What has happened to Ariel Sharon the Zionist hero?

By Saybhan Samat

(January 13, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) 4th January 2010 marked the fourth anniversary since Israel “hero” Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke that has left him unconscious for four continues years, neither alive nor dead in a hospital bed. It is not surprising that Sharon is in this state as the crimes he committed were indeed outrageous and they were crimes against humanity. Dov Weisglass, a close friend of Sharon who was his former spokesman told the Associated Press on Sunday 3rd January that Sharon ’s vital signs are good but it was not clear if he would ever gain consciousness. Medical experts have said that is most unlikely.

Sharon is better known as the “butcher of Beirut ” and is largely held responsible for Israeli policies which allowed right-wing Lebanese militia to enter into Palestinian refuge camps in Sabra and Shatila, in the 1980s where they massacred thousands of unarmed civilian refugees. He openly called for increased Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The Jewish settlements were settlements set-up exclusively for Jews and prohibited Christians and Muslims living in them. In addition he called for the de-Arabistation and annexation of Jerusalem .

How ever in a volte-face of his earlier policies and at the time he was prime minister he shocked his hawkish supporters by pulling Israel out of the Gaza in 2005. In fact it did not surprise the resistance movements in Palestine as Israel just could not withstand the increasing militancy of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Qaseem brigades who wracked havoc in the Gaza with regular suicide bombings, ambushes, road-way bombs and mines to attack the Israeli occupiers.

Sharon was a daring army officer who reached the rank of major-general in the 1970s, sometimes disobeying orders from his supervisors. After leaving the army Sharon turned to politics, becoming a aggressive law-maker in the Likud Party and an enthusiastic supporter of the movement to settle the West Bank with Jews.

He served in several cabinet posts, including defense minister. He was the architect of Israel ’s disastrous war in Lebanon which began in 1982.

In 1983, he was forced to resign by an Israel Commission of Inquiry that found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of around 800 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by right-wing Lebanese Christian militiamen who supported Israel .

Although disgraced, he resurrected his political career and was elected Israel ’s prime-minister in 2001. His decision to withdraw from the Gaza strip after 38years of occupation of the territory outraged his hawkish backers in the Likud Party who abandoned him and Sharon created a new centrist party, Kadima, to run in the March 2006 election. Riding a wave of popularity, Sharon appeared to be well on his way to re-election when he suffered a massive stroke on January 4th 2006 from which he has still not recovered.

Sharon knows for his cruelty in dealing with the Palestinians was called the butcher, the bull-dozer and the grave-digger. Thousands of Palestinians were massacred, crippled and lost their limbs when Sharon was army commander and later prime-minister. He walked into the Holy mosque of Al-Aqsa with his boosts on, the Palestinians responded with the intifada uprising which caused havoc in the occupied lands and Israel itself, where regular suicide bombings were staged by Hamas, Islamic jihad and the Qaseem bridges.

Now, poetic justice has been delivered, Sharon has been reduced to a vegetable, neither living nor dead for four years. One is reminded of the preserved dead body of the Pharaoh(Ramses II) who opposed Moses at the Cairo museum in Egypt as a reminder for potential tyrants of the fate of those who rule with cruelty and wickedness. The body of Pharaoh (RamseesII) can even be viewed today. Sharon seems to be in a worst position he is neither living nor dead and medical experts are of the view that his condition is unlikely to improve. Surely this is a sign for the present day leaders especially Netanyahu to take warning and not kill innocent Palestinians whose lands have been unjustly occupied. A worst fate may befall the present leadership of Israel if they do not halt the massacre of children in Gaza and the West-Bank and the rest of occupied Palestine .