November 20, 2005

Drawing the line at Sharon

by Dave Himmelstein

Now that the controversy over an anticipated visit to Toronto by Ariel Sharon has begun to die down, it remains important to explain exactly why this individual provokes expressions of outrage that go beyond the usual register of political discourse. When a certain line of behavior has been crossed by a public figure, the usual niceties have to be put aside and things called by their rightful name. Hopefully, the recent controversy will generate increased awareness of Ariel Sharon's fifty-year military and political record, yielding more realistic expectations concerning his future course and a keener assessment of the credibility of his commitments and undertakings.

Even the barest familiarity with Sharon's history casts a pall of bitter irony over his ongoing makeover to statesman. Unfortunately, except for his pivotal role in the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, that history is little known in mainstream North America. If only a small percentage of the media attention given to the demonized Yassir Arafat had been directed towards the havoc and devastation wrought by Sharon since the middle of the last century, no one would have any difficulty understanding the revulsion he inspires—or would be naïve enough to take his word at face value.

His signature viciousness first brought him to public notice in 1953, when it drew the harshest criticism of Israel ever delivered by the United States. A shock paratroop unit under his command massacred scores of civilians (mostly women and children) and blew up dozens of houses in the Jordanian village of Qibya. Three years later, during Israel's Suez military campaign an over-eager Sharon defied instructions and sent paratroopers into an ambush in the Sinai desert's Mitla Pass. Later, troops under his command went on to execute over 200 Egyptian prisoners of war, as admitted decades later by a retired army general who had served under Sharon at the time.

In the 1960s, Sharon's propensity for proactive military confrontation was indulged by higher-ups while he served as Chief of Staff of the Israeli military's Northern Command. His fomenting of border skirmishes with Syria is considered by many observers as a major factor leading to the 1967 war. Later, charged with "pacifying" post-'67 Gaza as head of Israel's Southern Command, Sharon presided over the blowing up and bulldozing of hundreds of homes in refugee camps. He initiated other innovative methods of thinning out the refugee population, such as the expulsion from camp into desert of family relatives of any child who'd had the chutzpah to throw a stone (each expellee being humanely provided with a canteen of water and some pita bread).

Sharon's provocation reached new heights in 1982 when, as defense minister, he orchestrated Israel's invasion of Lebanon, unleashing a torrent of aerial bombings that killed tens of thousand of civilians. Mass murder at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps was the gruesome climax. Without even advising the sitting Israeli Prime Minister, Sharon invited his Falangist allies in to "interrogate" their sworn enemies, a process which immediately, and predictably, turned into a homicidal orgy. Despite having clear-sight observation posts and sophisticated visual equipment, Israeli forces stood by for sixty hours and allowed the wanton butchery to unfold. In its official knuckle-rapping, the Israeli commission of inquiry attributed responsibility to Sharon for negligent disregard of the obvious danger to refugees.

The thuggish outlaw streak in Sharon exerts a subliminal worldwide appeal to many post-Holocaust Jews still obsessed with sending a No-more-Mister-Nice-Guy message. Within Israel itself, his rogue tactics and man-on-horseback image have given rise to widespread doubts about his commitment to democratic norms, doubts shared even by the likes of Menachem Begin and Golda Meir. In any case, naked provocation was the engine Sharon chose to launch his political comeback in September 2000 when, over the objections of the police and military, he pre-emptively created his own campaign issue with a provocative walkabout on the Temple Mount. After the provocation had its expected effect and a new round of violent intifada resistance broke out, Sharon successfully dangled his perennial promise of a hard-line crackdown before the electorate.

Fast forward to now, with the bloom off the rose of the Gaza withdrawal: Israel has cut its overhead while maintaining its stranglehold. Meanwhile, the expansion of West Bank settlements goes on unabated. But some supporters of a free, sovereign and contiguous Palestine feel that focusing on Sharon is a personalistic distraction, which diverts attention from Zionism's long-term coherency and abiding imperatives. However, an individual like Sharon puts an indelible stamp on any movement, while demonstrating its ugliest and most dangerous underside.

Division over Sharon runs especially deep within North American Jewish communities. How much more self-deception remains to be tapped into before the emperor's new statesman-robe evaporates into thin air? What Ariel Sharon represents is an affront to any decent human being, of any national, ethnic or religious background. Many Jews, including this writer, are deeply troubled that a nation that claims to embody their destiny and to speak in their name is steered by such an abhorrent and unscrupulous adventurer. They realize that their silence might well be taken as tacit consent and endorsement.

And they feel that not to speak out would disqualify them from denouncing war crimes and crimes against humanity in other places and times.

Dave Himmelstein is a writer and teacher in Monteal.