Sharon addressed nation Monday
Photo: Avi Ohayon, Government Press Office
Sharon’s frozen stare
Prime minister’s speech was cold, but that’s what we needed
This was the least historical historic speech in the history of speeches.
The only conspicuous thing in Sharon’s speech Monday evening was that nothing in it was conspicuous. Sharon did not ask the settlers for forgiveness, did not announce any changes to his plan, and did not even try to “break to the Right” to prepare for the elections that will likely follow.
Sharon’s close aides refer to his speech delivery technique as “the tape.” He receives the papers, sits in front of the camera, and reads the text with the excitement of a tape recorder.
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He insisted on telling us only what we already knew. The disengagement is in his mind a functional, reasonable step, required in light of demographics. If the others want to yell and scream, it is their problem.
Immediately after the speech, Knesset Member Effie Eitam was interviewed by Channel 1 and spoke about “the prime minister’s frozen stare.” This constituted pure meanness, as Eitam knows well that Sharon has a medical problem with his right eye that causes this frozen stare.
Everyone played role to perfection
In fact, our national leader’s coldness served as an unexpected added bonus. After a day of prayers, screaming, soldiers being shoved, and the mass tearing of shirts, we saw before us an experienced adult who quietly said that he was sorry (but not too sorry,) but his job requires him to do the right thing.
Sharon now has all the reasons to be satisfied. In the disengagement theater, everyone has thus far played the role they have been assigned to perfection.
The women scream, the Golani soldier wipes away his tears, the police chief sits on the floor and chats with a settler official, the man with the beard and burning eyes tears his shirt and then screams at the soldiers as he kicks them out of his home, because sometimes even a settler kicks out a Jew.
If it continues that way, the most dramatic political event of the last decade will lose the rating war against the local version of reality TV show Star Search.
