I happened to be in east Berlin in 1994 when the DDR’s long-time dictator Erich Honecker passed away in his South American exile. On hearing the news, my host reflected on his passing succinctly: "That’s one more for tea tonight, Satan."
His words come to mind today as Ariel Sharon lies close to death in Jerusalem. It would be comforting to think that the Bulldozer will soon be sitting down to dinner with the Devil. But one of the disadvantages of being an atheist is that we do not believe in an afterlife. For us after death there is nothing; no paradise for those who were good and no eternal damnation for those who were wicked.
I don’t have the comfort of believing that Sharon’s many sins will come back to haunt him once he has shuffled off this mortal coil. A man who spent decades inflicting suffering will die a free man at the end of a long life. Most of his innocent victims never lived long enough, as he did, to comb grey hair.
Let there be no doubt, Sharon was a man whose hands dripped, nay cascaded, with the blood of the innocent. His supporters will wish to remember him as the brilliant military leader of 1967 and 1973. But Sharon was never a man to limit the use of force to other armies. From the Qibya massacre of 1953, to the Gaza suppression of the early1970s, to the Sabra and Chatila massacres of 1982, innocent civilians often felt the force of this maniac. Sharon was a murderer of the vilest nature. It is as such that he should be remembered.
And also as a liar. The young Sharon was a protege of David Ben-Gurion when in the 1950s he led the murderous Unit 101. But even the old man was never foolish enough to trust him. Later Sharon would dupe his country into a full-scale invasion of Lebanon from which Israel took two decades to extricate itself. The blood cost of this deception was high and, as ever, most of it was paid by Arabs. In his later days, even as he bestrode the Israeli political scene, allegations of corruption swirled around him and his family.
It is this man, this liar and murderer, who is now lauded in western capitals. "We are praying for his recovery. Prime Minister Sharon is a man of courage and peace," according to the US president. British foreign secretary Jack Straw praised the old man’s "courage and statesmanship". Ignoring a lifetime of murder, they point forlornly to last year’s Gaza pullout as evidence that Sharon had changed that, at the end of his life, he tried to make peace.
Much is made of the Gaza evacuation, as if Israel deserves a big pat on the back for belatedly and partially complying with international law. Did the Syrians receive any warm words from the west when they finally ended their occupation of Lebanon?
The fools who welcomed the Gaza pull-out as the first step towards peace in the Middle East are deluding themselves. Sharon, ever the pragmatist, evacuated Gaza in order to strengthen his hold on the West Bank. In return for removing a few thousand crackpots from Gaza, Arik got explicit American endorsement of "existing Israeli population centres" in the West Bank for the first time. Give a little, gain a lot, this is "generosity" Sharon-style.
But this is not the story you will hear from Sharon’s supporters who beat their breast at the passing of this "giant of the peace process". It s no surprise that Bush, Blair and all the other war criminals should mourn the passing of one of their own, a man who, like them, has unleashed mayhem on Arabs. A man who, like them, deceived his own compatriots into supporting his insane wars. A man who, like them, deserves to be breaking bread with Beelzebub.
But for Bush, Blair and their neo-con cabal there is bad news. Sharon, moral cripple that he was, actually stands above the leaders in Washington and London. Arik was a killer and a liar, but he was no coward. When he sent young men off to kill, he wasn’t asking them to do anything that he himself hadn’t done. Bush and Blair, who have sent so many soldiers to their deaths, have never heard a shot fired in anger in their lives. Next to them, Sharon starts to look a little better. Rather a hawk than a chicken-hawk.
Even this vilest of men can look down his nose at Messrs. Bush and Blair.