Sharique Anwar for BeyondHeadlines
“What Ariel Sharon did in his life was utterly against the concept of humanity. His thoughts were as tyrannical as his actions. He advocated the existence of Israel at the cost of human lives, innocent human lives.”
Mary Kay Ash has rightly said that there are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. Ariel Sharon is one of them who made things happen.
It is a different story altogether that what he did in his life was utterly against the concept of humanity. His thoughts were as tyrannical as his actions. He advocated the existence of Israel at the cost of human lives, innocent human lives. His ruthless killing of peace-loving Palestinians and mass murder of unarmed civilians of Lebanon endorse the claim that he was wild in his war mongering approach.
He crossed every limit in pursuit of his target. Not only that, he fell to such a level that he adored only his Jewish community to be the supreme creation. While addressing the media professionals at a press conference, he once famously said, “Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”
His arrogance, belligerence and thirst for blood of innocent men, women and children during his tenures in the capacity of an Army General and a Political orator earned him the moniker “Bulldozer”. He, time and again, proved that he didn’t care for peace, harmony and brotherhood by unilaterally declaring war against Palestine.
He not only belittled but also laughed off the peace initiative of the UN at umpteen times. Almost all efforts by the UN for peace-building failed or derailed in the middle because of his strong pertness and arrogance.
Some way or the other, the powerful Jewish Lobby in the US was the prime source of his audacity. In true sense, he was an ambassador of hostility, war and blood-shed. He left an indelible mark in the history because of his perennial war rhetoric. History will remember him as a butcher who enjoyed the killings of innocent, peace-loving and helpless people of his neighborhoods. The alive all are bound to face warlike situation day in day out. They are refugees in their own land.
Arik, as he is known as in the political sphere in Israel, rode on the popularity and support of Western Media, breathed his last on January 11, 2014. He was 85 years old. He suffered a massive haemorrhagic stroke in 2006 which he never recovered.
Serving the Israeli National Army IDF, he propounded the cause that Palestinian land should be distributed evenly among the new settlers coming to Israel from across the world. He is the prime culprit who masterminded the mass-murder of the helpless Palestinian refugees of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut in 1982.
He allowed his army to go and orchestrate the massacre. As per the confirmed reports from different sources, more than 5000 innocent people were killed. This state-sponsored pogrom invited wide condemnation from across the globe.
However, he shrewdly managed to present the case that it was a retaliatory act perpetrated by the Christian army to take avenge of the assassination of the Lebanese President, Bachir Gamal, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. He further claimed that this was carried out to drive the PLO’s torch-bearers to bring peace to the Israeli nation. The entire world knows that it was a pure lie and truth lay somewhere else. See what I mean. This criminal act stunned the entire world.
He was on February 26, 1926 in a fundamentalist family of Jews in Britain occupied Palestine. He traced his dynastical roots are from Belarus. At the age of 17, he joined the Israeli militia who fought for Israeli war of independence and eventually became an army man.
It is a bitter truth that he was a stubborn throughout his life. He was uncompromised as an Army General, as a political entity who initiated, created and supported the illegal settlements in Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and as a war-mongering Israeli Prime Minister when he unexpectedly pulled out his army from Gaza strip.
As a Prime Minster of Israel, he gave free hand to all Israeli settlers by legalising their settlement colonies. While on the one hand, he pulled out his army from Gaza strip in a gesture for peace, he ordered for the construction of West Bank barrier to disrupt the daily lives of Palestinians. In the end, it proved to be a mere eye-wash. This strategy to build a separation wall (wall of apartheid) will collapse soon because democracy lies on the foundation of head-counts.
The growing population of Palestinians (or better to say Arab Israelis, also known as Israeli Arabs in Jewish media) inside Israel will not only threaten but also challenge the existence of this separation wall in the years to come. During his political career, he served as a defence minister of Israel in the hawkish cabinet led by Menachem Begin.
Begin once famously quoted that he was reluctant to give the post to Ariel Sharon because of his bellicose tendency. Let’s wait and watch if there is any change in Israeli policy towards its neighbour after the departure of Ariel Sharon from this planet. I hope not! Ariel Sharon has gone but he has gone leaving the legacy of war, destruction and blood-shed behind.
(The author is an NRI working in Dubai, UAE. Views expressed here are personal.)
