We've met the enemy; and Sharon is us

[barb162]

We've met the enemy; and Sharon is us

By Mona Eltahawy
Commentary by
Friday, January 13, 2006


The Arab world hates Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon because he comes across as the quintessential Arab leader - a charismatic military man turned politician, well-versed in strong-arm tactics, whose political party is so identified with his greater-than-life character that its existence without him is questionable. It is not the Arab blood on his hands that garners Sharon so much Arab hatred, but that he has become the repository for the expression of that hatred in a way Arab leaders would never allow.

If hatred for Sharon were based solely on the number of Arabs he has killed, then he would come in a poor second or third to Jordan's late King Hussein for what he did during "Black September" in 1970, and Syria's late President Hafez Assad for the thousands more killed in Hama in 1982. And when it comes to the massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982, with which Sharon's name has become synonymous, one must wonder why Arab anger focuses on his role only, while rarely if ever mentioned is the role played by the Lebanese militias that carried out the slaughter.

An Israeli state inquiry in 1983 found Sharon, then the defense minister, indirectly responsible for the killings. An Arab inquiry has yet to hold responsible members of the Lebanese militias. The Israeli inquiry forced Sharon's resignation and hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated their horror and disgust at his role in the massacre. Where were the Arab demonstrations against the massacres of Arabs by fellow Arabs? The answer is in every Arab news story that holds Sharon solely responsible for Sabra and Shatila. It is an answer that reminds us that Arab victimhood makes sense only when Arabs are being victimized by Israel. The horrors we visit upon each other are irrelevant.

Not only is Sharon the quintessential Arab leader, he is an improved mirror image of the Arab leader because we have held what he does to us in much higher regard than anything we have done to each other. He is an improved mirror image because unlike so many of Arab military men whose paths to power in the Middle East were paved with forged elections, Sharon was actually democratically elected.

snip

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=21396

[Jim Sagle]

1. Fuckin' A.

[pelsar]

2. some light......

this is getting interesting.....arabs from gaza, egypt etc are now looking at their societies, their leaders...and comparing them to israels and what they see is a far cry from what many of their "european and american friends are seeing"...They see their own hypocrasy, they recognize the double standard, they recognize that far from being the "evil of all evils, israel is not even close to that....

the future?...for those arabs who are fed up with the excuses for their own societies failures (and the excuses their "friends feed them"), they have a real good option:

tell their own to "stuff it" about the evilness of israel and start working with israel and use israels knowledge and attitude to improve their lives....

[barb162]

3. A few are actually speaking out and that's a good sign

I wish there were more of them. The double standard still looms very large though.

[pelsar]

4. the double standard...

looms "large" right here:

If hatred for Sharon were based solely on the number of Arabs he has killed, then he would come in a poor second or third to Jordan's late King Hussein for what he did during "Black September" in 1970, and Syria's late President Hafez Assad for the thousands more killed in Hama in 1982. And when it comes to the massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982, with which Sharon's name has become synonymous, one must wonder why Arab anger focuses on his role only, while rarely if ever mentioned is the role played by the Lebanese militias that carried out the slaughter.

any posters here who claim sharon is responsable for sabra and shatilla, ever even mention the lebanese that actually planned and did the killing?

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Or Hussein's "Black September"

massacre and Nabka?