[Marxism] Half a Century of Sharonism

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

       Half a Century of Sharonism

On the night of 14-15 October 1953, Ariel Sharon took the newly formed
Unit 101 plus a battalion of paratroopers, an assault force of a hundred
and fifteen men in all, into a Jordanian village named Qibya (Kibya;
Kibia) and there destroy fifty houses.  After a short skirmish, Qibya
was pacified.  U.N. military observers, described the scene:
        Bullet-riddled bodies near doorways and multiple bullet hits on the
doors of the demolished houses indicated that the inhabitants had been
forced to remain inside until their homes were blown up over them....
Witnesses were uniform in describing their experience as a night of
horror, during which Israeli soldiers moved about in their village
blowing up buildings, firing into doorways with automatic weapons and
throwing hand grenades.

I personally interviewed a man who lived through that day of carnage in
Qibya.  He worked in a a neighborhood grocery store in Brooklyn.  I had
seen him there many times.  He was quiet, older, with English skills on
an introductory level.  The owner and son told him to get things and
where to put them.  One day I as I picked up the Times I mentioned to
the checkout girl, a college student, about some outrage in Palestine
and mentioned that Israel had a history of such behaviours.  She told
me, "That man is from Qibya."  I waited for the right moment to speak
with him, when things weren't busy.  He was amazingly dispassionate it
seemed to me.  He just softly told the story, his moist brown eyes
staring at the floor, glancing occasionally at me with a sad smile.  He
told how as a small child he hid with his family in the cellar of their
house as it was blown up over them.  From his family only his
two-year-old baby sister was killed, smothered in the rubble.  Other
families were not so lucky.

On April 5, 1956 Israel fired on the Market Square in Gaza and a number
of refugee camps, killing sixty-six Arabs and wounding twelve.

YEars later, Prime Minister Shamir appointed the General Sharon as his
Building and Housing Minister.  He put a warrior and a terrorist in
charge of establishing and expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.  Instead of guns and
bombs, it became convenient legislation from the Knesset and bulldozers
that cleared away Christians and Moslems for Jewish "settlement" --a
useful euphemism for expropriation, expulsion, and permanent take-over.
Later Sharon formally took over the Defense Ministry, and attacked
Lebanon.

       Mastermind of the horrific Sabra and Chatila massacres of 1982.

The PLO estimated around 2,000 were murdered at Sabra and Chatila.
Using various sources, Herman and O'Sullivan in The "Terrorism" Industry
determined the death toll to be between 1,900 and 3,500, mostly women
and children.

In his A History of the Israeli Army, Ze'ev Schiff blamed Sharon's
"arrogance" for a war that was "strategically marginal."   The
connection Schiff overlooked was that the civilian slaughters at Deir
Yassin, Lydda, Qibya, Gaza, and on and on --for the list includes many
lesser-known horrors:  these massacres were acts of terrorism.
Initially, an individual terrorist attack may appear indiscriminate, or
as an insane act of revenge, but if a series of terrorist acts
perpetrated by the same source emerges over a protracted period of time,
then a pattern of terrorism develops which can be identified as
characteristic of that source.  Sabra and Chatila fit the pattern.  The
Lebanon War was a war of terror.  Far from "strategically
insignificant," the terrorization of the Palestinian people had a
purpose: to scatter them, disempower them, and take their land, while
coincidentally securing the power of most aggressive Champion of the
Jewish People.  The inevitable retaliation of the Palestinians, however
slight by comparison, terrorized the population of Israel who would in
their panic grasp at the assertive strength of the most obvious and
assertive Champions of Zion.


       Purgatory Policy Proceeds:
          Sharon on "one of our major successes" 23.07.2002

 "This action, to my knowledge, is one of our major successes..."
-Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, 23 July 2002.

U.S.-manufactured F-16s fired US-made missile into Gaza, killing 15 and
wounding 150 Palestinian people.  Of the dead, three were women and nine
were children.

 It is essential to keep in mind the timing of this attack:  On the very
evening that Sheik Yassin, the founder of Hamas, announced that all
martyrdom operations would come to an end as soon as the Occupation and
aggression against Palestinians ended, Sharon sends warplanes to bombard
what is one of, if not the most densely populated areas in the world,
supposedly to target the local leader of Hamas.  What did he think would
come of this?  Who really wants peace and who wants to intimidate,
instigate and increase the level of violence?  Shouldn't the answers to
these questions be obvious by now?

 "'They (the Israelis) are so cruel, so merciless.  Why don't they just
leave us alone.  Leave our land, get out of our lives,' a Palestinian
man wept as he tried to help in the rescue efforts."
Full: http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020722204632218

"Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi said 'these acts are further proof, if further
proof is necessary, that Sharon is increasing the level of aggression
and violence even further.  He already has complete control of the West
Bank, and his attack in Gaza is inevitable.  The death and horror that
this will bring is too dreadful to contemplate.'"
Full:
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/updates/gaza_israeli_state_terrorism_22_july.htm

 'Murder in Gaza': Image Gallery [photos the world needs to see]:
http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020722222400636

 "'This exactly what Sharon wants,' a Palestinian political analyst from
the West Bank told the Palestine Chronicle in condition of anonymity.
'Every time you have some progress and calm, Sharon provokes
Palestinians to retaliate. It's his policy and ever-successful agenda.'

'The fact that the attack targeted a Hamas leader was a response to the
offer made by Sheik Yassin to end hostility and occupation.  Sharon
doesn't want to give Hamas the chance to appear reasonable before the
world media.  Now, what else do you expect from Hamas but to hit back,
and when they do, the Israelis will scream foul and say that they are
fighting a war on terror.'"
(from http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=20020722204632218)

And so it goes . . . again . . .
Sharon --sorry = Israel has killed another chance at peace.
But Israel's birth did not occur through a process of peace.

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