Ariel Sharon’s violent legacy

Israel’s “tough guy” and its former prime minister, Ariel Sharon, died on Saturday. His legacy is hugely controversial.

His admirers claim he took some “brave” decisions for peace between the Israelis and the Arabs — Sharon’s decision to withdraw troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 and the plan to dismantle some settlement areas in the West Bank.

His critics say, and not without basis, he has left the region more divided and violent. He fanned rightwing elements in Israel and the occupied territories. So, was Sharon more a chauvinist than a pragmatist?

When Israeli troops attacked Lebanon in 1982, defence minister Sharon told Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Cabinet that the attack would last two days and Israeli forces would advance only about 25 miles into the country, which had been the base of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) for years. The war’s declared goal was to crush the PLO.

But Israel’s real strategic ambition was to reshape the political landscape of Lebanon, its northern neighbour, as well as the region — to end the Sunni rule in Beirut, reinstate Christians in power and dismantle Palestinian nationalism.

One of the most dreadful moments of the occupation was the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut. The city was under the control of Sharon’s troops after the PLO’s withdrawal. In From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman writes that the refugee camps were one of the targets of Sharon as they backed the PLO. Sharon claimed the PLO had left guerrillas in the camps.

The Phalangist Christians of Lebanon were Sharon’s most trusted allies in the war. Their leader Bashir Gemayel had welcomed the invasion, and Sharon's real plan was to make Gemayel the next head of Lebanon. But Gemayel’s assassination had destabilised Israel’s plan.

After the assassination, when Phalangist terrorists entered the Sabra and Shatila camps on September 16 and continued the killing of Palestinians until September 18 morning, Israeli troops ignored it. Red Cross put the number of dead at 800 to 1,000, while others say up to 2,000, many of them women and children.

Since then, Sharon’s name has been clubbed with Sabra and Shatila. In 1983, the Yitzhak Kahan Commission held him responsible “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” and “not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed.” Sharon had to resign as the defence minister.

Despite the huge international outcry over human rights violations, Sharon remained unapologetic; he knew these were short-term troubles in political waters, especially for a general of his stature who cut his teeth in the 1948 war with the Arabs.

If one looks at the rise of Sharon to Israel’s premiership in 2001 and his policies thereafter, it’s not difficult to see he had carefully cultivated the image of a “tough guy”. Sharon’s admirers say ‘Arik’ (as he was known among supporters) was a changed man after he became prime minister. They cite Sharon’s decision to withdraw troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 and the plan to dismantle some settlement areas in West Bank. But not many buy the argument.

The Gaza withdrawal was more of a military move than a step to make peace. It was a unilateral decision. There were no talks with the Palestinians. Israeli troops were actually fed up with their prolonged fight with Hamas guerrillas in Gaza.

Sharon realised that holding on to Gaza would not serve any of his strategic purposes other than draining Israeli military’s resources. He did not give Gazans the freedom they wanted. He just withdrew troops to the border, turning Gaza into a large prison of human suffering.

On the other side, Sharon’s rise to power triggered a new wave of violent Palestinian intifada (uprising) in West Bank, which was brutally crushed. In September 2000, while campaigning for the premiership, Sharon visited the Temple Mount complex, site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, holy place for the Jews and the Muslims, respectively. He said the complex would remain under perpetual Israel control, which his critics say was a deliberate attempt to flare up emotions ahead of the elections.

Within days, clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli police, which led to the intifada. Later, when The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg asked him if he had any regrets about going to the Mount, Sharon said: “I am really sorry for every casualty, Jewish and Arab. But the only one who is responsible for that is Arafat.”

As prime minister, Sharon also stepped up the construction of the “security” wall that runs along and through the West Bank and divides the Jews and the Arabs. Critics call it the “apartheid wall”.

During Sharon’s tenure, the world also saw several targeted killings by the Israeli troops. Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi were among many of those were killed by Israel. These records enfeeble the claims about ‘Sharon the peace-maker’.

Did Sharon make Israel stronger? Debatable. Perhaps the most important developments during his eventful career were the settler movement in West Bank and the Lebanon invasion. Both are now a liability for any Israeli leader who wants to make peace with neighbours.

While the settlements in West Bank are now represented by strong settler lobbies and rightwing parties who cannot be overlooked in any peace efforts, the Lebanon war spawned serious security challenges for Israel. It led to the formation of Hezbollah, the radical Shiite outfit, which forced Israel to end its 18-year-long occupation of Lebanon in 2000 and effectively resisted Israel’s deadly bombings in 2006.

Not many world leaders would like to talk about this darker side of Sharon’s legacy in their condolence messages. That said, international NGO Human Rights Watch bluntly summarised it all. It said, “Sharon died without facing justice for his role in the massacres of hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians…”

Sharon may rest in peace, but it looks like his country may take a long while to find peace.

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