as the world turns

[Madelon Umlauf]

it is so easy for simplistic thinking to demonize
Ariel Sharon at the moment.

this is the man who deceived Menachem Begin
that he wouldnt take the Israeli army past the
Litani area. But he pressed on to Beirut. his 
real intention was to create a puppet regime 
in neighboring Lebanon based on the Maronites 
(Lebanese Christians) and drive out the PLO 
which was on the point of taking over Lebanon. 

Of course the Maronites changed sides 
immediately (hey, its the Near East) to the 
Syrians and got the Syrians to save them 
from the refugee Palestinians. This the 
Syrians were happy to do because it made 
them the masters of Lebanon (which they
still are). And Sharon did succeed in 
getting the PLO troops evacuated to Tunisia. 
This was in 1982.

Sharon famously was involved in the Sabra 
& Shatila masacres when Maronites went into
the Palestinian refugee camps and slaughtered
at least 2000 men women & children. talk
about a blood bath! at the very least Israeli troops
stood by while this was happening.

Sharon is also the gentleman who,
disobeying orders from Moshe Dayan
the one-eyed gent then Defense Minister 
who was having a nervous breakdown,
took his tank battalions over into Egypt
and did a classic envelopment of the 
Egyptian 3rd Army, saving the country's
bacon so to speak. this was in 1973.

and back before 1967 was the commander
of Israeli Special Forces which did punitive 
raids against Palestinian irregulars in the 
West Bank then ruled by Jordan.

now he has forced through the Knesset
the decision to evacuate Israeli settlements
from the Gaza Strip, 7000 men, women in
kerchiefs and children. These folks get 
a $250,000 buyout per family from the govt 
which seems quite generous

Sharon is a cold SOB. He obviously 
ordered the IDF to shed some serious
blood in their most recent incursion into
the Gaza slums. This helped the evacuation
proposal to pass in the Knesset. Only 
Sharon could have done it. Like only 
Nixon could have recognized Red China.

Netanyahu & other Likudites are calling for 
a referendum. Why when 65% of the country
would vote yes. Because the settlers and the 
religious are a very corrupt electorate. They 
regularly vote the cemeteries in their precincts 
and their activists vote over and over again 
in this or that precinct. Political parties such 
as Labor and others send in poll watchers 
but it is virtually impossible to tell one young 
bearded black suit from another especially 
where the poll workers are complicit.

so it seems that in the real world rulers act 
incrementally, ad hoc rather than according 
to some long-range plan. 

so what are we to think of Sharon now?

by the way the ads on the Internet editions 
of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post are 
thick with Vote Kerry/Edwards banners.
What does that tell you about your simplistic
views of Israel?