His Finest Hours: On Sharon's Murderous Legacy

[Purveyor]

From the Qibya massacre, to Sabra and Shatila and the dirty tricks, lies and deceptions that made the West Bank settlements what they are today, Ariel Sharon has caused unimaginable damage to Israel, its army, morality, and political life.

By Yossi Gurvitz |Published January 13, 2014

On Saturday night, as soon as Ariel Sharon’s death became known, our hyperactive education minister, Shai Piron, rushed to announce that teachers would devote part of the following day’s lesson to Sharon’s legacy. These classes would be based on prepared outlines which were supposed to be distributed in the morning. You can get a really good idea of what the minister really thinks of his teachers and how desperate he is for publicity from this announcement. How long would it take a teacher to properly prepare such a lesson? How long would it take teachers to study the material not included in the presentation?

Meanwhile, Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich rushed to instruct police to open an investigation into the publication and posting of announcements expressing joy at the death of Sharon. “This is despicable,” fired up the minister, “and I have no intention of letting the matter rest. I strongly disapprove of such criminal behavior and I have requested that the police command address the matter quickly and professionally.” Oy! The public security minister does not know his job. It is not the role of the police to enforce conformity of thought, but rather to investigate actual violations of the law. Expressing joy over the death of a person is not breaking the law, even if it annoys a lot of desensitized oafs.

So here are a few words about Sharon’s contribution.

This is Ariel Sharon as we must remember him: a killer from his youth. He served as the commander of Unit 101, which carried out a series of war crimes, as its members began to admit years later. One of the most well-known was the “reprisal operation” on the West Bank village of Qibya. (Its official name was Operation Shoshana, named after Shoshana Kanias whose murder alongside that of her children was the reason given for the operation.) The operation command, written by Sharon in advance of the raid, stated that its goal was to “attack and conquer the village of Qibya, and the achievement of maximal killing and damage to property.” His order was carried out in full, and 69 Palestinian civilians were murdered in their homes. Sharon and his men would later contend that they did not notice the inhabitants when they blew up their homes. This argument is, well, somewhat inconsistent with the order’s wording — something that Sharon would only admit decades later.

In the beginning of 1955, one of his Sharon’s subordinates, Meir Har-Zion, alongside three other members of Unit 101, went on a private revenge attack in Jordan. Har-Zion murdered members of a Bedouin tribe who were suspected of murdering his sister. Sharon knew about the revenge attack and according to some testimonies, even gave Har-Zion the weapons that he ended up using. Neither Har-Zion nor Sharon were ever tried for the killing.

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http://972mag.com/his-finest-hours-on-sharons-murderous-legacy/85596/

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. From the article.

Around the same time, Sharon sent some paratroopers to rough up Uri Avnery, editor of the oppositional newspaper Haolam Hazeh, which had raised the ire of the Ben-Gurion’s corrupt regime. It isn’t clear whether the latter was aware or unaware of Sharon’s plans, or merely gave a wink and a nod for the attack.

Three years after Qibya, Sharon led the Paratroopers Brigade into an unnecessary battle at the Mitla Pass in the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula. He never received authorization to attack the narrow pass, so he persuaded the high command to allow him to send a “reconnaissance patrol” to the area. Instead, he sent a whole battalion. The result was a battle in which 38 paratroopers died in vain. The IDF’s well oiled machine rushed to bullshit the public, convincing everyone that it was a heroic battle, which indeed it was, omitting the fact that it was the most unnecessary of that war’s battles.

It appears that there is a lot less static these days to OPs addressing the naked truths about Israel.

Hope it stays that way.