- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Let's get real here. I appreciate the passion of the defense, but its notable that when you take away the passion, there's nothing left. No fact, no logic, no argument. And in particular, there's no defense of Sharon's conduct.
The man slaughtered 69 women and children in the village of Qibya, outside Israel's borders in 1953. This act outraged the world. This act outraged Israelis, because they did not see themselves as the sort of people who would do this. They saw themselves, to their credit, as better than that.
Qibya was nothing more or less than an atrocity, a war crime, a massacre. It would be unacceptable committed by Argentines against Bolivians, Americans against Indians, Germans against Czechs, Japanese against Koreans, British against Hindus, Boers against Zulus.
The Execution of Prisoners of War? Tell me where this is acceptable? Tell me where it is tolerated? Tell me how its singling out Israel to criticize Sharon for executing POW's? And don't give me 'oh, the other guys did it too' because that is the single most morally degenenerate excuse around.
And once again, I'll note that murdering prisoners of war is unacceptable to mainstream Israelis.
The Saba and Chatilla massacres, I've covered sufficiently.
Sharon belongs in the class of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, William Calley, Augusto Pinochet, Idi Amin, Richard Nixon, etc. The class of monsters who came to the world and smeared blood on it. It's a big class, and quite diverse in its way. We can argue about their differences. Jeffrey Dahmer merely killed and ate a few people for sexual gratification, Richard Nixon secretly bombed entire countries, Pinochet was merely a thug. The point is that they all killed people gratuitously, that they added to the sum total of human misery. They left the world an uglier and more bruised place for their presence.
There are good men and women in the world. Including in Israel. They work and strive and struggle to make the world a better place, to bring justice and fairness, to treat people with a little decency. Sometimes in large ways, as with FDR, sometimes in very small ways. For the most part, their efforts go unremarked, we all benefit from it, but we seldom fully appreciate. Sometimes, their works come with a price, they're mocked and scorned, abused and ridiculed, sometimes killed or vanished. But the point is, that they keep on trying to make a better world.
Venerating a monster like Sharon simply shits in the mouth of every decent unsung hero, its an assault and mockery of all the good people trying to make a difference.
I've said that this is not about Israel. This is about a man who was a monster. This is about a man whose career encompassed murder, atrocity, massacres and war crimes. It should not be tolerated or legitimized, no matter what country he belonged to or what cause he fought for.
Because, in the end, if one were to say "Sharon is okay because he was on our side," then morality ceases to exist, there is no more integrity. There's only sides, our sides and their sides. And it all breaks down...
