Come on, Sharon is painted as a monster for no good reason, if he was a "butcher" enjoying seeing Arabs being slaughtered, he had a number of occasions to do it "completely legally" and he refused to do it.
There are many ways to be a monster. Just because Sharon does not send suicide bombers over to the West Bank does make him God's favorite. Sharon was there when the Palestinians were killed in Lebanon.
When Sharon was Housing Minister, more new settlements were built in the WB than before or since. Sharon has repeatedly voiced his distaste for the Palestinians......just two years ago he went on national Israeli tv and said that the Palestinians can forget about getting independence. He seems to forget how long the Jews pined for their independence.
Three years ago, he went up to the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's holy places and made a big thing of it, knowing that it would agitate the Palestinians. He agitates and agitates and holds up the carrot only to whisk it away when the Palestinians get close.
Take the Egyptian third Army which in 1973 he completely encircled and could have decimated it by simple artillery barrage, with no place to go. As soon as it became clear they are no longer a fighting force, he let them surrender with honor. Even the Egyptians admit that. Sharon has problems, one of them is being impulsive and acting without full "deliberation" of all the possible outcomes (but I have seen very few world leaders that do, the French leadership just prior to the Iraqi conflagration precipitated the war by stating categorically "there is no security council resolution we will not veto", or some thing to that effect, locking the door on possible political solution Powell was working on, and facilitating the neocons' desire in the administration to "take out" Saddam, whatever the excuse). One thing he is not, he is not blood thirsty and nor has he ever ordered killing of innocent civilians, or for that matter the wasteful killing of Egyptian soldiers that are no longer posing a military threat.
He may not have ordered it but many innocent civilians have died in the attacks he has directed against Palestine. Three times as many Palestinians have died than Israelis during this latest jihad.
Don't get me wrong......the Palestinians are not innocents either......there is blood on both sides. However, as the stronger of the two, Israel has a responsibility to take some strong steps to mitigate the violence and tensions.
Frankly, I don't think Israel wants to see an independent Palestine for many reasons. |
