Ariel Sharon

[joeSoap]

I wonder if anyone would be upset if this guy died screaming?? I know I wouldn't.

[dcfcsteve]

I personally wouldn't be so harsh.

Sharon is everything that Trimble should've been in Northern Ireland. He'd shown himself to be tough and very much working in the selfish interests of the state of Israel in the past (which is where a lot of the unsavoury stuff occurred), but he then cashed-in that clout to force through unpalatable changes that literally no-one else could've made to the State.

Without Sharon there would still be Jewish settlements in Gaza. Without Sharon, withdrawal from the West Bank would still be a Palestinian pipe-dream, whereas it is now largely an inevitability whether he survives or not. And without Sharon there wouldn't be a centrist moderate party in Israel - let alone one that looks likely to assume the reins of government (even without him).

So the guy undoubtedly did bad things in his previous military roles. But rather than take the easy route and lord around in leadership off the back of those, he instead used them to force through unpalatable changes that no-one else would've had the clout/trust to do. The Midlle East is currently a better place for his political leadership.

The fact that the Palestinian authorities themselves are unnerved by Sharon's illness says it all. The fact that the second Intifada has ceased after 5 years also says a lot.

So - rather than not be upset if Sharon dies screaming, I'm more upset that there's no equivalent to him ANYWHERE in the Arab world (and particularly amongst the Palestinians). The Palestinias and the rest of the Arab world need somee who likewise has the balls and raw leadership required to make the decisions required for peace, dragging those pathetic regimes into the 21st Century and making a brave Arab contribution to Middle Eastern peace.

[finlma]

Without Sharon there would still be Jewish settlements in Gaza. Without Sharon, withdrawal from the West Bank would still be a Palestinian pipe-dream, whereas it is now largely an inevitability whether he survives or not. And without Sharon there wouldn't be a centrist moderate party in Israel - let alone one that looks likely to assume the reins of government (even without him).

Without Sharon the women and children of Sabra & Shatila would not have been raped and horribly murdered.

I hope the man dies a slow painful death. I rate him along with Hitler.

[joeSoap]

I have been (understandably) asked by the moderator to expand upon my reasons for opening this thread, and wishing a slow painful death on someone.

My opinion of Ariel Sharon is that he is one of the all time worst butchers of human life in history. I despise him and every thing he stands for. I believe that any human rights advocate on this planet feels the same way, and yes, wishing a cruel death upon him is probably hypocrisy and contradiction on my part. I refer primarily to 1982 and the massacres at Shatila and Sabra. This was mass genocide perpretrated by Sharon. He has brought misery and suffering to many hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

In 1953, he founded and led the "101" special commando unit which carried out retaliatory operations.
As commander of the notorious Unit 101, Sharon led attacks on Palestinian villages in which women and children were killed.

The massacre in the West Bank village of Qibya, on October 14, 1953, was perhaps the most notorious. His troops blew up 45 houses and 69 Palestinian civilians -- about half of them women and children -- were killed.

The U.S. Department of State issued a statement on 18 October 1953, expressing its "deepest sympathy for the families of those who lost their lives" in the Qibya attack as well as the conviction that those responsible "should be brought to account and that effective measures should be taken to prevent such incidents in the future." (Department of State Bulletin, Oct. 26, 1953, p. 552).

Sharon was appointed commander of a paratroop brigade in 1956 and fought in the Sinai Campaign.

On 16 August, 1995, Ohad Gozani in Tel Aviv, writing for The Daily Telegraph, in an article entitled, "Israelis Admit Massacre", reported:
"Reports of how Israeli paratroopers killed about 270 Egyptian prisoners of war 40 years ago are straining relations between the two countries. Egypt has demanded an investigation into the alleged atrocities, which date back to Israel's involvement in the 1956 Anglo-French campaign to take the Suez Canal.

The killings were revealed in a paper on the Sinai campaign commissioned by the army's military history division. They were described in graphic detail in newspaper and television interviews.In all, 273 Egyptians, some of them Sudanese civilian road workers, were killed in three separate incidents, according to the accounts.

Arye Biro, a retired army general, admitted shooting the Sudanese at a quarry two days into the campaign at strategic Mitla Pass in central Sinai. Mr. Biro, then a company leader in the 890 Paratroop battalion, said the 49 terrified prisoners were taken into a quarry and shot dead. He said: "We couldn't take care of anything else before we got done with them. One escaped with bullets in the chest and in the leg, but came back on all fours because he was thirsty. He soon joined his [dead] comrades."

Mr. Biro said he and his troops later killed 56 Egyptian soldiers and irregulars as they were advancing in a truck to the oil port of Ras-al-Sudr on the Gulf of Suez.

"Six survived the initial bursts of gunfire," he said. "They later went to sleep with the rest. Blood was coming out of every hole in the flatbed truck and in huge quantities."

A witness told the newspaper: "When the rear flap was lowered, all the bodies poured out in one mass. I couldn't bear the thought that we shot people without a fight." Another 168 Egyptian soldiers were cut down as the paratroopers headed South.

As minister of defense in 1982, Sharon orchestrated Israel's invasion of Lebanon, a military operation that killed tens of thousands of civilians as Israeli forces sought to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organisation's infrastructure in the region. According to the statistics published in the Third World Quarterly (Volume 6, Issue 4, October 1984, pp. 934-949), over 29,500 Palestinians and Lebanese were either killed or wounded from 4 July 1982 through to 15 August 1982, 40 percent were children. Israel's stated motive for its "Operation Peace for Galilee" invasion of Lebanon was to bring peace to frontline Israeli communities in Northern Galilee. In fact, the disastrous events of 1982-85 were the very catalysts of the Hizbullah Shi'a resistance movement in South Lebanon. Previous to Israel's military interventionism in the early 1980s, the Shi'a of south Lebanon had not professed any aggression or hostility towards the Israelis.

Ariel Sharon is responsible for the massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, on the southern outskirts of Beirut. The slaughter in the two contiguous camps at Sabra and Shatila took place from the evening of September 16, 1982 until the morning of September 18, 1982, in an area under the control of the Israeli armed forces. The perpetrators were members of the Phalange (Kata'eb, in Arabic) militia, the Lebanese force that was armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon's civil war in 1975. Prior to the massacre, Sharon had meetings with the Phalange forces.

For over 60 hours -- aided by an Israeli siege around the camps and guided by the light of Israeli flares -- forces belonging to the Israeli-allied Phalangist militia went through the camps, killing Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. Some were lined up against walls and mown down by machine-gun fire. Others were left in heaps on the floors of their homes or on the streets of the camps. Children were shot dead, women and girls were raped and mutilated and men were disembowelled prior to being executed.

The precise number of victims of the massacre may never be exactly determined. The International Committee of the Red Cross counted 1,500 at the time of the massacre but by September 22 this count had risen to 2,400. On the following day 350 bodies were uncovered so that the total then ascertained had reached 2,750. Israeli military intelligence estimated that 700 to 800 were killed.

"The Israelis established observation posts on top of multi-storey buildings in the north-west quadrant of the Kuwaiti Embassy. From these posts, the naked eye has a clear view of several sections of the camps, including those parts of Shatila where piles of bodies were found."
(Source: Newsweek, 4 October 1982, Ray Wilkinson; The Guardian, 20 September 1982; and The New York Times, 26 September 1982.)

"Throughout the night flares lit up the sky. They were fired at the rate of two a minute, as reported by an Israeli soldier from a mortar unit."
(Source: The Jerusalem Post, 21 September 1982.)
From 1992 to 1996, he served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

In 1996, Ariel Sharon was appointed Minister of National Infrastructure and was involved in fostering joint ventures with Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians.[

Yet again, Sharon was in charge of settlement construction. In the post-Oslo period, Israel established 30 new settlements and thus nearly doubled the settler population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from 109,000 in 1993 to nearly 200,000 in 1999 (figures exclude new settlements in the greater Jerusalem metropolitan area). Source: Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Only four months before his election, the ever-confrontational Sharon visited al-Haram ash-Sharif on 28 September 2000 and sparked off the Second Palestinian Intifada that has so far seen 393 Palestinians killed up to March 8th, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. On 19 October 2000, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, meeting in an emergency session, adopted a resolution titled, "Grave and massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people by Israel," which condemned:
"the provocative visit to Al-Haram al-Sharif on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians."

A NOTE ON SHARON'S RECORD AND INTERNATIONAL LAW:
War crimes and crimes against humanity are particularly henious crimes. Responding to the atrocities committed in the course of the second World War, the international community set itself an objective to combat such crimes. This ambition has found expression in a number of international treaties, notably under the aegis of the United Nations.

Article 147 of the Convention states that the grave breaches noted in Article 146 include willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

[dcfcsteve]

Without Sharon the women and children of Sabra & Shatila would not have been raped and horribly murdered.

And without Sharon, such incidents would possibly still be occurring in Israel now - and would continue happening for probably many more decades to come.....

No-one is denying that Sharon did some very bad things in his years in the military - I am not a historical revisionist, nor am I an apologist for him. But at the same time someone in Israel needed the bravery/balls to stand-up and say 'This current situation cannot continue endlessly. The only way to stop it is to do some things that will be very unpopular, but which we must do to bring our country peace'.

Sharon's ruthless reputation as a military leader put him in the unique position of having the trust of the people that was required to do this. The easy thing for Sharon to do would've been to continue the status quo in Israel - seeing out his political career and life the easy way, with his reputation as a military 'hero' untarnished. Instead, he choose to take the difficult and unpopular route to do what was right for the longer term interests of Israel and peace in the Middle East.

His contribution in this way cannot be ignored. It doesn't in any way make up for what he did in the past - but likewise it does provide some redemption to his legacy. No matter how belatedly and regardless of his motives, Sharon has gone down the route of a peace-maker. I personally would not wish death to anyone who is working for peace - particularly in such a troubled place as the Holy Land.

And for anyone to compare him to Hitler is absolutely absurd.

Paisley in Northern Ireland is in many ways a character similar to Sharon. Paisley has constantly been seen as the arch-defender of Ulster, and in this way has a lot of trust from the protestant community. If only he had the wisdon, intelligence, vision and courage to lead the Unionist community down its own route of unpopular but necessary changes in-order to provide real peace and protect their position in the longer term.

[finlma]

And without Sharon, such incidents would possibly still be occurring in Israel now - and would continue happening for probably many more decades to come.....

Don't for one minute think that the Gaza withdrawal had anything to do with the good of the Palestinian people or peace - it did not. Sharon is looking after his people, his own greedy interests and the horrible doctrine of Zionism.

I hate him and all he stands for and as JoeSoap said so should any human rights advocate. He is responsible for the murder of thousands including women and children - how can he have any good points.

I stand by my slow and painful death comments - the more painful the better.

[pete]

If you dwell too much on the past there is no hope of changing for the future.

The Israelis & Palestinians need strong leaders to keep their factions in check. Without Sharon as said already would be no hope of Israel moving out of Gaza which is surely a big move forward...?

[dcfcsteve]

Don't for one minute think that the Gaza withdrawal had anything to do with the good of the Palestinian people or peace - it did not. Sharon is looking after his people, his own greedy interests and the horrible doctrine of Zionism.

Withdrawing from Gaza is actually anti-Zionism. The doctrine of Zionism declares that the Israeli's have a biblical right to all the land that is currently the state of Israel, plus sizeable chunks of Jordan and arguably also Sinai.

I hate him and all he stands for and as JoeSoap said so should any human rights advocate. He is responsible for the murder of thousands including women and children - how can he have any good points.

I stand by my slow and painful death comments - the more painful the better.

Let's not forget that people like Gerry Adams and Nelson Mandela were 'terrorists', and themselves directly and indirectly responsible for the death of innocents - including everyone's beloved women and children (though how killing a defenceless woman is considered less acceptable than killing a defenceless man, I fail to understand...!?). Times change, as often do people. Regardless of his motives, Sharon moved from actions that were clearly against the casue of peace in the Middle East to promoting actions that were aiding that cause.

[finlma]

If you dwell too much on the past there is no hope of changing for the future.

Sure there'd be no need for prisons then Pete - forgive and foget. The fact that a man who was is responsible for the massacre of thousands of innocent people is allowed to run a country says a lot about Israel. They will stop at nothing to protect their own interests.

The Gaza withdrawal was nothing more than a symbolic gesture and they've shelled it plenty of times since that withdrawal with no good reason.

[finlma]

Let's not forget that people like Gerry Adams and Nelson Mandela were 'terrorists', and themselves directly and indirectly responsible for the death of innocents

Adams, Mandela, Guevara, whoever else were fighting for the freedom of their people. Sharon is fighting to supress the Palestinians. To say that Sharon is leading a fight for peace is seriously misguided in my books. I've done a lot of research into the Israel/Arab conflict and he is one of the main perputrators of agression and the last man to look for a peaceful route to solve a solution. A leopard doesn't change his spots and Sharon never has.

[pete]

Issues are rarely black & white so very difficult to criticise Israel & not hold the Palestinians to the same standards.

[dahamsta]

And without Sharon, such incidents would possibly still be occurring in Israel now - and would continue happening for probably many more decades to come.....

I hate this argument, it's just plain meaningless unless you're saying that those incidents are ok, which of course you aren't. So why bother? They happened, and although they may have happened anyway without Sharon around, they did happen with him around, so he is responsible. That makes him a war criminal, period, end of story.

adam

[dcfcsteve]

I hate this argument, it's just plain meaningless unless you're saying that those incidents are ok, which of course you aren't. So why bother? They happened, and although they may have happened anyway without Sharon around, they did happen with him around, so he is responsible. That makes him a war criminal, period, end of story.

adam

Doing something wrong is clearly bad.

But which is better - for a person to continually do something wrong ad-infinitum, or for them to stop doing it at some point? Both regard actions that are clearly wrong - but one route is obviously more desireable than the other....

[REVIP]

I've lost my bearings. I thought it was only Pat Robertson who said that Sharon deserved to suffer.

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/ne...obertson.shtml

Even if an agonising death was an appropriate response, I would not ever wish that the medical clinicians, who are attempting to care for him, should see anyone suffering in such a way.

[dcfcsteve]

Adams, Mandela, Guevara, whoever else were fighting for the freedom of their people.

It's never that simple Finlma. Guevara wasn't even Cuban ffs ! He was an Argentinian who had bought lock, stock and barrel into Marxist revolutionary ideology and then whorred himself around South and Central America trying to make it happen. He was largely unsuccessful, with only his struggle in Cuba bearing fruit, and he eventually died in pursuit of that revolutionary doctrine in a holoe in Bolivia. So he was CLEARLY not fighting for the freedom of "his people" (spending most of his time involved in non-Argentinian causes) - just HIS IDEOLOGY.

There were plenty of individuals "fighting for their people" in Ireland and South Africa - some of whom were direct and bloody competitors in between each other (IRA V INLA / Stickies v provos etc). Why ? Because they were first and foremost fighting for their own vision of freedom for their people. Many of them would be just as happy killing a competitor within their own struggle than killing a member of the declared common enemy. Let's not get all misty-eyed about the motivations of political and military leaders - Adams was just as happy/willing to sanction the bombing of a pub in downtown Belfast as Sharon was to sanction the shelling of a house in a Palestinian settlement. Both were acting in pursuit of their own narrow vision of 'fighting' for their people. Both have since expanded that vision to encompass less reliance on military means.

Sharon is... the last man to look for a peaceful route to solve a solution.

And if the last man to do that is lying on his deathbed, then peace in the Middle East is fecked - as are arguably the Palestinians.....

[dahamsta]

But which is better - for a person to continually do something wrong ad-infinitum, or for them to stop doing it at some point?

It depens on the wrongdoing. In my view, Sharon's doings should have precluded him from his position, and should preclude him from any respect from anyone, ever. It's not parking offenses he oversaw...

I could use a certain moustachioed gentleman to make the point more forcefully, but I won't for fear of falling foul of Mr Godwin.

adam

[A face]

I dunno ... i just find it had to take a guy with two girls names seriously .... Ariel Sharon, pftt !!

[finlma]

It's never that simple Finlma. Guevara wasn't even Cuban ffs !

Thats an argument for another day. Just watch Motorcycle Diaries last night actually, good flick.

Like Adam said Sharon should never have gotten into the postion he got but the Israeli's love thier aggresive hawks.

[rebs23]

but the Israeli's love thier aggresive hawks.

I suppose in fairness to the Israeli's that's got something to do with concentration camps, ww2 etc and being surrounded by states that did not accept the right of the Israeli state to exist and numerous attempts over the years by those countries surrounding them to invade etc, etc.

[A face]

I suppose in fairness to the Israeli's that's got something to do with concentration camps, ww2 etc and being surrounded by states that did not accept the right of the Israeli state to exist and numerous attempts over the years by those countries surrounding them to invade etc, etc.

Not in a position to comment cos i aint fully up to speed on whats going on out there, or the history etc.but would i be rightin saying that Israel have never done anything to appease the situation with their neighbours ?? Thats the way it seems anyway.