804.htm

[bemildred]

1. More like cutting his losses, but otherwise perceptive. nt

[legin]

2. Thanks Violet good post

When I posted in the '4th Geneva Convention' thread that I thought israel wanted to keep the West Bank, I was kinda taking a bit of a flyer, but this is the second article that I have read in the last couple of days that has suggested this also, Jaun Cole being the other one. This sucks.

[number6]

3. good post Violet

:kick:

[Matilda]

4. The only thing I wonder about is whether the rest of the world

standing around the table watching, are aware that this is what's
happening and don't care, or are they really too witless to see it?

[The Magistrate]

5. An Interesting Metaphor, Ma'am

And an excellent appreciation of what is going on.

The consequences of pressing luck past the peak can be ruinous.

Once, many years ago in a Caribbean casino, the man sitting beside me at the blackjack was ten thousand dollars ahead, and his wife did everything she could short of clubbing him on his thick skull to get him to quit and cash out, but he was sure he would only get more and more if he stayed at it. An hour later he was five thousand in the hole and tapped out of the game.

It was my own practice to quit immediately whenever winnings or losses amounted to one fifth of my starting stake....