Israel's new Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, won a landslide election
victory last week by accusing his rival, Ehud Barak, of being too willing
to make concessions to the Palestinians, and too gentle in putting down
their latest uprising. Israeli voters clearly agreed.
Sharon, a brilliant general, won his latest battle by a typically dramatic
tactical maneuver. Last September, Sharon, with 1,000 police and soldiers,
charged into Islam's holiest place in Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif. This
calculated act of political arson ignited the current Palestinian uprising,
or intifada, which, in turn, undid Barak, and swept Sharon into power.
Seventy percent of Israelis still say they want peace, but not, the
election showed, if it means substantially changing the status quo.
Sharon offered Palestinians `an interim peace agreement' in his
post-election speech, but emphasized there would be NO permanent
settlement. The old general made clear what he means by `interim peace:'
No part of Jerusalem will ever be returned to Palestinian control. Arabs
must be content with they now administer: 42% of the Israeli-occupied
West Bank and Gaza (less than 20% of original Palestine). Arab-run cities
and towns will largely remain isolated from one another by Jewish
settlements, Jewish-only roads, and Israeli troops.
Sharon pointedly lauded the Zionist ideal, promising Jewish settlement will
continue and Jewish immigration from abroad will be encouraged. There will
be no right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel will not return the
Golan Heights to Syria. Israeli troops will occupy the Jordan Valley. In
short, the status quo.
In case Arabs failed to get the message, Sharon's spokesman ominously
warned the new prime minister would use the Israeli army to conduct a
Vietnam-style `pacification' campaign against Palestinian population cen
ters, in his words, `separating the terrorists from the civilian
population.'
What this threat means is that Palestinian towns and villages that are now
surrounded by Israeli tanks and are being economically blockaded may soon
be the targets of re-occupation and massive search and destroy missions by
the Israeli army and security police. One is immediately reminded of
France's notorious Battle of Algiers in the 1950's, and the CIA-led
Phoenix program in Vietnam, both of which killed large numbers of civilians
and widely employed torture.
Sharon has a long record of relentless brutality towards Arabs. In the
1950's, he and his troops massacred an entire Arab village. In the early
1970's, Sharon led the `pacification' of Gaza in which large numbers of
Palestinian homes were bulldozed, and hundreds of Palestinians deported to
neighboring countries. In 1982 he engineered the invasion of Lebanon in an
attempt to crush the PLO and create an Israeli protectorate, run by the
Phalangists, Lebanon's fascist party.
Sharon destroyed one Palestinian refugee camp after another with heavy
artillery, cluster bombs and napalm. He besieged Beirut for nearly three
weeks, using 155mm heavy artillery to pound parts of the city to rubble. At
least 18,000 Lebanese civilians were killed in Sharon's invasion.
At the end of the siege of Beirut, Phalangist thugs, supervised and
observed by Israeli troops under Sharon's command, were sent in to `pacify'
Palestinian refugee camps at Shatilla and Sabra. As Israeli soldiers
watched and Israeli searchlights and flares illuminated the scene, the
Phalangist fascists slaughtered some 1,700-2,000 Palestinians, mostly women
and children.
An Israeli investigation later found Sharon `indirectly responsible' for
the massacre. But this crime took place nearly 20 years ago. Most Israeli
voters are too young to remember, or were living in Russia at the time. To
the 20something generation, Sharon is a tough but grandfatherly leader who
knows how to deal with Arabs. To Israel's left, however, Sharon is a
dangerous extremist, even a war criminal, and widely known as `the Butcher
of Beirut.'
Arabs call Sharon, whose far-right supporters advocate ethnic cleansing of
Arabs from Palestine, the `Israeli Milosevic,' after Serbia's former
racist leader. Lately, Palestinians are also calling Sharon `the Israeli
Saddam Hussein,' a reference to the Iraqi strongman's brutal repression of
rebellious minorities. In fact, as Israel adopts ever harsher methods
against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Israel is coming to look
more and more like its repressive Arab neighbors than the western-style
democracy it claims to be.
Given Sharon's record and post-election promises, it seems likely the
intifada, and Israel's attempts to crush it, will intensify. If Sharon
makes good his threats to `pacify' the West Bank and Gaza, a bloodbath is
certain, one that would make Israel an international pariah and badly
damage relations with its chief ally and defender, the United States.
Even South Africa's apartheid government didn't dare use tanks against
rioting blacks. Israel, however, has sent tanks and helicopter gunships to
pound Palestinian targets. Will Sharon now resort to heavy artillery, or
mass population expulsions into the desert, to `pacify' the rebellious
Arabs? This week, in an disturbing portent, the Israeli Army announced it
would destroy 26 Palestinian houses in Gaza `for security reasons.'
Just before Israeli elections, Sharon gave a TV interview, seated
symbolically and ostentatiously beneath a large photo of Vladimir
Jabotinsky, spiritual father of militant Zionism and Sharon's Likud Party.
Jabotinsky called for a Jewish state extending from the Nile to the
Euphrates. He advocated constant attacks to smash the weak Arab states into
fragments, dominated by Israel. In fact, just what Sharon tried to do in
Lebanon.
A bad omen for the Mideast's future.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2001
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