Bidding A Not-So-Fond Farewell ...

[RLENT]

There's something somewhat fitting about a man who was the author of such butchery as Qibya, Sabra and Shatila having to lie in his own excrement for the last 8 years ... not the full measure he was due to be certain, but nevertheless a good start.

Max Blumenthal bids a not-so-fond farewell to Ariel Sharon:

How Ariel Sharon Shaped Israel’s Destiny

In a bloody career that spanned decades, he destroyed entire cities and presided over the killing of countless civilians.


A central player in Israeli affairs since the state’s inception, Ariel Sharon molded history according to his own stark vision. He won consent for his plans through ruthlessness and guile, and resorted to force when he could not find any. An accused war criminal who presided over the killing of thousands of civilians, his foes referred to him as “The Bulldozer.” To those who revered him as a strong-armed protector and patron saint of the settlements, he was “The King of Israel.” In a life acted out in three parts, Sharon destroyed entire cities, wasted countless lives and sabotaged careers to shape the reality on the ground.

The first act of Sharon’s career began after the 1948 war that established Israel at the expense of 750,000 Palestinians who were driven away in a campaign of mass expulsion. Badly wounded in the battle of Latrun, where the Israeli army suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of the Royal Jordanian Army, Sharon momentarily retired from army life. He looked back in anger at the failure to take Latrun, a strategic swath of land containing three Palestinian towns seemingly obstructing the new Jewish state’s demographic continuity. Spineless politicians and feckless commanders had tied the hands of Israel’s troops, he claimed, leaving the Jewish state exposed from within. Sharon yearned to finish 1948—to complete the expulsion project he viewed as deficient.

In 1953, Sharon was plucked out of retirement by Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and appointed the head of a secret commando unit tasked with carrying out brutal acts of reprisal and sabotage. Following a lethal Palestinian assault on an Israeli kibbutz, Sharon led his men into the West Bank town of Qibya with orders from Ben Gurion’s Central Command to “carry out destruction and cause maximum damage.” By the time they were done, sixty-nine civilians—mostly Palestinian women and children—lay dead.

In the years after that scandal, Sharon carried out bloody raids on Egyptian and Syrian territory that inflamed relations with Israel’s neighbors and led them to seek urgent military assistance from the Soviet Union. In the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Sharon was accused by one of his commanders, Arye Biro, of overseeing the massacre of forty-nine Egyptian quarry workers who had been taken prisoner and had no role in the fighting (official censorship kept the details from the public for decades). In the 1967 Six Day War, Sharon ran up the body count on encircled Egyptian tank units, converting unprecedented kill ratios into national fame. With the Gaza Strip now under Israeli control, Sharon orchestrated the razing of Palestinian citrus orchards to make way for Jewish colonization.

During the 1973 war, Sharon waged his own parallel war for personal glory. Determined to be the first Israeli commander to cross the Suez Canal, he sent his soldiers rushing into the teeth of the Egyptian army without sufficient artillery or air support. Scores of his men died in the blind thrust while entire brigades were left exposed. But Sharon salvaged his quest for fame when his tank brigades encircled the Egyptian Third Army. After the battle, photos of the general standing proudly in the Egyptian desert, bandaged from a superficial wound and surrounded by soldiers hailing him as “The King of Israel,” circulated in the Israeli and international media. The high-flying political career he had sought was now guaranteed. In short order, Sharon helped found the Likud Party, opening the second act of his storied career.

Though set on a rightward political trajectory, Sharon owed his fortunes to the icons of LaborZionism. His original patron, Ben Gurion, and the younger warrior-politician Moshe Dayan, constantly shuffled him up the ranks of the military hierarchy, despite a clear pattern of scandalously insubordinate behavior. His first cabinet-level post was an abbreviated stint in the 1970s government of Yitzhak Rabin, the quintessential Laborite, who imagined Sharon leading a reorganization of the army following the disaster of the 1973 war. But it was in the Likud-led 1977 coalition of Menachem Begin that Sharon was finally able to translate his influence into history-altering policies.

Appointed minister of agriculture, Sharon exploited his seemingly insignificant position to bring the messianic project of Greater Israel to fruition. With unbridled vigor, he expanded the settlement enterprise across the West Bank, boasting that he personally established sixty-four settlements during his first four years in government. He revealed his strategy in a private chat with Winston Churchill’s grandson: “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”

Having established himself as the visionary behind the settlements, Sharon set his sights on the Ministry of Defense, actively intimidating Begin to fulfill his ambition. When Begin finally capitulated before Sharon’s bullying, he declared only half-jokingly that Sharon might have staged a military coup if he hadn’t been offered his desired sinecure.

Sharon entered the Defense Ministry consumed with dreams of an Israeli-friendly Christian puppet government in Beirut—the bulwark of a regional Israeli empire. Clamoring for an invasion of Lebanon, Sharon withheld his true intentions from everyone except perhaps Begin, claiming he merely aimed to drive the PLO out of southern Lebanon, where it had staged periodic raids on Israeli territory. When Begin green-lighted Operation Peace for Galilee in June 1982, Sharon sent Israeli tanks rumbling towards Beirut without the approval of the rest of the cabinet, whom Sharon had deliberately deceived. Many of them were outraged, but it was too late to turn back.

Against fierce Palestinian resistance, one of the Middle East’s most vital and cosmopolitan cities was laid to ruin. Sharon’s forces flattened West Beirut with indiscriminate shelling, leaving streets strewn with unburied corpses. With each passing day, disease and famine spread at epidemic levels. In August, the day after the Israeli cabinet accepted US special envoy Philip Habib’s proposal for the evacuation of the PLO, Sharon’s forces bombarded Beirut for seven hours straight, leaving 300 dead, most of them civilians. The Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling wrote that the raid “resembled the attack on Dresden by the Allies toward the end of World War II.” Sharon even requested an additional paratrooper brigade to obliterate the PLO forces besieged in the city, earning a rare rebuke from Begin, who worried that his defense minister would completely destroy Habib’s efforts to resolve the crisis.

PLO forces withdrew from Lebanon, according to Habib’s guidelines, but the worst was yet to come. Sharon had stymied a proposal for the introduction of multinational peacekeepers capable of preventing reprisals against the defenseless Palestinian refugees who had been left behind. Thus the stage was set for the most heinous massacre of the war. Following the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the Christian warlord who was supposed to serve as Sharon’s handpicked puppet president, Israeli forces helped usher Christian Phalangist militias into the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila, then surrounded by the Israeli military, providing them with intelligence and operational support. Sharon and many of his officers were well aware of the Phalangists’ intention to murder as many women and children as they could. After days of slaughter, as many as 2,000 civilians were dead, with countless others raped and brutalized.

In February 1983, Israel’s Kahan Commission found Sharon “indirectly responsible” for the massacre, urging his dismissal as defense minister. With the Israeli body count was piling up in Lebanon, city squares in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were thronged with outraged mothers and a growing movement of service refuseniks. The antiwar demonstrations shook the confidence of the army’s high command. At the prime minister’s office, Sharon berated Begin and his ministers, warning them, “If we adopt this [Kahan] report, all our ill-wishers and naysayers will that what happened in the camp was genocide.” Calling the findings “a mark of Cain on all of us for generations,” Sharon adamantly refused to step down.

During the meeting, a right-wing Jewish terrorist lobbed a live grenade into a crowd of antiwar protesters right outside the prime minister’s office, killing the teacher and antiwar activist Emil Grunzweig. The incident was Sharon’s coup de grâce, prompting his resignation. Though he remained in government as a minister without portfolio, his dreams of serving as prime minister appeared to be dashed.

Sharon’s fear of prosecution did not end with his resignation. In July 2001, a Belgian court opened an inquiry into the Sabra and Shatila massacre when a group of survivors filed a complaint under the country’s “universal jurisdiction” guidelines. Elie Hobeika, the Phalangist commander directly responsible for the killings, was assassinated months later, after informing Belgian politicians that he would testify against Sharon. “Israel doesn’t want witnesses against it in this historic case in Belgium which will certainly convict Ariel Sharon,” the Lebanese Minister of Displaced People Marwan Hamadeh remarked at the time, echoing widespread speculation about Sharon’s involvement. In September 2003, with Belgian relations with Israel at an all-time low, the Belgian court threw out the case, citing Sharon’s diplomatic immunity.

By this time, Sharon had resuscitated his political career in dramatic fashion. On September 28, 2000, following the collapse of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at Camp David that summer, Sharon toured the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, site of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, accompanied by 1,000 armed police and security agents. It was a provocative stunt, staged to inflame rising tensions in the occupied territories. As expected, the appearance sparked widespread Palestinian rioting the next day, which was met with a draconian Israeli crackdown—Israeli forces fired 1.3 million bullets at mostly unarmed demonstrators in October 2000 alone—fueling what became known as the Al Aqsa Intifada. The following year Sharon was elected prime minister and Palestinian suicide bombings were battering the cafes and nightclubs of Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem. Channeling the mood of Israel’s “peace camp,” which had called for Sharon’s ouster during the invasion of Lebanon, the liberal newspaper Haaretz demanded “a war about the morning’s coffee and croissant.”

The beleaguered peace camp was shocked at the intifada, but also cynically misled by Sharon’s predecessor as prime minister, Ehud Barak, who declared after the collapse of the Camp David negotiations that there was “no Palestinian partner” for peace. Sapped of confidence, they became quiescent while the mainstream united behind Sharon, their vengeful protector. With a free hand to deploy tanks and combat jets against Palestinian population centers, Sharon oversaw a campaign of carefully calculated brutality, culminating, in 2002, in the comprehensive demolition of the Jenin refugee camp. Baruch Kimmerling termed Sharon’s strategy “politicide,” a “gradual but systematic attempt to cause [Palestine’s] annihilation as an independent political and social entity.” As in the beginning, Sharon’s unspoken goal was to finish the war of 1948.

While Israeli bulldozers trundled across Gaza and the West Bank, Sharon announced his intention to “make separation across the land.” Though initially resistant to the idea, he resolved to fulfill a plan first introduced in the 1990’s under Yitzhak Rabin: the construction of a vast wall that would drive a nail into the coffin of the Palestinian national movement. Cutting into the West Bank and Jordan Valley, the wall would effectively annex 80 percent of settlements into Israel proper, consolidating the country’s Jewish demographic majority while relegating Palestinians to a permanent regime of ghettoized exclusion.

Next, Sharon planned to pull Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip, setting the stage for a high-tech siege of that occupied coastal territory. Unlike in the past, Sharon sold his plans to the public with carefully calibrated, subtle rhetorical touches. Stunned by a new movement of mass refusal—a group of former and active Israeli air force pilots had issued a letter declaring their refusal to participate in operations in occupied territory—and by the furious opposition of the settlement movement to his plan, Sharon uncharacteristically proclaimed that the occupation was a “bad thing for Israel.” Next, he bolted from Likud, cobbling together a random assortment of politicians including his former aide, the telegenic, PR-friendly Tzipi Livni, to drive the separation plan forward under the banner of Kadima.
Sharon’s maneuvers earned him the political space he needed to fulfill his goals. Haaretz, the voice of Israeli liberalism, supported the vast separation wall as a “revolutionary” step towards two states. Endorsing the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza, The New York Timeseditorial board declared that Sharon “should be cheered.” Back in Tel Aviv, the anti-settlement group Peace Now and the Labor Party organized a mass demonstration in support of the Gaza disengagement plan. Winning liberals to his side was Sharon’s final political coup, and probably his most consequential.

The true goal of Sharon’s separation regime was never to end the occupation but to reinforce it under new parameters that would prevent the collapse of Israel’s international image. A top aide to Sharon, Dov Weissglass, revealed the real logic behind Sharon’s plans: “The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” Another close adviser, Arnon Sofer, was even more frank:

…when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.
​

Eight years after Sharon slipped into a coma, the real implications of separation stand exposed. Gaza suffers under a joint Israeli-Egyptian siege, while Israel shrugs off any responsibility for its inhabitants. Though Israel controls the entrances, exits, airspace and coast of Gaza, and effectively regulates the caloric intake of each resident of the coastal territory, the occupation is over as far as its government is concerned. Israeli settlements are firmly entrenched in the West Bank and encircle East Jerusalem, reducing Palestinian areas to the “pastrami sandwich” of non-contiguous bantustans that Sharon had originally envisioned. With the peace process effectively embalmed in political “formaldehyde,” right-wing elements have achieved unfettered dominance over the Jewish state’s key institutions. Typical of the new generation of Israeli rightists is Sharon’s corruption-stained son, Gilad, who has calledPalestinian society a “predator,” an “animal” and “stabbers of babies.”

Now that Sharon’s unilateral vision appears to have been consolidated, Israel’s government must perpetually manage an occupation it has no intention of ending. It has no clear strategy to achieve international legitimacy and no endgame. Its direct line to Washington has become a life-support system for the status quo. Like Sharon, who spent his last years in a comatose state without any hope of regaining consciousness, Israel is only buying time.

How Ariel Sharon Shaped Israel?s Destiny | The Nation

 

[RLENT]

Sharon, The Racist:

Sharon's racism was etched forever in mind of Israeli officer he busted

Sharon, The Oppressor and Subjugator:

Sharon's vision for 2 states was Palestinians' 'total surrender' to a fortress state -- Shehadeh

Sharon, The Butcher of Beirut (and other places):

Sharon is dead, but Sharonism lives on

And those that fawn and drool over such human filth:

Council on Foreign Relations president on the 'genius' of Ariel Sharon, etc.

 

[muttly]

A different perspective. It's not from the pro Hamas handbook.


January 11, 2014by Alex Safian, PhD

With Ariel Sharon's Death, Expect the Usual Falsehoods

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon died today at a hospital in Israel at the age of 85, eight years after a debilitating stroke left him in a near coma. When Sharon, considered by many military experts to have been one of the leading generals of the twentieth century, suffered the stroke in 2006, Op-Ed writers and reporters published numerous retrospective pieces trying to sum-up his career. Some, by Saree Makdisi and the late Christopher Hitchens, for example, were nothing but anti-Sharon screeds, while others, though somewhat more responsible, repeated many of the same discredited allegations that have long been used by polemicists to unfairly malign the Israeli leader.
*
Already CNN has posted stories distorting Sharon's and Israel's history. For example Ariel Sharon: Hero or butcher? Five things to know claims that:
Sharon long insisted that a controversial visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's most holy sites, in 2000 was not a provocation.

But it is considered among many to be one of the flashpoints that sparked the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising that followed a failed round of peace talks with Israelis. During the visit, Sharon walked through the mosque's compound. Within hours, protests over his visit turned violent.

The mosque and its compound sits on Temple Mount, a holy site for Jews, that is known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary."

Of course, and contrary to CNN, the Temple Mount is not just a "holy site for Jews," it is the holiest site for Jews, equivalent to what Mecca and Medina are for Muslims. Indeed, its holiness is exactly why the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem built their mosque there, on the site of the Jews' ancient temples. And contrary to the impression left by CNN, Sharon never entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock. Furthermore, as detailed below, Arafat had promised US leaders before Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount that he would prevent any violence, then, in the words of Dennis Ross, he "didn't lift a finger." And, of course, the "failed round of peace talks" resulted from Arafat's walk out following Israeli PM Barak's acceptance of the Clinton Parameters.
*
For its part, articles in the New York Times quoted numerous critics of Sharon, and once again tied him to the killings in Sabra and Shatilla without mentioning that it was the (Christian Arab) Lebanese Phalange Militia that carried out the killings, rather than the Israel Defense Forces.
*
The main Times article, by Ethan Bronner, had many problems as well, and in particular was as inaccurate as CNN regarding Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount:
It was Mr. Sharon’s visit, in September 2000, accompanied by hundreds of Israeli police officers, to the holy site in Jerusalem known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, that helped set off the riots that became the second Palestinian uprising.

In fact, Palestinian leaders later admitted that Sharon's visit was only a pretext for the violence, and, contrary to Bronner's implication, the Temple Mount is not equally holy to Jews and Muslims.
*
As the coverage continues, expect to see columns and articles similar to*David Greenway's in the Boston Globe (January 10, 2006), which was witten after Sharon first fell ill, and neatly summarized the anti-Sharon and anti-Israel talking points.*Titled Peace – on a warrior's terms, it included allegations such as:
Sharon's political nadir was the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla by allied Christian Lebanese militias, whom the Israelis had brought up to do the killing.

The Israelis remained just outside but turned the night into day with illumination rounds so their surrogates could see for the task at hand. An Israeli fact-finding commission found Sharon indirectly responsible for the atrocities.

The charge that Israel or Sharon brought the Lebanese militias "up to do the killing" is baseless and outrageous. The Phalange militia – the only militia that entered the camps – was tasked with rooting out terrorists, not with conducting a massacre. Indeed, the fact-finding commission mentioned by Greenway made this very clear in its findings:

Contentions and accusations were advanced that even if I.D.F. personnel had not shed the blood of the massacred, the entry of the Phalangists into the camps had been carried out with the prior knowledge that a massacre would be perpetrated there and with the intention that this should indeed take place; and therefore all those who had enabled the entry of the Phalangists into the camps should be regarded as accomplices to the acts of slaughter and sharing in direct responsibility. These accusations too are unfounded. We have no doubt that no conspiracy or plot was entered into between anyone from the Israeli political echelon or from the military echelon in the I.D.F. and the Phalangists, with the aim of perpetrating atrocities in the camps.... No intention existed on the part of any Israeli element to harm the non-combatant population in the camps. ... Before they entered the camps and also afterward, the Phalangists requested I .D.F. support in the form of artillery fire and tanks, but this request was rejected by the Chief of Staff in order to prevent injuries to civilians. It is true that I.D.F. tank fire was directed at sources of fire within the camps, but this was in reaction to fire directed at the I.D.F. from inside the camps. We assert that in having the Phalangists enter the camps, no intention existed on the part of anyone who acted on behalf of Israel to harm the non-combatant population, and that the events that followed did not have the concurrence or assent of anyone from the political or civilian echelon who was active regarding the Phalangists' entry into the camps. (Emphasis added)

These conclusions, of course, directly contradict Mr. Greenway's allegation.

Another aspect of Mr. Greenway's usage of the phrase "brought up to do the killing" should also be noted, as he seems to be referring to since discredited reports from his former Washington Post colleague, Loren Jenkins, that the killings had been perpetrated by the South Lebanese Army, a militia closely allied with Israel. In fact, as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times reported at the time, as the Kahan commission found, and as generally accepted today, it was the Beirut-based Phalangist militia which entered into the camps and carried out the massacre, not the militia from southern Lebanon. There was thus no sense in which Israel "brought up" from any point south or elsewhere the militia in question.

In addition, the Israeli commission found Sharon indirectly responsible precisely because he failed to anticipate that a massacre would take place. The commission stated in general terms that:

If it indeed becomes clear that those who decided on the entry of the Phalangists into the camps should have foreseen - from the information at their disposal and from things which were common knowledge - that there was danger of a massacre, and no steps were taken which might have prevented this danger or at least greatly reduced the possibility that deeds of this type might be done, then those who made the decisions and those who implemented them are indirectly responsible for what ultimately occurred, even if they did not intend this to happen and merely disregarded the anticipated danger.

In this context, with regard to Sharon, the commission found:

It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged.

These findings once again directly contradict reckless charges like Mr. Greenway's .

Mr. Greenway was also incorrect in claiming that "It was Sharon's provocative walk on the Temple Mount that did much to provoke the second Palestinian Intifadah ..."

As numerous Palestinian officials have made abundantly clear, the second intifada had been planned well in advance by Mr. Arafat, and any actions by Mr. Sharon were a mere pretext.

PA Communications Minister Imad Faluji, for example, addressing a rally at the Ein Hilwe refugee camp in South Lebanon, stated that the new intifada had been in the planning for months:

Whoever thinks that the intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is wrong, even if this visit was the straw that broke the back of the Palestinian people. This intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the table upside down on President Clinton... [Arafat] rejected the American terms and he did it in the heart of the US. (MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 194 - PA, March 9, 2001; emphasis added)

Similarly, senior Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti told an interviewer that:

The explosion would have happened anyway. It was necessary in order to protect Palestinian rights. But Sharon provided a good excuse. He is a hated man. (New Yorker, January 29, 2001)

Barghouti reinforced this point half a year later:

The intifada did not start because of Sharon's visit to Al-Aqsa, although that was the last straw. The intifada began because of the desire to put an end to the occupation and because the Palestinians did not approve of the peace process in its previous form. (Jerusalem Times, June 8, 2001)

Indeed, as reported in Greenway's own Boston Globe, Palestinian official Faisal Husseini directly controlled the Palestinian attacks in and around the Temple Mount, the violence starting and stopping at his signal:

A senior Palestinian official acknowledged that yesterday's protest was orchestrated. The rock-throwing youths, whose flag-raising directly challenged Israel's assertion of sovereignty over the [Temple Mount], quit the protest quickly after a request to do so by the same Palestinian official who encouraged them to demonstrate...

Israeli officials ... insist the violence is being fueled by the Palestinian leadership to exact concessions in the final negotiations aimed at ending the conflict. There was evidence of this yesterday.

All day, rock throwers - referred to in Arabic as "shebab," or "the boys" - were provided with wheelbarrows full of rocks that came from inside the Al Aqsa compound. And the rock throwers stopped in unison at almost precisely 5 p.m. In a matter of minutes, they disappeared into locations around the Old City.

Husseini was seen walking away just then. Confronted with questions about what appeared to be highly orchestrated rock throwing, Husseini replied, "We asked the shebab to pull back."

... Husseini was admitting that he turned off the rioting in a matter of minutes. (Charles Sennott, Boston Globe, October 7, 2000; emphasis added)

Dennis Ross, the former senior US peace envoy, also corroborated that the violence was not sparked by Sharon. Interviewed on Fox News, Ambassador Ross revealed that Arafat betrayed the U.S over the Sharon visit, first promising he would prevent any violence, then doing nothing:

... we asked him to intervene to ensure there wouldn't be violence after the Sharon visit, the day after. He said he would. He didn't lift a finger. (FoxNews, April 21, 2002)

Thus, contrary to Mr. Greenway's claim, Sharon's visit to the holiest site in Judaism, the Temple Mount, did not "do much to provoke" the disturbances. Arafat and the Palestinians wanted violence and were planning for it, and Sharon's visit was merely a pretext.

Finally, Mr. Greenway was also incorrect when he charged that unlike Moshe Dayan:

Sharon had no appreciation or sympathy for Arabs, and they would suffer under his lash.

Even a casual examination of Sharon's writings and statements proves just the opposite. For example, in his autobiography Sharon strongly supported Jewish-Arab coexistence:

It had always been one of my convictions that Jews and Arabs could live together. Even as a child it never occurred to me that Jews might someday be living in Israel without Arabs, or separated from Arabs. On the contrary, for me it had always seemed perfectly normal for the two people to live and work side by side. That is the nature of life here and it always will be.

... though Israel is a Jewish nation, it is, of course, not only a Jewish nation... I begin with the basic conviction that Jews and Arabs can live together. I have repeated that at every opportunity, not for journalists and not for popular consumption, but because I have never believed differently or thought differently, from my childhood on. I am not afraid of Arabs. I feel I can live with them. I believe I understand their problems. I know that we are both inhabitants of this land, and although the state is Jewish, that does not mean that Arabs should not be full citizens in every sense of the word. (Warrior, p343, 542-3)

Most of the false anti-Sharon charges, which have been repeated endlessly by pro-Palestinian activists, and by journalists who should know better, have their genesis in one simple fact. Over the last 60 years, every time Arab armies or terrorists have come to attack Israel, Sharon in ways large and small stood in their way, frustrating their aims and helping to defeat them. Whether as a young soldier in 1948 helping to defend Jerusalem against an Arab onslaught, or as a commando leader inventing counter-terror tactics in the 1950's, Sharon proved, to Arabs and Israelis alike, that the young nation could defend itself. As a Major General in the Six Day War, Sharon's brilliant assault on well-prepared defenses at Abu Agheila/Umm Katef shattered Egypt's hold on the Sinai; it is still studied in military academies around the world.

And Sharon's bold crossing of the Suez Canal in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, surrounding most of the Egyptian army, dismantling surface-to-air missiles that had been keeping the Israeli airforce at bay, and bringing Cairo under threat, brought the war to a close. Thanks to Sharon, yet another Arab attempt to destroy Israel had been soundly defeated.

For his succesful efforts to build and defend the state of Israel, Ariel Sharon will never be forgotten. For exactly the same reasons, among Israel's adversaries Ariel Sharon will never be forgiven.

CAMERA: With Ariel Sharon's Death, Expect the Usual Falsehoods

 

[Pilgrim]

Seems only reasonable that viewpoints from both sides be presented, rather than succumb to the flood of rants from terrorists and anti-Semite bigots.

Ariel Sharon: Debunking the Media Myths

JANUARY 12, 2014 15:05
BY SIMON PLOSKER

With the death of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, the media have produced a huge number of obituaries. Sharon has been a controversial figure and elicits a wide range of emotions from supporters and detractors alike. This, however, is no excuse for inaccurate profiles or deliberate demonization of one of the founding fathers of the modern Israeli state....

For the entire article:
http://honestreporting.com/ariel-sharon-debunking-the-media-myths/

 

[muttly]

The author's bio from my previous post. Before the hysterical and foaming of the mouth posts about him ensue.

Alex Safian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[RLENT]

Muttly, my little hasbarat ... will you never learn ?

A different perspective. It's not from the pro Hamas handbook.

Neither was what I posted. What you posted does appear to be from the Ziobot "Israel-and-Israelis-can-do-no-wrong-handbook" ...

A mere assertion of falsity of is no proof of it.

BTW - has Hamas been acquiring major Israeli newspapers lately or something ?

'Israel misled U.S. diplomats during Sabra and Shatila massacre'

American researcher uncovers recently declassified transcripts of conversations between Israeli and American officials during First Lebanon War.

By Ofer Aderet | Sep. 20, 2012 | 9:40 PM |

Israel deceived the United States and hindered the country’s efforts to prevent the massacre by Christians of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the First Lebanon War, according to a U.S. researcher.

In a New York Times op-ed, Seth Anziska, a researcher and doctoral candidate in international history at Columbia University, argues that Israel misled the Americans about events in Beirut, also leading them to think that “thousands of terrorists” were housed in the camps, when in fact the camp residents were civilians. Hundreds of the residents were murdered by Phalange Christians between September 16 and 18, 1982, while Israel Defense Forces soldiers were positioned around the camps.

Anziska makes his claims based on research he conducted this past summer at the State Archives, where he found recently declassified documents that chronicle key conversations between American and Israeli officials before and during the massacre.

“Working with only partial knowledge of the reality on the ground, the United States feebly yielded to false arguments and stalling tactics that allowed a massacre in progress to proceed,” writes Anziska.

“The lesson of the Sabra and Shatila tragedy is clear. Sometimes close allies act contrary to American interests and values. Failing to exert American power to uphold those interests and values can have disastrous consequences: for our allies, for our moral standing and most important, for the innocent people who pay the highest price of all,” he writes.

The IDF invaded Beirut in the summer of 1982, in an effort to remove Palestinian terror groups from the city. Members of the Christian Phalange militias cooperated with the IDF when it entered Lebanon. This support helped the Phalanges increase their political power, and in August of that year, Bashir Gemayel, a former Phalange commander, was elected president of Lebanon.
After he was assassinated on September 14, the IDF allowed the Phalange militia into West Beirut, where the two refugee camps were located, and gave them permission to enter the camps and root out Palestinian fighters. Instead, the Phalange gunmen committed indiscriminate revenge, murdering hundreds – some say thousands – of the camps’ residents.

On September 15, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin told U.S. envoy Morris Draper that the reason the IDF had entered West Beirut was to keep the peace there. “Otherwise, there could be pogroms,” Begin said. But upon hearing that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was considering allowing the Phalange militia into West Beirut, even Chief of General Staff Rafael Eitan acknowledged that he feared “a relentless slaughter,” according to Anziska.

Another Israeli official who feared a massacre was Deputy Prime Minister David Levy. On September 16, during a cabinet meeting at which the ministers learned that the Phalange had been allowed into the camps, he said, “I know what the meaning of revenge is for them, what kind of slaughter. Then no one will believe we went in to create order there, and we will bear the blame,” according to the documents Anziska found.

But Sharon told the Americans that the conquest of West Beirut was justified because there were “2,000 to 3,000 terrorists who remained there.”

At a meeting on September 17 that included Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Sharon, several Israeli intelligence officials and Draper, Shamir did not mention the slaughter that had occurred in the camps the previous day, according to Anziska.

A transcript of the meeting reveals that the Americans were browbeaten by Sharon’s false insistence that “terrorists” needed “mopping up,” Anziska writes.

According to the researcher, Mr. Draper opened the meeting by demanding that the IDF pull out of Beirut right away. Mr. Sharon exploded, “I just don’t understand, what are you looking for? Do you want the terrorists to stay? Are you afraid that somebody will think that you were in collusion with us? Deny it. We denied it.”

Later on in the meeting Sharon added, “Nothing will happen. Maybe some more terrorists will be killed. That will be to the benefit of all of us.

After Draper argued that Israel will be blamed for letting the Lebanese kill the Palestinians in the camps, Sharon replied, “So, we’ll kill them. They will not be left there. You are not going to save them. You are not going to save these groups of the international terrorism…If you don’t want the Lebanese to kill them, we will kill them.”

When Draper reminded Sharon that the United States had helped the PLO leave Beirut so that Israel wouldn’t have to enter the city, Sharon replied, “When it comes to our security, we have never asked. We will never ask. When it comes to existence and security, it is our own responsibility and we will never give it to anybody to decide for us.”

According to Anziska, the documents show that Shamir and Sharon finally agreed to gradually withdraw from Beirut once the Lebanese Army started entering the city — but they insisted on until the end of Rosh Hashana, which started that evening.

“By allowing the argument to proceed on Mr. Sharon’s terms, Mr. Draper effectively gave Israel cover to let the Phalange fighters remain in the camps,” Anziska writes.

Based on the conclusions of the Kahan Commission, which investigated the massacres at Sabra and Chatila, Sharon was dismissed as defense minister. Twenty years later he was elected prime minister.

According to Anziska, Draper, in an oral history he recorded a few years before he died in 2005, he recalled telling Sharon, “You should be ashamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.”

Even so, the U.S. ambassador to Israel during that period, Samuel Lewis, told Anziska that it would have been difficult to prevent the massacre during that period, “unless Reagan had picked up the phone and called Begin and read him the riot act.” And even then, said Lewis, “Sharon would have found some other way” for the militiamen to take action.”

'Israel misled U.S. diplomats during Sabra and Shatila massacre' Israel News | Haaretz

 

[RLENT]

The author's bio from my previous post. Before the hysterical and foaming of the mouth posts about him ensue.

I noticed in his bio that it said that he "came to Boston" ... but then they didn't bother to mention from where ...

Wouldn't by chance have been from across the sea would it ?

At any rate here's a little piece by Ben White on the quality of Alex's ... ahem ... "work product" ...

CAMERA's 'fact checking' misses out some facts

 

[RLENT]

Seems only reasonable that viewpoints from both sides be presented, rather than succumb to the flood of rants from terrorists and anti-Semite bigots.

Author of first article I linked: Max Blumenthal - who is Jewish

Author of second article I linked: Philip Weiss - who is Jewish

Author of third article I linked: Philip Weiss - who is Jewish

Author of fourth article I linked: Phyllis Bennis - who is Jewish

Author of fifth article I linked: Philip Weiss - who is Jewish

Please do explain, which of the above authors you believe to be terrorists and which are anti-Semite bigots ... keeping in mind of course, that a Gentile calling a Jewish person an anti-Semite will essentially render you to the intelligence level of that "genius" from the Lone Star state, US Rep. Louie Gohmert (R - Idiotville) ...

One Time Judge Louie Gohmert Made A Gimp Suit Out Of Duct Tape For This One Defendant

...in keeping with Article Umpty-Leven of the Constitution ... yeah, that's the ticket ...

 

[RLENT]

HHmmm..............Let's see what has exactly happened around here in the "Soapbox" over the last couple of years........

Brisco,

Your post is largely off-topic to this thread ... and apparently you have nothing whatsoever to add to the actual discussion that is on topic.

I suggest posting it in the one that deals with the Web Site Support or something ...

 

[Maverick]

Yeah..............Way to Go EO!!! Don't think I could've pulled it off any better myself...............It took time..........But the CHANGE you strived for has now taken place.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor!!

Now how about just shutting down this whole Soapbox area........as many has mentioned before......BEFORE it brings a Reputation you'll have to defend somewhere down the road due to One Members Lunacy as of late...................

Wow. Not been a member for two years, so couldn't confirm or deny any of this, but it seems a good place for one to post their views? There have been times where discussion's go totally against everything I believe in......yet have been afforded the platform to offer an alternate viewpoint, or another angle perhaps.

Would not want the soapbox removed, just because some people take things personally. Ya, there does seem a handful of members who obsess with certain issues, while attempting to ram things home....but is that not part of being here? I control my own computer/mouse pointer, and choose to ignore those post's, deemed not part of my want to comment.

Would take a heep bit a doin to convince me of this right/left thing. Long as the establishment continues to push that silly mirage, the better for them. Best thing to do IMHO, is to weigh all viewpoints and reply in kind, while giving yours?

I don't personally care who runs this site, or what the politics are. Long as I can somewhat behave, while expressing my viewpoint as a member, will determine my personal length of welcome. We find ourselves backing up all the time in this current worldly state of affairs, and once in a while, I get the chance to rant, give an honest opinion, and be a little aggressive in thought process. The only backing off required is when mutual respect for others doing the same....becomes tantamount.

"if you want to know who has the rule over you, find out whom you cannot criticize"

Let em rant, I say. It matters very little in the end. And when all free speech is gone from here? I'll have no reason to stay anyhow.

 

[xiggi]

There is plenty of political forums out there. I am one that believes the soapbox is detrimental to this site.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using EO Forums mobile app

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Wow. Not been a member for two years, so couldn't confirm or deny any of this, but it seems a good place for one to post their views? There have been times where discussion's go totally against everything I believe in......yet have been afforded the platform to offer an alternate viewpoint, or another angle perhaps.

Would not want the soapbox removed, just because some people take things personally. Ya, there does seem a handful of members who obsess with certain issues, while attempting to ram things home....but is that not part of being here? I control my own computer/mouse pointer, and choose to ignore those post's, deemed not part of my want to comment.

Would take a heep bit a doin to convince me of this right/left thing. Long as the establishment continues to push that silly mirage, the better for them. Best thing to do IMHO, is to weigh all viewpoints and reply in kind, while giving yours?

I don't personally care who runs this site, or what the politics are. Long as I can somewhat behave, while expressing my viewpoint as a member, will determine my personal length of welcome. We find ourselves backing up all the time in this current worldly state of affairs, and once in a while, I get the chance to rant, give an honest opinion, and be a little aggressive in thought process. The only backing off required is when mutual respect for others doing the same....becomes tantamount.

"if you want to know who has the rule over you, find out whom you cannot criticize"

Let em rant, I say. It matters very little in the end. And when all free speech is gone from here? I'll have no reason to stay anyhow.

That is why things will stay as it has morphed....for years the pedulum swung the other way....and now 1 has shown the fortitude to not be shouted down as a "Kool aide drinker" "rose coloured glasses" and all the other fancy metaphors that were tossed freely around...as the "other side" controlled the tilt of the forum....

 

[OntarioVanMan]

There is plenty of political forums out there. I am one that believes the soapbox is detrimental to this site.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using EO Forums mobile app

I voted for a games section years ago.....LOL
the hard feelings carry into the general forum way too many times...it muddies the water...

 

[Maverick]

There is plenty of political forums out there. I am one that believes the soapbox is detrimental to this site.

Kicks and grins is all it is to me, but do understand your point because political views will get people in trouble nowadays. They could take it out and I'd not skip one beat. Understanding why it would be removed, is also understood.

 

[Maverick]

I voted for a games section years ago.....LOL
the hard feelings carry into the general forum way too many times...it muddies the water...

Heck, I've traded keystroke punches with a few here. Don't dislike anyone....nor do I take it personally, but this debate has cooled things from the OP for now. LOL

Would appreciate if they'd place my Spider Solitaire in here. Kinda like PIP....whereby I could switch screens while talking to my favorite reptilian friend about religion.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

Heck, I've traded keystroke punches with a few here. Don't dislike anyone....nor do I take it personally, but this debate has cooled things from the OP for now. LOL

Would appreciate if they'd place my Spider Solitaire in here. Kinda like PIP....whereby I could switch screens while talking to my favorite reptilian friend about religion.

over the years I wish I had a dollar for every spear, rock and gun shell tossed my way....and I am still here with my big boy pants on and not run off like a sandbox whiner....

 

[RLENT]

while others, though somewhat more responsible, repeated many of the same discredited allegations that have long been used by polemicists to unfairly malign the Israeli leader.

Poor, poor Ariel ...

Ask the thousands of civilian non-combatants - including the women and children - who deaths Sharon is culpable for about fairness and then get back with me.

Already CNN has posted stories distorting Sharon's and Israel's history. For example Ariel Sharon: Hero or butcher? Five things to know claims that:

Sharon long insisted that a controversial visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's most holy sites, in 2000 was not a provocation.

Well considering that Sharon, after he had descended from the area, announced:

... "the Temple Mount is in our hands and will remain in our hands. It is the holiest site in Judaism and it is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount" ...

Sounds to me like it might have been provocative, given that his words seems to indicate sole possession ... to the exclusion of others ...

From a Guardian article from the at the time:

Dozens of people were injured in rioting on the West Bank and in Jerusalem yesterday as the hawkish Likud party leader, Ariel Sharon, staged a provocative visit to a Muslim shrine at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Surrounded by hundreds of Israeli riot police, Mr Sharon and a handful of Likud politicians marched up to the Haram al-Sharif, the site of the gold Dome of the Rock that is the third holiest shrine in Islam.

He came down 45 minutes later, leaving a trail of fury. Young Palestinians heaved chairs, stones, rubbish bins, and whatever missiles came to hand at the Israeli forces. Riot police retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets, shooting one protester in the face.

The symbolism of the visit to the Haram by Mr Sharon - reviled for his role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Lebanon - and its timing was unmistakable. "This is a dangerous process conducted by Sharon against Islamic sacred places," Yasser Arafat told Palestinian television.

Question is: Why did he do it ?

Mr Sharon's second motive was less obvious: to steal the limelight from the former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who returned from the US yesterday and could become a challenger for the Likud party leadership after Israel's attorney general decided not to prosecute him for corruption.

But that ambition was overshadowed by the potential for serious violence at Haram al-Sharif, the point where history, religion and national aspiration converge.

Palestinian protesters followed Mr Sharon down the mountain, chanting "murderer" and "we will redeem the Haram with blood and fire". They narrowly escaped clashing with Orthodox Jews who shouted "go back to Mecca".

Although the Haram is part of Arab East Jerusalem, occupied illegally by Israel since 1967, Jews revere the esplanade, which they call the Temple Mount, as the site of a temple destroyed in AD70.

So ... basically he was willing to risk potentially lethal violence, just for some political posturing, in order to try to gain an advantage over, or best, a political rival.

Utterly irresponsible.

Rioting as Sharon visits Islam holy site | World news | The Guardian

 

[RLENT]

But it is considered among many to be one of the flashpoints that sparked the Second Intifada ...

But apparently not by any of the writers whose pieces I linked - it isn't mentioned at any rate by any of them - so it's largely irrelevant to what I posted.

The mosque and its compound sits on Temple Mount, a holy site for Jews, that is known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary."

Of course, and contrary to CNN, the Temple Mount is not just a "holy site for Jews," it is the holiest site for Jews, equivalent to what Mecca and Medina are for Muslims. Indeed, its holiness is exactly why the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem built their mosque there, on the site of the Jews' ancient temples.

True:

Upon the capture of Jerusalem by the victorious Caliph Omar, Omar immediately headed to the Temple Mount with his advisor, Ka'ab al-Ahbar, a formerly Jewish rabbi who had converted to Islam, in order to find the holy site of the "Furthest Mosque" or Al Masjid al Aqsa which was mentioned in the Quran and specified in the Hadiths of being in Jerusalem. Ka'ab al-Ahbar suggested to Caliph Omar to build the Dome of the Rock monument on the site that Ka'ab believed to be the Biblical Holy of the Holies, believing that this site is where Mohammad ascended to heaven during the Isra and Mi'raj miracle. The actual construction of the Muslim monuments at the southeast corner, facing Mecca, near which the al-Aqsa Mosque were built 78 years later. The original building is now known to have been wooden and to have been constructed on the site of a Byzantine public building with an elaborate mosaic floor.

And contrary to the impression left by CNN, Sharon never entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock ...

Again, it's largely irrelevant to anything I posted ... since none of the authors I linked or quoted made such a claim.

For its part, articles in the New York Times quoted numerous critics of Sharon, and once again tied him to the killings in Sabra and Shatilla without mentioning that it was the (Christian Arab) Lebanese Phalange Militia that carried out the killings, rather than the Israel Defense Forces.

Well, that really isn't relevant to any articles that I linked here - because the articles I linked do mention that it was Phalange Militia and Lebanese Forces that - after being allowed into the camps by Sharon and the IDF forces - committed the massacre.

Seems like the folks I'm linking actually know their stuff, huh ?

The main Times article, by Ethan Bronner ...

Again, largely irrelevant to anything I posted/linked ... since Ethan Bronner was not one of the authors I used ...

As the coverage continues, expect to see columns and articles similar to*David Greenway's in the Boston Globe (January 10, 2006) ...

Again, largely irrelevant to anything I posted/linked ... since David Greenway was not one of the authors I used ...

An Israeli fact-finding commission found Sharon indirectly responsible for the atrocities.

Yes ... he wasn't quite so lucky elsewhere however - from one of the articles I linked:

Other attacks would follow, most notoriously the Sabra-Shatila massacre of 1982. Early that summer, Israeli troops under Sharon’s authority as Defense Minister, invaded and occupied South Lebanon. After weeks of a deadly siege of Beirut, the U.S. arranged for PLO troops to be withdrawn from the city, leaving the Palestinian refugee camps filled with women, children and old people unguarded. On the night of September 16, Israeli troops surrounded the two camps in West Beirut, preventing anyone in the camps from leaving. They then set flares, to light the way for soldiers of the Israeli-backed Lebanese Phalange and Lebanese Forces militias who attacked the defenseless camp, slaughtering 2,000 Palestinian civilians, hundreds of them children.


Israel and its top military official were held responsible – but without consequence. In 1983 the United Nations’ MacBride commission found Israel responsible for the violence. The same year, Israel’s own Kahan Commission found Israel “indirectly” responsible, but noted that Sharon bore personal responsibility “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge.” The general – then named the Butcher of Beirut for the first time – was thus recognized as culpable, but there was no accountability. Sharon resigned as defense minister, but – in accordance with Israel’s impunity-based political system – he remained in the Cabinet, and within two years returned as a Likud minister. There was no trial, no indictment, not even a dishonorable discharge from the Israel Defense Forces as a result of his war crimes.

That (no consequences for criminal acts) is a bug - or a feature - of Israeli justice and jurisprudence, depending on who's viewpoint one is looking from: The guilty are rarely punished and when they are, it's usually just a slap on the wrist.

Unless one is Palestinian of course ... then you might be completely innocent and still be imprisoned and/or tortured and beaten and/or shot and/or murdered.

The charge that Israel or Sharon brought the Lebanese militias "up to do the killing" is baseless and outrageous.

Irrelevant to anything I posted/linked - since it wasn't alleged in anything I posted or linked to.

 

[muttly]

As posted previously.. The second intifada was already planned. I mean, Arafat's own wife admitted as much. As well as Palestinian leaders. I know the facts can be inconvenient for some with an agenda, but it is what it is.
From article:
False narratives regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict advanced by the*Guardian is that Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount (the holiest site in Judaism)*in 2001 “sparked” the 2nd Intifada – a lie repeated so often that casual observers could be forgiven for believing it.

Here’s a photo and caption from a 2006 Guardian story titled*‘Ariel Sharon: A life in pictures‘.



There’s also permanent*content on the Guardian’s Israel page titled ‘The Arab-Israel Conflict‘, which*consists of 22 photos illustrating the history of the conflict.*Here’s the photo meant to illustrate the 2nd Intifada.



Here’s the caption:



Most recently,*David Shariatmadari, deputy editor on the Guardian comment desk, wrote a review*(Guardian, Sept. 7) of a book titled ‘What do you buy the children of the terrorist who tried to kill your wife?’, by David Harris Gershon, which began thusly:

Jerusalem is a city electric with tension. There are frequent sparks, as the circuits that cross the city make contact, separate currents suddenly, dangerously flowing into one another. At their least serious, they ignite a monkish fight in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At their worst, they can set the region alight, as when Ariel Sharon visited the*Temple Mount in 2000.

No matter how many times responsibility for the Palestinian violence which began in 2000 is assigned to Ariel Sharon, implicitly or explicitly, evidence abounds that the five-year war was orchestrated at the highest levels of Palestinian leadership.

A thorough report at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs by Jonathan Halevi included the following:

“Extensive testimony at the time and in retrospect demonstrates the Palestinian Authority’s role in initiating and managing the Second Intifada as an extensive terror onslaught, designed to impose a unilateral, unconditional withdrawal upon Israel, and improve conditions in anticipation of the battle for realizing Palestinian demands for the return of the refugees.

…

The final decision to initiate the Second Intifada was made by Yasser Arafat immediately upon the conclusion of the second Camp David summit, which ended on July 25, 2000. Directives were disseminated to the national security forces, instructing them to prepare for the immediate option of initiating a violent campaign against Israel.*

Additional evidence that*Ariel Sharon didn’t start the 2nd Intifada*includes comments by Suha Arafat (and Palestinian leaders), in 2011, acknowledging that Yasser Arafat planned the terror onslaught, as well as the following interview with Suha*in late 2012 on Dubai TV:


The Palestinian campaign of suicide bombings and other deadly assaults at Israeli cafes, bus stops, markets (and other crowded public areas where families and children typically gather) claimed over 1000 lives, and injured and maimed thousands more – an orgy of violence for which Palestinian terrorists and their leaders are solely to blame.*

The Guardian again promotes myth that Ariel Sharon started 2nd Intifada | CiF Watch

 

[RLENT]

There is plenty of political forums out there. I am one that believes the soapbox is detrimental to this site.

Point/position noted.