Ariel Sharon 1-14-14

14, January 2014

Dear Editor,               Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon has been one of the most dominant political figures in Israel’s history, involved in each of Israel’s major wars dating back to its founding in 1948. He is generally regarded as the father figure of the settlement movement and an architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that killed a reported 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese. Sharon’s forces committed their first major crime in 1953 when they destroyed a large number of houses in the Jordanian village of Qibya, killing 69 civilians. In the Sabra and Shatila massacre up to 2,000 Palestinians died on September 16-17, 1982, when the Israeli military allowed a Christian militia to attack the camp. Ariel Sharon was forced to resign as defense minister after a special Israeli investigative panel declared him to be "personally responsible" for the massacre. His role in the war was laid out in great detail from documents released from the Israel State Archives published last year by the New York Times. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International  condemned the massacre and the US State Department said those responsible "should be brought to account and that effective measures should be taken to prevent such incidents in the future. Sadly, the culture of impunity would be a recurring theme - not only in Israeli history but in Sharon's history in particular. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/a-preventable-massacre.html The Israeli film Waltz with Bashir is an amazing documentary about those atrocities, directed by Ari Folman, a former soldier who was present when they occurred, but who had post-traumatic amnesia for what happened. The rest of us have no excuse for forgetting those massacres.