snip some 1000 words
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On June 17, 2001, British Broadcasting Corporation's television show "Panorama," reopened the issue of the Lebanon war, and particularly the Sabra and Shatila massacres, pointing the finger at current Prime Minister Sharon in a broadcast entitled "The Accused." Witnesses from the United States, Israel and Lebanon, made clear that Sharon knew that the Phalange militia were going to conduct "revenge" murders of civilians—the Israelis had told the Americans as much one day before the massacre. Morris Draper, the U.S. envoy to Lebanon told BBC's reporter Fergal Keane, that there was more at play than just Sharon's brutality.
Draper told BBC, "America said that the women and children and others left behind [when the PLO evacuated] would be able to live in peace, as long as they obeyed the law and Lebanese jurisdiction. It was as simple as that—a very simple document. I wrote it." Israel signed it, and then violated the promise to President Reagan.
President Bush should be armed with the real history of Reagan's peace effort—not with the lies from the Sharon gang in Israel, and the treasonous Wolfowitz cabal in Washington.
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/site_packages/2002/sharon/2843drown_rr_plan_in_blood.html
Arafat: Flawed symbol of Palestine
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_87000/87713.stm
Who or what, will replace Yasser Arafat?
http://www.israelinsider.com/channels/diplomacy/articles/dip_0132.htm
Ariel Sharon, Role Profile (Spring 1993)
http://inic.utexas.edu/menic/oil/game/simulation/profiles/sp1993/0015.html
Isolate Ariel Sharon Now
By Avi Mograbi, first published in die tageszeitung (Berlin), 4/2/02
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I am sitting in front of my television set watching the broadcast of Al-Jazeera the Katar based satellite channel. I don’t understand a word they say, they speak Arabic and I don’t, but I fully understand the images. The Israeli (our) tanks have put a siege on the compound of Yasar Arafat in Ramalla and have penetrated into the compound creating unbelievable damage.
Last night the Israeli (our) government has decided on a large scale operation (that will demand extra forces, so 20,000 reserve soldiers have been recruited) to diminish terror.
I am not a great supporter of the Israeli (our) prime minister but let us say I am and that I too think that terror can be diminished by force. Now I ask myself why should the isolation of Mr. Arafat in his headquarters do just that? Would this stop the next suicide bomber who’s already been detonated from going out to a crowded place and blow himself up? Does the isolation of the president of the Palestinian Authority bring back any hope to those who have lost it and have made up their minds to turn our life as miserable as theirs? If Mr. Sharon would have commanded the Israeli (our) military to find the operation bases, to locate the explosives storages, to put into captivity the operators and the executioners of the terrorist acts, then those who believe terror can be won by force might have had the hope that he will succeed in reducing the number of terror acts. But in putting Arafat in a cage (our) prime minister Sharon has only given the next suicide bomber the incentive to go out and create more grief.
The sad truth is that Mr. Sharon has no hope to give to Palestinians and Israelis alike. In 29 years of political career Mr. Sharon has not given a clue to how he would solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in peaceful ways nor did he support any of the peace agreements already signed with Egypt and Jordan. He can’t give a clue because if your life’s work is the creation of the chain of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, you have nothing to contribute to settling a conflict that is based around the existance of those very settlements. And indeed this is Mr. Sharon’s life’s work. No other political figure in Israel has contributed more to settling Jews in the occupied territories than Mr. Sharon. From his first days in the ministery of agriculture in 1977 he has been the generator behind confiscating lands in the west bank and Gaza strip and building settlements for Israelis who think that this land is their (our) land.
So I doubt if Mr. Sharon’s true aims are to stop terror and bring to the renewal of peace talks between Israel and Palestine. If the negotiations start Mr. Sharon will be faced with the crucial and almost sole issue that has to be resolved and that is the future of the settlements he has given his best years to create, his life’s work. I believe that Mr. Sharon’s true aim is to find ways to avoid facing this question.
It's funny nobody mentions it anymore, but the settlements in the occupied territories are in themselves war crimes. In the fourth Geneva Convention (part 3 section 3) it says "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". And when last year Israel was asked to join the new international war crimes tribunal in the Hague it approved its participation with exclusion of the section dealing with settlement of civilian population of the occupyer in occupied territories. Because Israel has indeed settled around 200,000 (two hundred thousand) Jews in the occupied territories, and this is what the Israeli (our) prime minister is out to defend.
Mr. Sharon declares his actions in the past year aim to prevent the killings of Israeli citizens by Palestinian terrorists. During his one year in office more than 300 Israelis were murdered in terrorist acts, more than in any other year since the creation of the state of Israel 54 years ago. Which is only a reminder to the fact that in the 11 months prior to Mr. Sharon’s initiation of the Lebanon War in 1982, not even one Israeli was killed on the border of Israel and Lebanon. Yet during the 18 years Israel has occupied parts of Lebanon since 1982 until May 2000 more than 1000 (one thousand) Israelis were killed in combat and in terrorist attacks in Lebanon and the northern part of Israel. Even if one is a supporter of Mr. Sharon’s ideals one must doubt his capability to prevent bloodshed of Jews. Needless to say that in the course of his futile actions to defend Israelis during the Lebanon War and the current Intifada many more (in unbelievable proportions) Palestinians and Lebanese were killed.
So if our wish is to prevent more bloodshed of both Israelis and Palestinians, maybe it is Mr. Sharon that should be isolated, removed away from a position of power, in a democratic way needless to say.
I call on the next prime minister of Israel (I have no hope that Mr. Sharon will do as I suggest) to declare that within 12 months from his election he will remove all Israeli settlements and military from the occupied territories, no matter what.
During those 12 months he should do his best to negotiate with the Palestinian leadership as to the relationship the two countries will establish after the retreat of the Israeli forces to the 1967 border. If the negotiation will prove futile it will not affect the Israeli complete evacuation of the occupied territories including East Jerusalem.
Avi Mograbi
http://www.frif.com/new2002/mograb.html