Letters to the Editor
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Monster indeed
I notice that Mr. Pincus has chosen not to respond to the Qibya massacre. I can only assume from this that he feels that slaughtering one village of women and children is just funnin'.
Or perhaps he feels that there's a statute of limitations on atrocities? I'm sure there are Nazi war criminals who'd be happy to hear that.
I'm not inclined to respond to all of Mr. Pincus' overheated defense of Ariel Sharon. Let me just explode a couple of his points:
1) On the subject of the murder of Prisoners of War in 1956, a typical report is found in Coastal Post online, at the following URL -
http://www.coastalpost.com/02/05/06.htm
A relevant quote is excerpted here.
"In 1956, Ariel Sharon was one of two commanding officers in the Sinai, at that time a highly volatile area. As commander of the paratroopers, he oversaw operations that killed 273 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai in 3 separate incidents. Some of the dead were lined up and shot in a quarry, others in a closed truck while others were shot as they ran in retreat."
In addition, there's the Jewish News Weekly, Mideast Report, Friday, August 1995, which states:
"Earlier this month, a Jerusalem weekly quoted a retired IDF general as saying that he had killed dozens of Egyptian prisoners of war captured after an Israeli offensive in the Sinai Peninsula during the war. Retired Gen. Arieh Biro said his troops were stranded behind Egyptian lines with more than 40 Egyptian prisoners when they were given the order to move south in the Sinai. "I didn't have soldiers to guard them," he reportedly said. "We had to move on to Ras Sudar, so I decided to liquidate them." Biro's commanding officers at the time were Ariel Sharon, a Likud Knesset member and former defense minister, and Rafael Eitan, a Tsomet member of the Knesset and a former IDF chief of staff."
The URL is:
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/1709/edition_id/27/format/html/displaystory.html
Other renditions or reports connecting Sharon to executions of Prisoners of War can be found at multiple sources. A google search of the terms "Sharon", "1956", and "Prisoners of War" turns up 16,900 reports.
The uncovering of the incidents apparently caused a major diplomatic rift between Israel and Egypt.
I will take it that this point is absolutely settled now to Mr. Pincus' satisfaction.
2) Turning now to the Massacres of Saba and Shattilla, I do not propose to give quotes or URL's. The incidents are extremely well documented.
The background is briefly thus: Israel invaded Lebanon, a country which it was not at the time at war with and which posed no threat to it. Approaching Beirut, Israel laid siege. Sharon agreed to a peace accord negotiated by Philip Habib of the United States.
The peace agreement consisted of several important components: a) Israel would not occupy west Beirut; b) The PLO Fedayeen - their armed militia, would leave Lebanon; c) Israel would guarantee the safety of the civilians, the women and children remaining in the refugee camps.
Unfortunately, the leader of the Christian Phalangists was assassinated. On November 18, 1982, Sharon publicly blamed the PLO for the assassination. Sharon then proceeded to occupy west Beirut. And then, Sharon handed over control of the refugee camps to the Christian phalangists, after it was well understood that they were out for revenge, and after he had helped to stoke that revenge. In essence, the wolves were let loose upon the hens.
The massacres occurred over two consecutive days. Israeli troops and Sharon were well aware of what was going on during those two days. The Israeli command was located in a four story building which had an excellent view of one of the camps.
The incident sparked outrage in both Israel and around the world. 400,000 Israeli's demonstrated against the atrocity in the streets of Tel Aviv. Israel struck a formal commission of inquiry, in which Ariel Sharon was held "personally responsible."
There is no question whatsoever of Sharon's role and complicity in creating the conditions for the massacre and setting it in motion.
I can respect Mr. Pincus' overheated dedication to his causes, and to the defense of Israel. Israel, however, is not at issue here. Mr. Sharon is the issue.
Mr. Pincus offers outrage and evasion. I think he would be better served by taking the time out to research the facts. It does no one credit to make excuses for monsters.
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Special rules for Israelis is another form of anti-Semitism
Imagine that! The Jewish nation chooses a leader, just like the leaders of every other country, committed to the security of the nation. How dare they? They are just supposed to go meekly to the slaughter.
Even in his critics most brutal estimation, Sharon is "responsible" for the deaths of a tiny fraction of the numbers killed by Yasir Arafat, the Assads of Syria, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, Mubarak and Nasser in Egypt, even George Bush of America. Where's the outrage about that?
This is anti-Semitism. Spare me the blather about Jews accusing every critic of anti-Semitism. There has never been a time and place throughout the last 2000 years that critics of Jews' behavior were not anti-Semitic. It is hard to believe that support of virulently anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, mysogynistic people (Palestinians) would qualify as a cause of the Left, but since they openly call for the destruction of world Jewry (what is left of it after the Europeans destroyed a third of it within living memory), the Left can overlook such trifles.
Sorry, the days of Jews getting slaughtered without retaliating are long gone. A pity for all the anti-Semites among us.
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Sorry, no special rules, and no special passes
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...