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If the polls are correct, Israel will elect Ariel Sharon as prime
minister on Tuesday. For left-leaning Israelis, a Sharon victory will
end the peace process. For his supporters, only a tough ex-general can
deliver a lasting deal.
Regardless of Sharon's true agenda, however, his credibility will
be sorely tested by allegations of past involvement in crimes of
war. With today's intolerance for serious human rights abusers,
Sharon's record is likely to cause Israel acute international
embarrassment.
At issue are three incidents in Sharon's past. The first took
place in 1953, when a force under his command raided Qibya, a West Bank
village, killing more than 60 inhabitants. Israeli historian Benny
Morris writes that Sharon's unit received instructions to carry
out "destruction and maximum killing" to retaliate for a
Palestinian terrorist attack originating elsewhere. A
contemporaneous Time magazine report said Sharon's soldiers shot
"every man, woman and child they could find" and then
dynamited 42 houses, a school and a mosque. "The cries of the
dying," the magazine reported, "could be heard amidst the
explosions."
Sharon's autobiography acknowledges civilians were killed at Qibya,
but he calls the deaths a mistake. Given the historical
record, however, his explanation seems unpersuasive. Under
international law, Sharon could be indicted for crimes against
humanity, which include the systematic and willful killing of civilians
during war.
The second incident took place during Israel's 1982 thrust into Lebanon,
when Sharon was defense minister and chief architect of the campaign.
For three months Israeli forces laid siege to West Beirut, where
Palestinian guerrillas had dug in amid the civilian population. At the
time, a Washington Post correspondent wrote that Sharon's army subjected
the city to "punishment so intense and indiscriminate that terror
was the result."
By Aug. 16, 1982, according to the International Herald Tribune,
Beirut had become a city of "broken concrete, flattened
apartment buildings and death." Thousands of Lebanese
civilians died in the process. Senior Israeli journalists offer
compelling evidence of Sharon's responsibility for Beirut's ordeal. Zeev
Schiff and Ehud Yaari write that in June 1982, Sharon told his officers
that Palestinian neighborhoods in southern Beirut should be
"utterly destroyed," even though they contained 85,000
civilians. "Not a single terrorist neighborhood should be
left standing," Sharon reportedly said. Sharon later argued
that the bombings were necessary to end Palestinian terror and
that Palestinian fighters themselves caused Beirut's civilian deaths by
hiding amid noncombatants.
Although the guerrillas did violate international law by seeking
shelter in a city, the Geneva Conventions also ban the
indiscriminate and disproportionate shelling of populated areas.
Fifteen years later, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal indicted
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for a similar assault on Sarajevo,
even though Bosnian Muslim soldiers were stationed throughout the city.
The third case--the famed massacres at Sabra and Shatila--occurred
Sept. 16-18, 1982, toward the end of the battle for Beirut. The
Falangists, an Israeli-allied Lebanese militia, were ordered by Sharon
to mop up armed resistance in Palestinian refugee camps as Israeli
forces stood guard.
According to Israeli military intelligence, Falangist gunmen
killed 700 to 800 civilians, but Palestinians sources estimate 2,000
dead. New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman saw "groups
of young men in their twenties and thirties who had been lined up
against walls, tied by their hands and feet, and then mowed down
gangland style." Women, children and the elderly were also among
those slain in the 62-hour assault.
Although Sharon denied responsibility, an Israeli commission of
inquiry ruled in February 1983 that he bore "indirect
responsibility" for the massacres, harshly castigating him
for his role. In 1985, a U.S. Military Law Review analysis argued
that Sharon had "command responsibility" for the
killings. In 1999, former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was
indicted by the Yugoslav war tribunal under a similar clause for
Serbia's Kosovo crimes.
During the Cold War, men such as Sharon had little to fear from
international legal prosecution. Although signatories to the Geneva
Conventions were obliged to pursue war criminals, few countries could be
bothered. In recent years, however, activists have changed international
legal practice beyond recognition. Chile's ex-president was indicted by
a Spanish judge, Chad's ex-ruler was arrested by the Senegalese, and
Congo's foreign minister was charged by Belgian authorities. At the same
time, the United Nations' special tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda
have proved increasingly able to catch, try and imprison war criminals.
After years in the political wilderness, Sharon is now poised to
resume center stage. Yet his spectacular political comeback
coincides with an equally dramatic change in global legal standards.
Whether Sharon really wants peace, his credibility, as well as
that of the nation that elects him, will be undermined by his troubling
past. While waging Israel's wars, Sharon may have amassed a record too
awful to ignore.
James Ron is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Political
Science at Johns Hopkins University
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
James Ron
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Political Science
541 Mergenthaler Hall, Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218
410-516-7629 (tel)/410-516-7590 (fax)
Email: Jron@jhu.edu
Home page:
http://www.soc.jhu.edu/people/ron/jronhmpg.htm
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