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Whatever Sharon is, monster or hero, at least when he went out to fight, he wore a uniform.
Funny thing about Palestinian terrorists, Hamas sheep and other Islamic thugs: when they fight, they don't go out in uniforms. They get their children to throw rocks and Molotovs in their school clothes. (Their textbooks even teach children to hate and fight Israelis. See http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Textbook_Incitement.asp) They get teenaged girls and boys to board Israeli buses in street clothes, wearing plastic explosives. They climb atop rooves and walls wearing their street clothes to fire at Israelis.
And then, when Israeli military convoys (in uniform, and clearly identifiable) show up in the neighborhood and target terrorist attackers, violent anti-Israeli thugs are suddenly "innocent civilians" in front of the cameras. "Look, we're not soldiers! We're just students!" Students of cowardice, maybe? GMAFB.
The juicy benefit to skulking around in your street clothes and killing your neighbors, of course, is that you can never be branded a "war criminal." That title is reserved for combatants who actually have the balls to wear uniforms and declare their objectives. You can just keep calling yourself an "innocent civilian" while you're blowing up women and children in grocery stores and driving car bombs into wedding receptions.
I just don't buy that all the "innocent civilians" and "helpless women and children" supposedly slaughtered by Sharon or any other Israeli commander were innocent. This is an ancient terrorist trick -- taught to the rest of the world by Arabs and Palestinians -- striking under the cover of peasant's garb, and later mugging for sympathy on Al Jazeera after they've had their asses most deservedly kicked.
For the record, I'm not militantly pro-Israel. I support greatly reducing American subsidies for Israel's military, and I would like to see them choose moderate and peace-driven leaders. But neither do I see Palestinians as innocent victims.
