Read [b]Israel's Ajax[/b], for a very good commentary on Ariel Sharon and the current Operation Protective Wall on the West Bank:
[size=4]Israel's Ajax[/size=4]
by Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
Sophocles once wrote a magnificent play about the Greeks' greatest fighter at Troy after Achilles — Ajax, as irreplaceable in war as he proved expendable in peace. During the struggle for Troy, the Greeks were often saved by the towering, clumsy "donkey." Without the dash of a youthful, handsome Achilles or the divine dispensation of a crafty Odysseus, Ajax battered down the Trojans — fighting out of a sense of duty, personal honor, and perhaps a sheer love of combat.
Yet once the victory was obtained, danger past, and spoils allotted, the more politically astute and glib heroes — like the sons of Atreus and Odysseus — came away with all the honors and prizes. In a fit of madness, Ajax killed himself — bewildered that the race goes not to the swift, and the memory of men is short and of the moment. In the increasing democratization of fifth-century B.C. Athens, the playwright Sophocles was apparently captivated by a few old war-horses still in his midst who had once built Athens by blood and toil — and yet were clearly unfit for the nuances and subtleties of the duplicitous politics of the contemporary freewheeling assembly.
See remainder of article at:[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson042302.asp[/url]
Eric The(Literary)Hun[>]:)]