Saturday, January 14, 2006
Egyptian columnist Mona Eltahawy has an Ariel Sharon piece worth taking a look at in Asharq Alawsat: Sharon as the Quintessential Arab leader. You don't have to agree with every word to find the article worthwhile.
And when it comes to the massacres at Sabra and Shatila, with which Sharon’s name is synonymous, it is important to remember that an Israeli state inquiry in 1983 found Sharon, then defense minister, indirectly responsible for the killings of hundreds of men, women and children at the refugee camps during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. An Arab inquiry has yet to hold directly responsible members of the Lebanese militias who actually slaughtered those men, women and children with their guns and knives.
The Israeli inquiry forced Sharon’s resignation and hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated their horror and disgust at his role in the massacre. I won’t ask where are the Arab demonstrations against the massacres of Arabs by fellow Arabs. The answer is evident in every Arab news story that holds only Sharon responsible for the slaughter at Sabra and Shatila. It is an answer that reminds us again that Arab victimhood makes sense only when we are being victimized by Israel. The horrors we visit upon each other are irrelevant...
Brilliant. That's something I've thought about occasionnally, but to hear it from an Arab's mouth is priceless., particularly with regards to Black September, because that involved Palestinians. Definitely linking to her article. Thanks for the pointer.
Gab, aka lecentre, of centrerion.blogspot.com
She quotes Ben Ami:
"“The support for Sharon was always the result of the hopelessness and despair he himself had generated."
It was Ben Ami and his associates who generated the latest round of despair, "Oslo" which from the getgo (1994) accepted the suicide bombings in a manner similar to Clinton's acceptance of Bin Laden.
Sharon was called upon as a last resort in 2002, to save his countrymen from his fellow politicians, just as in 1973 as a Reserve general he pulled "Ben Ami's chestnuts from the flames.
It was not Sahron who generated the latest round of hopelessness and despair in politics brought about by the Likud Central Committee with its nepotism, corruption etc., but it was Sharon who called it quits and formed his new party.
As for Lebanon, the hopelessness and despair brought on by Sharon entering a war against Arafat, whom the US and the Christian world refused to hold to account for a bestial rampage that led to thousands of deaths in that country in the 70s, was complemented in full by the media. Almost a similar result of the media campaign in Vietnam.
Had State not saved Arafat's bacon, to foist it on Israel another day, and the Pentagon gone in with its eyes open the outcome in Lebanon might have avoided the Syrian tyranny and the Israeli occupation all those years in the southern sector and might even have avoided Sharon's coming to power in the 21st. century.
Then again maybe it was hopelessness and despair the Arabs sensed when Sharon started his military adventures in the 50s against the Fedayeen from Egypt and Jordan.