The death of the status quo

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/367267.html

<snip>

"If the prime minister is having dizzy spells,
there's no need for him to run to the doctor. His
health has nothing to do with it. It's the ground
shaking under his feet.

Not from a natural earthquake,
but from the final gasps and
groans of the status quo.
From the death rattle of the
policy of stalling that has
guided Sharon's line of
thinking, which boils down to
the idea that as long as he
and Bush are buddies
everything is hunky-dory;
that in a world of Islamic terror we are
automatically associated with the good guys;
that we've done our duty by mouthing platitudes
like "we're prepared for painful concessions"
and now we can rest."

<snip>

"And then one morning the prime minister wakes up
to find that he is still sticking to his guns
but global public opinion has shifted against
us. He sees that the Israeli public has lost
its faith in his mythical brain and brawn,
which were supposed to bring peace and
security. He finds that marching in place,
which he perfected to an art form, has done him
in. He discovers that his popularity has begun
to nosedive in the surveys. One morning, he
wakes up to a hubbub of activity around him:
Ayalon-Nusseibeh, the Geneva initiative,
seminars in Madrid, meetings in London. Only he
alone sits there twiddling his thumbs, as the
status quo expires."

<snip>

"With the pressure on him steadily mounting at
home and abroad, Sharon has reached the point
where the luxury of marching in place is no
longer an option. Maybe he is bluffing again
and maybe it's all tactics. But his talk about
unilateral action, dismantling outposts and new
plans he is supposedly putting together sound
like the rumblings of a lion waking up from its
nap. Real or not, when the ground trembles,
even the king of the jungle knows it's time to
get a move on."

I just always knew Blair was gone when he jumped to what Bush said.