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| Shimon Peres e Ariel Sharon - Coisas Judaicas |
Opinion*
The tragic fate of Israel's hero -- from Sabra and Shatila to the Gaza disengagement
The declining health of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has left no one indifferent. No other Israeli politician has ever generated so much conflicting emotion -- ultimately irrational -- both at home and abroad. More than any other Israeli personality, Sharon symbolizes the victory of the Zionist revolution and the emergence of the Jewish Diaspora.
This military hero's personal history is inextricably intertwined with that of the State of Israel -- its moments of glory as well as its periods of doubt. It would take too long to relate Sharon's biography, but one thing is for certain: he was unjustly caricatured and mistakenly perceived by the world. History deals in shortcuts and those who wrote the history of the conflict in the Middle East in the 1980s introduced Sharon into the collective memory as a bloodthirsty criminal, the "butcher of Sabra and Shatila."
Those who have the honesty to take a step back and look at the actual facts, however, will come to realize that this man was wrongly accused of the murder of Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon, a crime that was in fact perpetrated by Christian militants with the aid of other Muslim thugs. Just like the "death" of Palestinian child Mohammed al-Dura, the massacre of Sabra and Shatila became part of the Palestinian martyrdom myth, proof of "Israeli barbarism" which Sharon came to personify.
How is it that of the entire Lebanese tragedy, which left tens of thousands dead, only the massacre of Sabra and Shatila has remained in the collective memory, with the Jew Ariel Sharon as its main protagonist, despite the fact that he (or any other Israeli soldier for that matter) never set foot in the camps?
It is clear that the death of Arabs, and Palestinian Arabs in particular, does not way heavily on conscience unless there are Israeli soldiers involved, or just present in the vicinity as was the case in Sabra and Shatila. Look no further than the Syrian war.
Sharon was a standout figure throughout his long career, adored or hated, but always feared. A brave soldier and and an outstanding strategist, he brought the IDF glory even when acting of his own accord or disobeying the orders of his superiors. For the majority of Jews worldwide, he became a hero worthy of the legacy of the Judean Maccabees of 22 centuries ago, bringing pride to the Jewish people just a few years after Auschwitz.
He was also one of the few politicians to have successfully shifted public perception of him towards the end of his career. He, who was called a "bulldozer" by
supporters and detractors alike, was perceived in two radically different ways before and since the Gaza disengagement. Until 2005, Sharon was the scourge of the left and the media as he was the darling of the right and the majority of Judea and Samaria's Jewish residents. But in 2004, for reasons that remain unclear, he decided to turn his back on his friends, his supporters, his principles and his party when he ordered the dismantling of more than 20 Jewish villages in the Gaza Strip, expelling thousands of Jewish families and not hesitating to trample democratic principles in the process.
All the energy he had put into building, he suddenly employed to destruction, with the same determination and conviction. Naturally this secured him the support and admiration of the left, and the media -- Israeli as well as foreign -- and even clemency from the Attorney General over his legal issues. Meanwhile, the Israeli right plunged into disarray after the about face of what it saw as its strongest pillar.
Because of the illness that struck him immediately following the disengagement, nobody will ever know what he would have made of his own turnaround, especially in view of its disastrous consequences, having justified it stating with conviction "that it would bring more security to the people of Israel."
Similarly to the nation's other great men, such as Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, Sharon was a great builder in the first decades of his career and then went astray with predictably disastrous consequences for the country. Can one say that he was a success as a warrior and a failure as a statesman?
It is now impossible to think of the hero of the Yom Kippur War and the builder of the Judea and Samaria without having the destroyed synagogues and Jewish villages in the Gaza Strip before our eyes. But the opposite is also true.
Sharon is among the tragic heroes of Israel since its reemergence on to the history's center stage -- a small country whose existence is under constant threat, often misunderstood, unfairly scrutinized, and whose leaders are under pressure to make critical decisions without knowing whether they will prove beneficial or disastrous.
Shraga Blum is an independent journalist. He publishes a weekly press review in the "P'tit Hebdo" and political analysis on Israeli-French language sites.
