“By Faith. No Fear. Prepared For His Purposes.” Steve Martin, Paperback now available – April 30, 2020
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Showing posts with label warrior. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warrior. Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Little T-Rex. He will be a warrior. - Now Think On This by Steve Martin
Little T-Rex.
He will be a warrior.
.
Now Think On This
Steve Martin
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme; I address my
verses to the king; my tongue is the pen of an expert scribe. You are the most
handsome of men; gracious speech flows from your lips. For God has blessed you
forever. Warrior, strap your sword at your thigh; [gird on] your splendor and
majesty. In your majesty, succeed, ride on in the cause of truth, meekness and
righteousness. May your right hand teach you awesome things.” Psalms 45:2-5 Complete
Jewish Bible
Hannah
Elizabeth was expecting her first born. The excitement was shared by her whole
family, including us, her Dad and Mom. Even as a young girl Hannah loved
children. At one point I thought she would have her own daycare business, and I
had suggested that to her in her early 20’s. She had a heart for kids.
In her
third year of marriage Hannah was with child. It was confirmed on her visit to
the doctor, and the countdown to birth began. Was this unborn a boy or a girl?
Black hair, like father Jonathan, or blonde hair like mom. And would this
little one have all ten fingers and ten toes? You know, the usual questions
anticipated and quietly asked.
Into
her first six weeks or thereabouts (Grandpas generally don’t keep track of
those things, at least this one doesn’t), with today’s medical advancements,
the sonograms started. Amazing what life we can see even at this developing
stage of the unborn. Oh how our God is so good!
Even from the moment of
conception, He was forming another good creation in His image, our 7th
grandchild.
“God,
your Redeemer, who shaped your life in your mother's womb, says: "I am
God. I made all that is. With no help from you I spread out the skies and laid
out the earth." (Isaiah 44:24, THE MESSAGE)
At one
point in the first trimester period, following another sonogram, the doctor came to
Hannah, and with concern, told her there seemed to a problem in the formation. This
one within her may have TAR Syndrome. Neither Hannah nor anyone else in the
family knew what that was. In short, this little one appeared to be missing
bones in the arms, specifically the forearms. The doctor told her she had an
option – to abort or to continue the pregnancy.
Having
been raised in a God-believing family, and being herself a strong Christian,
Hannah firmly said no to the killing option. This child was going to continue
life, for the Lord was his Creator. As the
months moved on, it was confirmed that this baby, now known to be a boy, and prayefully named Levi Zachary, would come forth with a challenge before him and his
family.
You can believe that his praying family, from great-grandma down to his
cousins, were interceding with all the prayers we knew, for full development of
Levi. How was he going to thrive in this world missing parts of his body? The
usual questions were already being asked, as we sought the Lord for what we
thought would be the perfect response.
On
January 13, 2016, Little Levi came out, just 16 days before his mother’s
birthday. He did not have the forearms, as earlier detected, which were missing. Within the first 14 days of life he needed four transfusions, to build up the platelets in his blood. But from the start, he has known his parents, grandparents, aunts and
uncles love, along with his six cousins. His older brother Payton also received this new addition into
their family, with the Lord Jesus' special love and our thanksgiving for the Levi's life.
This
little guy is a gift from our Lord. He will be cared for and raised in the knowledge
of His Maker. Whatever comes his way, he will have the grace to be an
overcomer, and fulfill the plans and purposes of the Lord.
Here
is another interesting but encouraging demonstration of the Lord’s love. Hannah
calls Little Levi “T-Rex”, and has spoken over him that he will be a warrior
for the Lord’s work. Even in despite of missing those forearms, and other situations, we agree, He will be!
And
then there is yet another, but simple, sign of the Lord’s heart for this beautiful creation of His. At a recent prophetic class I attended at MorningStar, our home church, a small brown bag
containing items was passed out to each of the tables, with the teacher's instructions
for each person at the table to draw out an item, ask the Lord for a word to
share with another at the table, and give that word in the form of encouragement.
No one at the table knew what things were in the bag.
The
young mother seated next to me, who was to give a word to me, reached in the
bag and drew out a very small, gray toy. It was a dinosaur. It was a T-Rex. She
had no idea what that meant, and said so. But I did. I knew immediately it was
a sign from the Lord to me.
Our Almighty God whom we serve has
Little Levi in His heart. He always has, from the beginning of time, even
before He began forming him in his mother’s womb. Little Levi is a “T-Rex”. He
will be a warrior, a fighter, for the Lord’s purposes in His kingdom.
You
and I don’t know all that the Lord has in store for us. We don’t know what all
Levi will face as he continues to grow in the Lord’s love. But we certainly can
stand on His promises that whatever those plans are, they are most certainly for
good! For He is a great God! He is a Mighty Savior! He is the King of kings and
the Lord of All!
We all
face obstacles in our life. But we have the Victorious King who makes us
overcomers. In His wisdom, honor and strength we too, like Little Levi, will
find our place in His army and be the men and women, warriors all, to see His
Kingdom come.
To
this we can say, “Amen!”
So think on this,
Steve Martin
Founder
Love For His People, Inc.
P.S. I have included a brief description on TAR Syndrome below.
P.S. I have included a brief description on TAR Syndrome below.
Here is our Little Levi, at
just 14 days old as of this writing. And below him is the T-Rex which I now
carry in my pocket daily, as a reminder to intercede daily for our grandson. He
will be a mighty warrior for His Lord!
Hannah and Little Levi
Dad Jonathan and big brother Payton.
The “T-Rex” from the MorningStar prophetic class.
I carry in my pocket as a reminder daily to pray for Little Levi.
Levi at birth Jan. 13, 2016 Levi & Grandpa at 7 days old
Levi Zachary (Martin) Avalos - 12 day old, Jan. 25, 2016
P.S. I would be
most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and
friends. They might need it. You can easily use the social media icons below.
Thanks! Steve
We are blessed when the ministry receives gifts to bless
the families that we do in Israel, India, Pakistan and the hurting ones here in
the USA. You also can share out of the abundance you have been given.
Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA humanitarian
organization started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations.
If these messages minister to you, please consider
sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us
bless families we know in Israel, whom we consistently help through our
humanitarian ministry. Your tax deductible contributions receive a receipt
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Todah rabah! (Hebrew – Thank you very much.)
Please share Now Think On This with your
friends.
Email: loveforhispeople@gmail.com
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Now Think On This - In the New Year of our Lord 01.30.16 -
#239 –“Little T-Tex. He Will Be a Warrior.” – Saturday at 8:00 am
All previous editions of Now Think On This can
be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This
Again, I would be most grateful if you'd share this
encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social
media icons below. Thanks! Steve
TAR Syndrome
TAR Syndrome
Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius Syndrome
What is TAR Syndrome?
Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius (TAR) Syndrome is a rare genetic
disorder. It is characterized by low levels of platelets in the blood
(thrombocytopenia), absence (aplasia) of the bone on the thumb side of the
forearm (radius) on both arms, and underdevelopment (hypoplasia) or absence of
the bone on the pinky-side of the forearm (ulna). Platelets are very important
for normal blood clotting. Consequently, thrombocytopenia results in
potentially severe bleeding episodes (hemorrhaging) primarily during infancy.
Children with TAR Syndrome frequently have malformations of their hands, but
their thumbs are always present. Other abnormalities may include malformations
of the heart, legs, and hip sockets; kidney defects; and mental retardation
resulting from bleeding in the skull.
Source: Birth Defects website - click here: TAR Syndrome
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Steven Curtis Chapman - "Warrior" (song feat. scenes from War Room)
Stephen Curtis Chapam singing "Warrior"
Published on Aug 26, 2015
Are you a warrior? Are you fighting your battles the way God intends us to? This is the heart of “Warrior,” the new song from Steven Curtis Chapman that he wrote specifically for WAR ROOM. With its chorus including the line, “I fall on my knees and I fight like a warrior,” the song captures the spirit of the movie as well.
War Room is out in theaters on 8/28/15
War Room is out in theaters on 8/28/15
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
The Times of Israel: Left for dead in 1948: The battle that shaped Arik Sharon
Left for dead in 1948:
The battle that shaped
Arik (Ariel) Sharon
Battalion commander Sharon, 20, was shot in the abdomen and would have died, but for the heroism of a 16-year-old soldier, wounded himself, who dragged him through the Latrun killing fields to safety
January 12, 2014
Ariel (Arik) Sharon n the fields of Laturn
WRITERS
Mitch Ginsburg Mitch Ginsburg is The Times of Israel's military correspondent.
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The formative moment of Ariel Sharon’s life came in May 1948; not with the Declaration of Independence – which he heard on the radio wafting out of an open window on his way to kiss his girlfriend Gali before a mission – but with the battle for Latrun, 11 days later, in which he was left for dead.
At the time, Jews and Palestinians had been fighting for six months. Arab forces controlled the ridges along the road to Jerusalem, barring the delivery of anything beyond sporadic convoys of food and water. The corridor to the capital, dominated by the town of Latrun and the Crusader castle looming over the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, was held by Jordanian troops and Palestinian militia.
The Haganah’s 7thBrigade, a newly formed unit mostly manned by Holocaust survivors, some of whom had never before fired a weapon, was given the task. Sharon, then still known as Scheinerman, commanded the 1stPlatoon of B Company of the 32ndBattalion, the only battle-hardened fighting force in the brigade.
On May 25, in the afternoon, he lay in the shade of an olive grove and wrote a letter to his parents. It was published years later in Ram Oren’s account of the battle, “Latrun,” and speaks both to Sharon’s underappreciated facility with words and his view, as the quintessential sabra, of the European Jewish refugees and their plight: “My platoon and I are lazing in an olive grove, passing the heat of the day, thinking pre-battle thoughts, blending with the water-smoothed stones and the earth, feeling part and parcel of the land: a rooted feeling, a feeling of a homeland, of belonging, of ownership. Suddenly a convoy of trucks stopped next to us and unloaded new, foreign-looking recruits. They looked slightly pale, and were wearing sleeveless sweaters, gray pants, and striped shirts. A stream of languages filled the air, names like Herschel and Yazek, Jan and Maitek were thrown around. They stuck out against the backdrop of olives, rocks, and yellowing grains. They’d come to us through blocked borders, from Europe’s death camps.
“I watched them. Watched them strip, watched their white bodies. They tried to find fitting uniforms, and fought the straps on their battle jackets as their new commanders helped them get suited up. They did this in silence, as though they had made their peace with fate. Not one of them cried out: ‘Let us at least breathe the free air after the years of terrible suffering.’ It is as if they’d come to the conclusion that this is one final battle for the future of the Jewish people.” [The letter was republished in "Ariel Sharon: A Life," a 2006 biography, which this reporter translated.]
The plan was to attack at midnight. The commanders, though, quarreled through the dark hours of the night and only sent the troops into the field at 4 a.m. Sharon, 20 years old, led the battalion into battle.
The column cut through the fog and the rigid wheat and promptly came under Jordanian fire. In his autobiography, “Warrior,” written with David Chanoff, Sharon said that, under machine gun fire, he “sensed rather than saw men dropping suddenly or sliding slowly into the fog.”
Shortly after five in the morning, “in a moment of startling swiftness,” the sun burnt away the haze, and the platoon, which had been leading several hundred men, found itself alone on an open patch of earth. The olive grove above them, on Latrun hill, “looked like it was spitting fire.”
Sharon led the platoon to a gully, a small indentation in the earth that provided the most meager cover, and took stock: his sergeant had been wounded. The platoon radio took a bullet and was inoperable. None of them had water, as canteens had not been found before the battle, and behind them, the wheat fields burned from the artillery rounds. Up ahead, through the billowing smoke, the Jordanian troops laid down long bursts of machine gun fire.
They were trapped.
“On the bright side,” Sharon wrote, “we had a good supply of hand grenades and ammunition for our Sten guns and Czech rifles.”
The slightest movement from members of the 1st Platoon provoked enemy fire. Soldiers who shifted carelessly were shot and dragged to the back of the gully, where an oozing, muddy trickle of water turned red with blood. Flies and gnats descended on the wounded. Jordanian Bedouin soldiers began flitting out of the olive grove and launching frontal assaults. Only when they were within 40 yards of the position, and only after the Hagannah soldiers heard the calls of Itbah al-Yahud, kill the Jews, did they open fire, repulsing wave after wave of Arab offensives.
Sharon was plagued by thirst and desperate for the day to darken into night. He re-wound his watch so often, he told Chanoff, that the stem came off in his hand.
By one in the afternoon, half of the platoon was dead and nearly all the rest were wounded, and Sharon, who had entered the battle with one arm in a cast, was shot in the abdomen. “Raising myself to see what was happening, I felt something thud into my belly, knocking me back. I heard my mouth say ‘Imah’ – mother, and the instant it was out I glanced around to see if anybody had heard,” he wrote in “Warrior.”
A little later in the afternoon, a palpable shift descended on the battlefield. The Israeli guns opened fire, and Sharon, completely cut off from the rest of the force, told his men to get ready for a charge. He was sure the Israeli artillery was the precursor to a larger offensive. But looking over his shoulder, amid a sudden calm in the barrage, he saw how mistaken he had been: the artillery fire had enabled the brigade to retreat. The hills behind him, where the 72nd Battalion had guarded their flank, were covered with Palestinian villagers.
“I looked back and saw that I had misinterpreted the sudden silence,” he wrote in a piece for Yedioth Ahronoth in 1998 and which was reprinted in his son Gilad’s memoir, ‘Sharon: The Life of a Leader.’ “The entire mountainside behind us was covered with Arab villagers. They butchered our wounded, the ones left in the field by other units.”
“All around me,” he continued, “the dead and the wounded. All friends, all from the Sharon region, most from a single village. People you grew up with. Here they were, right in front of you, in this awful field, close to death, and there was nothing you could do for them. They were lost. ”
One of them, Simcha Pinchasi, described in “Warrior” as “a wonderful boy from Kfar Saba,” had been hit in both legs and couldn’t move. He’d been manning the machine gun all day. “With a look and a quick nod he indicated that he would cover the withdrawal,” Sharon wrote. “But Arik,” he said, “before you go, give me a grenade.” I gave it to him, knowing there was no hope whatsoever, not for him and most likely not for the rest of us either. There was no one whom I could ask to carry him, just as there was no one who could carry me. Our eyes caught for a moment, then I turned to go. And as I did I had a momentary image of his parents as they were when I last saw them in their village.”
The order to retreat and leave men like Pinchasi behind, he said years after the battle, was the most difficult one he ever had to issue. “There were others, of varying magnitudes, of different degrees of responsibility, but none was as grave as that one,” he wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth article. “I looked at my wounded. I knew I was seeing them for the last time. I knew they would be butchered. I gave the order. For the first and last time in my life as a commander, I gave the order: retreat, retreat and leave the wounded in the field.
“There was no choice. I had to save the few that were still alive. I lay there, tormented by pain. The few who were able to move, passed me by. “Should we leave you here, too?” Yes, me too. I saw the eyes of those who fled. They contained shock and sorrow, immense pain. That look accompanies me to this day, always.”
Eventually, after pointing the way and parting with Pinchasi, Sharon set out on his own, dragging his body across the smoldering earth. Sure that he would not be able to clear even one rocky terrace, he slithered along, with “the sounds of the pillage and the slaughter being perpetrated by the villagers knock[ing] upon my eardrums.”
One soldier, a native of one of the villages near his hometown of Kfar Malal, “looked at him long and hard” at the nature of his wound and his blood-soaked uniform, and “parted with him in silence,” according to the account in Nir Hefez and Gadi Bloom’s “Ariel Sharon: A Life.”
Yakov Bugin, a 16 year-old soldier under his command, who had just joined the platoon and who himself had been shot in the jaw and was missing a large part of his face, found Sharon on his back, eyes open, looking at the sky. Sharon, unable to remember the soldier’s name, told him to “run, escape, save yourself.”
Bugin, though, wordlessly helped him through the hellish vista, boosting him up over terraces and relying on Sharon’s infallible sense of direction to guide them back through the killing field. “We had no choice but to stand tall and walk through the field in full view of the armed Palestinian peasants,” Bugin told Hefez and Bloom.
“All around me,” he continued, “the dead and the wounded. All friends, all from the Sharon region, most from a single village. People you grew up with. Here they were, right in front of you, in this awful field, close to death, and there was nothing you could do for them. They were lost. ”
One of them, Simcha Pinchasi, described in “Warrior” as “a wonderful boy from Kfar Saba,” had been hit in both legs and couldn’t move. He’d been manning the machine gun all day. “With a look and a quick nod he indicated that he would cover the withdrawal,” Sharon wrote. “But Arik,” he said, “before you go, give me a grenade.” I gave it to him, knowing there was no hope whatsoever, not for him and most likely not for the rest of us either. There was no one whom I could ask to carry him, just as there was no one who could carry me. Our eyes caught for a moment, then I turned to go. And as I did I had a momentary image of his parents as they were when I last saw them in their village.”
The order to retreat and leave men like Pinchasi behind, he said years after the battle, was the most difficult one he ever had to issue. “There were others, of varying magnitudes, of different degrees of responsibility, but none was as grave as that one,” he wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth article. “I looked at my wounded. I knew I was seeing them for the last time. I knew they would be butchered. I gave the order. For the first and last time in my life as a commander, I gave the order: retreat, retreat and leave the wounded in the field.
“There was no choice. I had to save the few that were still alive. I lay there, tormented by pain. The few who were able to move, passed me by. “Should we leave you here, too?” Yes, me too. I saw the eyes of those who fled. They contained shock and sorrow, immense pain. That look accompanies me to this day, always.”
Eventually, after pointing the way and parting with Pinchasi, Sharon set out on his own, dragging his body across the smoldering earth. Sure that he would not be able to clear even one rocky terrace, he slithered along, with “the sounds of the pillage and the slaughter being perpetrated by the villagers knock[ing] upon my eardrums.”
One soldier, a native of one of the villages near his hometown of Kfar Malal, “looked at him long and hard” at the nature of his wound and his blood-soaked uniform, and “parted with him in silence,” according to the account in Nir Hefez and Gadi Bloom’s “Ariel Sharon: A Life.”
Yakov Bugin, a 16 year-old soldier under his command, who had just joined the platoon and who himself had been shot in the jaw and was missing a large part of his face, found Sharon on his back, eyes open, looking at the sky. Sharon, unable to remember the soldier’s name, told him to “run, escape, save yourself.”
Bugin, though, wordlessly helped him through the hellish vista, boosting him up over terraces and relying on Sharon’s infallible sense of direction to guide them back through the killing field. “We had no choice but to stand tall and walk through the field in full view of the armed Palestinian peasants,” Bugin told Hefez and Bloom.
“Once we stood up, we could see the Arabs shooting our wounded right beside us. They saw us, but luckily they were too busy looting the bodies to raise their weapons and kill the two miserable, bleeding soldiers limping past…All they would have had to do to kill us is raise their weapons to their shoulders. They wouldn’t even have had to run. That’s how Arik and I made our way through the field, surrounded by Arabs, until we slowly distanced ourselves from them. We were lucky that Arik knew the area well and that he had binoculars, which helped us find the area for wounded soldiers.”
They continued like that for hours, until Sharon, spotting the jeep that would rescue them, passed out.
But he did not forget the experience. As commander of the Paratroops and Unit 101, Israel’s first true elite force, he made it an ironclad rule that the injured never be left in the field. And when, in September 2001, he became the first Likud prime minister to say that Israel “wants to give the Palestinians what no one else ever has: the opportunity to establish a state of their own,” he did so, not by coincidence, at Latrun.
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They continued like that for hours, until Sharon, spotting the jeep that would rescue them, passed out.
But he did not forget the experience. As commander of the Paratroops and Unit 101, Israel’s first true elite force, he made it an ironclad rule that the injured never be left in the field. And when, in September 2001, he became the first Likud prime minister to say that Israel “wants to give the Palestinians what no one else ever has: the opportunity to establish a state of their own,” he did so, not by coincidence, at Latrun.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email
and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP!
Read more: Left for dead in 1948: The battle that shaped Arik Sharon | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/left-for-dead-in-1948-the-battle-that-shaped-arik-sharon/#ixzz2qNFodZ2Q
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Israel Today - Appreciation: A Salute to Ariel Sharon
Appreciation: A Salute to Ariel Sharon
Sunday, January 12, 2014 | Uri Dromi
Originally published Jewish Journal
In January 1985, as a colonel in the Israeli Air Force, I was running a course for high-ranking officers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), focused on lessons from Israel’s wars. One of the case studies to be discussed was the battle of Um-Katef/Abu-Ageila, in the Six-Day War, when the division of Gen. Ariel Sharon broke the backbone of the Egyptian army and enabled the breakthrough into Sinai, thus paving the way to Israel’s great land victory. This highly complex combined operation, executed impeccably at night, has been studied since in many military academies all around the world as a model for generalship at its best. Needless to say, I was going to invite Sharon to speak about this battle.
The problem was that Sharon was in New York at that time, suing Time magazine for libel. The trial was nearing its end, so I called Sharon’s hotel in New York, hoping to speak with his close friend and confidant, Uri Dan. Instead, Sharon himself answered. “Of course,” he said immediately. “I’ll be in Tel Aviv in a few days and will speak to your course.” Then he had a very strange request: that an officer should wait for him at the airport, to take him straight to the IDF History Unit. When he arrived after the long flight, instead of going home, he spent six hours studying the details of the battle he had fought 18 years before.
The following day, he arrived at our course and gave a mesmerizing lecture. Escorting him to his car, I couldn’t help asking why he needed to refresh his memory about a battle he had probably known by heart. He looked at me and said: “Young man, I just spoke to a group of serious people. You have to prepare for that.” Then he added: “Whatever you do, do it properly.” (“Kmo she’zarich,” in Hebrew.)
Actually, for Sharon, kmo she’zarich wasn’t exactly “doing things properly”; in his dictionary, the more precise translation was “doing things as they should be done,” with Sharon himself deciding the criteria. Sixty years ago, when the newborn Jewish state fell victim to ceaseless terrorist infiltrations on its Jordanian and Egyptian borders, and the IDF seemed incapable of stopping them, Major Sharon established Unit 101, a semi-partisan band of warriors who spread havoc in Jordan and Egypt using highly unconventional methods. Many in the IDF and the Israeli government felt that this wasn’t the proper way to do things, and Sharon would pay a price with his military career, but Israel regained its deterrence.
Retiring from active duty in the summer of 1973 and hungry for a political career, Sharon was confronted by the hostile Laborite establishment, which had ruled Israel for ages and had viewed the charismatic general with suspicion. Instead of bowing to the existing powers, Sharon surprised them by establishing the Likud Party, which, four years later, snatched the hegemony from Labor.
During the Yom Kippur War, he did a lot of things that his superiors thought were improper — so much so that they even talked about firing him. Luckily for Israel, they didn’t. His performance during the first dark days of the war, when he calmly and expertly led his troops in containing the invading Egyptian army, will go down in our history as the quintessence of Israeli resilience. Not to mention his crossing of the Suez Canal, which turned the tables on the Egyptians.
In 1982, as defense minister, when he felt he’d had just enough of the Palestinian intransigence coming from Lebanon, he manipulated Menachem Begin’s government into the first Lebanon War. Again, was it done kmo she’zarich? Depends on whom you’re asking. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry, established after the Sabra and Shatila massacre carried out by Lebanese Christians, then Israel’s allies, obviously thought it wasn’t, and sent the defense minister home. Sharon, on the other hand, believed that he had done the right thing by kicking Yasser Arafat and his terrorist apparatus from Lebanon, thus hammering in the message that you can’t mess with Israel for so long and get away with it.
Ten years later, as housing minister, he was entrusted with the awesome task of accommodating 1 million Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (the equivalent of accommodating 50 million immigrants in the United States in one year). He stood up to the historic occasion. Did he do it properly? The state comptroller, who had investigated it later, didn’t think so and reprimanded Sharon for ignoring budgetary constraints and normal government procedures. Yet, by giving these people a home in Israel, Sharon achieved one of the greatest feats in the history of our country.
Finally, as prime minister, he came to the conclusion that Israel shouldn’t be ruling millions of Arabs, and that it has to adjust its borders accordingly. When he met opposition within his own Likud Party, he again broke away from the impasse by creating a new party, Kadima. The way in which he disengaged from Gaza was not the proper one: He should have given Gaza to Abu Mazen, instead of letting it fall into the hands of Hamas. But, again, this was Sharon’s way: He didn’t believe that there was a credible Palestinian partner and therefore did what he thought was good for Israel, unilaterally.
Today, when many Israelis feel that their political leaders can’t accomplish much in any given area, the imminence of Sharon’s final departure, even after a long illness, is especially painful. Controversial as he was during his lifetime, Israelis today salute a warrior and a leader who — for better or worse — knew how to do things kmo she’zarich.
Col. Uri Dromi, who now serves in the Israeli Air Force Reserve, is director general of the Jerusalem Press Club. From 1992 to 1996, Dromi was director of Israel’s Government Press Office, serving as chief spokesman for the Rabin and Peres governments. As former prime minister and retired Gen. Ariel Sharon’s health was in serious decline this week following eight years spent in a coma, the Journal invited Dromi to reflect on Sharon’s legacy.
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