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| Israel-Palestine |
| Foreign press hails Ariel "de Gaulle" |
| 2005-02-16 |
| Representatives of the foreign press asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eight questions at his annual press conference with them in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Not one of them had to do with the "wall," the settlements, the release of Palestinians with "blood on their hands" or Palestinians killed by the IDF. Instead, the representative from the BBC, not exactly a news organization that has coddled Sharon in years past (remember its Panorama show on whether he should be indicted for war crimes over Sabra and Shatilla), asked a question that hinted at genuine concern for the once-vilified prime minister's safety. And The New York Times, a paper not known for offering soft-ball questions to Israeli politicians, was granted the penultimate question and asked whether he planned on firing Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who supports the referendum that Sharon opposes. The deferential — if not downright coddling and concerned manner in which members of the Foreign Press Association treated Sharon — is as good an indication as any of the man's astounding transformation. The foreign press was not facing the "hawkish" or "hard-line" or "right-wing" Sharon they have critically referred to in the past, but rather a man carrying out a policy that pleases them. Many of them, or their colleagues, had over the past few years written about whether Sharon would rise to the occasion and turn out to be Israel's Charles de Gaulle. Judging by the manner in which Sharon was received, many believe the transformation is complete. snip |
| Posted by:trailing wife |