He is not persuaded that Sharon ever changed his real colors or his attitude. In his massive new book, The Great War For Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, Fisk writes:
-- it is as a war criminal that Sharon will be known forever in the Arab world, through much of the Western world, in fact - save, of course, for the craven men in the White House and the State Department and the Blair Cabinet - as well as many leftist Israelis. Sabra and Chatila was a crime against humanity. Its dead counted more than half the fatalities of the World Trade Center attacks of 2001"
"Ever since he was elected in 2001 - and especially since his withdrawal of settlements from the rubbish tip of Gaza last year, a step which would, according to his spokesman, turn any plans for a Palestinian state in the West Bank into "formaldehyde" - his supporters have tried to turn Sharon into a pragmatist, another Charles de Gaulle. His new party was supposed to be proof of this. But in reality, Sharon had more in common with the putchist generals of Algeria."
Is this view too harsh? Should old memories be forgotten as in the language of the New Year's 'let bygones be bygones?' Must we just erase the crimes of the past in our reporting as we rev up the tributes that are certainly being prepared in the event of Ariel Sharon's final departure?
SHOULD HIS LIFE BE CELEBRATED?
Not all Israelis will be joining the likely celebration. The Israeli writer David Grossman explains: "Ariel Sharon is a man of potent primal urges, of violence, of combat, cunning and brilliance. He is a sharp manipulator, brave and corrupt. He has swung like a mighty pendulum between construction and destruction. He has blatantly ignored limits, whether international boundaries or the boundaries of the law."
For many Palestinians, there is no "new" Sharon. "Everybody knows that Ariel Sharon had a dark past," writes former PLO rep Karma Nabuksi in the Guardian. " For us Palestinians, for me as a Palestinian, he is our dark present. The entire destruction of the fabric of our civic and political society over the past five years has had the looming presence of Sharon at its black heart." Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are far more hostile in their condemnations.
These views of Sharon are likely to disappear in much of the media when and if he dies, like the way criticisms of Ronald Reagan were sanitized in the media marathon of tributes following his passing. Even though truth never really dies, it can be hidden and avoided for years. History has always been rewritten and popularized by winners, or, as it is today, by disinformation specialists, spin-meisters and news executives.
Often when you try to debate Israeli policies, emotionalism overcomes insight on all sides because the response is often finger pointing and "Yes, but what about". (You can fill in the blank.)" Ears close as partisans cling to their pain preferring diatribes to dialogue. All offer up their different maps and memories of atrocities or oppression to rationalize predictable positions.
WHAT ELSE IS DYING?
This conventional media discourse misses deeper dimensions of the problem. Is Israeli society only to be discussed by our media in terms of its military leaders and security concerns? What about its founding values and culture? As Sharon fights for life, something more profound may be dying in Israel, says one American who has lived there for many, many years""the compassion of the Jewish people.
Larry Derfner wrote about this in the Jerusalem Post on December 22 last year.
"When I came to this country 21 years ago, being a socialist - as distinct from being a communist - was a solidly Israeli thing to be. The prime minister at the time, Shimon Peres, made a point of describing himself as one. Israelis weren't saints, they weren't monks - they envied the wealth and comforts of Western Jewry. But fighting this envy was the pride they took in the lack of pretension and nonsense in their way of life, and the contempt they felt for the shallow, selfish lives of wealthy Jews abroad.
"Yeah, well, times have changed, haven't they? Today Diaspora Jews and Israelis are of like minds, all going for the gelt, all looking out for No. 1, all agreed that the poor will always be with us, so let's maybe throw them a bone (and put up a plaque). Most important, we are all agreed that the world is divided into the haves and have-nots, and we - Jews of the Diaspora and Israel together - have become the natural allies of the haves, and the natural enemies of the mobilized have-nots.
"And it's not just the Palestinian issue or radical Islam that divides world Jewry from the Third World. It's also the assimilation of American Jewry into the conservative economic and political establishment of their country, and Israeli Jewry's identification and connection with it. You can add the Russian Jewish oligarchs to the mix. You can also throw in the leadership of Jewish organizations across the Diaspora, which are basically plutocracies - societies ruled by the rich.
"Together, we are the voice of world Jewry. And as the saying goes, where you stand depends on where you sit."
-- it is as a war criminal that Sharon will be known forever in the Arab world, through much of the Western world, in fact - save, of course, for the craven men in the White House and the State Department and the Blair Cabinet - as well as many leftist Israelis. Sabra and Chatila was a crime against humanity. Its dead counted more than half the fatalities of the World Trade Center attacks of 2001"
"Ever since he was elected in 2001 - and especially since his withdrawal of settlements from the rubbish tip of Gaza last year, a step which would, according to his spokesman, turn any plans for a Palestinian state in the West Bank into "formaldehyde" - his supporters have tried to turn Sharon into a pragmatist, another Charles de Gaulle. His new party was supposed to be proof of this. But in reality, Sharon had more in common with the putchist generals of Algeria."
Is this view too harsh? Should old memories be forgotten as in the language of the New Year's 'let bygones be bygones?' Must we just erase the crimes of the past in our reporting as we rev up the tributes that are certainly being prepared in the event of Ariel Sharon's final departure?
Not all Israelis will be joining the likely celebration. The Israeli writer David Grossman explains: "Ariel Sharon is a man of potent primal urges, of violence, of combat, cunning and brilliance. He is a sharp manipulator, brave and corrupt. He has swung like a mighty pendulum between construction and destruction. He has blatantly ignored limits, whether international boundaries or the boundaries of the law."
For many Palestinians, there is no "new" Sharon. "Everybody knows that Ariel Sharon had a dark past," writes former PLO rep Karma Nabuksi in the Guardian. " For us Palestinians, for me as a Palestinian, he is our dark present. The entire destruction of the fabric of our civic and political society over the past five years has had the looming presence of Sharon at its black heart." Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are far more hostile in their condemnations.
These views of Sharon are likely to disappear in much of the media when and if he dies, like the way criticisms of Ronald Reagan were sanitized in the media marathon of tributes following his passing. Even though truth never really dies, it can be hidden and avoided for years. History has always been rewritten and popularized by winners, or, as it is today, by disinformation specialists, spin-meisters and news executives.
Often when you try to debate Israeli policies, emotionalism overcomes insight on all sides because the response is often finger pointing and "Yes, but what about". (You can fill in the blank.)" Ears close as partisans cling to their pain preferring diatribes to dialogue. All offer up their different maps and memories of atrocities or oppression to rationalize predictable positions.
WHAT ELSE IS DYING?
This conventional media discourse misses deeper dimensions of the problem. Is Israeli society only to be discussed by our media in terms of its military leaders and security concerns? What about its founding values and culture? As Sharon fights for life, something more profound may be dying in Israel, says one American who has lived there for many, many years""the compassion of the Jewish people.
Larry Derfner wrote about this in the Jerusalem Post on December 22 last year.
"When I came to this country 21 years ago, being a socialist - as distinct from being a communist - was a solidly Israeli thing to be. The prime minister at the time, Shimon Peres, made a point of describing himself as one. Israelis weren't saints, they weren't monks - they envied the wealth and comforts of Western Jewry. But fighting this envy was the pride they took in the lack of pretension and nonsense in their way of life, and the contempt they felt for the shallow, selfish lives of wealthy Jews abroad.
"Yeah, well, times have changed, haven't they? Today Diaspora Jews and Israelis are of like minds, all going for the gelt, all looking out for No. 1, all agreed that the poor will always be with us, so let's maybe throw them a bone (and put up a plaque). Most important, we are all agreed that the world is divided into the haves and have-nots, and we - Jews of the Diaspora and Israel together - have become the natural allies of the haves, and the natural enemies of the mobilized have-nots.
"And it's not just the Palestinian issue or radical Islam that divides world Jewry from the Third World. It's also the assimilation of American Jewry into the conservative economic and political establishment of their country, and Israeli Jewry's identification and connection with it. You can add the Russian Jewish oligarchs to the mix. You can also throw in the leadership of Jewish organizations across the Diaspora, which are basically plutocracies - societies ruled by the rich.
"Together, we are the voice of world Jewry. And as the saying goes, where you stand depends on where you sit."
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