ARIEL SHARON VISIT

Bestowing Honour On A War Criminal

N D Jayaprakash

IT is absolutely shocking to note that the government of India has  extended an invitation to Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Israel, to pay an official visit to India. This fact was first revealed by Brajesh Mishra, India’s National Security Advisor, on May 8, 2003 in New York, while addressing the gathering at the Annual Dinner held by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a rabid Zionist organization.

CARDINAL SIN  

Promoting better relations with the people of Israel is one thing but trying to white-wash the heinous crimes of Ariel Sharon, and those of the fascist Likud Party he represents, is quite another. By extending an invitation to Ariel Sharon to visit India, the Indian government has committed the cardinal sin of bestowing honour on a war-criminal, who is deeply detested by the vast majority of the global community because of his unsavoury reputation. In fact, Sharon cannot travel to most countries even in Europe because of the extreme passions such a visit would arouse. It cannot be that the government of India is unaware of the criminal record of Ariel Sharon or of the notorious Likud Party he has been leading. The motives for inviting Ariel Sharon to India became obvious when during his speech at the said Annual Dinner of the AJC, Brajesh Mishra claimed that India “is one of very few countries in the world with no history of anti-Semitism.” However, Mishra very conveniently forgot to add that India was one country that had been consistently anti-Zionist since the early days of its national movement under Mahatma Gandhi. It is primarily after the right-wing BJP-led alliance assumed office that the Indian government has started taking an increasingly pro-Zionist stance.

FASCISTIC AFFINITY  

Brajesh Mishra had also gone on to add that: “India, the United States and Israel have some fundamental similarities. We are all democracies, sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity.” Since when has Israel started promoting “a... vision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity”? Is it not that Brajesh Mishra’s claim of shared vision rests on the ignoble Sangh Parivar’s version of history. According to them: “Just as the Hindus of India are fighting for their survival in the very land of their origin and forefathers, so too are the Jews of Israel confronting the very same threats to the nation that is theirs by historical and religious birthright. Hindus and Jews both face exactly the same danger: Islam…. The desire to reassert what is their rightful pride in land, culture and religion has awakened in the heart of the common Israeli and Indian.”

There is little doubt, therefore, that it is the BJP’s fascistic ideological affinity with the Likud Party which is the driving force behind this attempt to forge “solid chains of friendship”. Just as the BJP emerged out of the erstwhile Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the Likud (“Unity”) Party too emerged out of the erstwhile Tnuat Haherut (“Freedom”) Party.  The “Freedom” Party was headed by Menachem Begin, who also later went on to head the Likud Party.

The Likud Party first came to power in 1977 with Begin as prime minister. It may be noted that nearly 30 years earlier many eminent US intellectuals of Jewish origin, including the noted scientist Albert Einstein, had remarked,  “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine As mentioned above, it is the same fascist “Freedom” Party that has re-emerged as the Likud Party, which has been ruling Israel for the last several years. At least three of its members who have occupied the prime ministerial post - Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir (who had plotted the murder of the UN mediator for Palestine, Count Bernadotte, on September 17, 1948 and Aerial Sharon - have blood on their hands. It is undisputed that, when he was just 25-year old, Sharon was directly involved in the massacre of some 69 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank village of Qibiya during the night of October 14-15, 1953 as the bloody operation was carried out by an Israeli army unit led by him.

WAR CRIMES  

Later, as the defence minister of Israel, Sharon was instrumental in committing aggression against Lebanon. “Beirut suffered grievously between June 6, 1982, when Israeli troops first crossed the Lebanese border, and September 16, when they completed their seizure of West Beirut. Normal economic activity was brought to a standstill. Factories that had sprung up in the southern suburbs were damaged or destroyed, highways were torn up, and houses were ruined or pitted by artillery fire and rockets. Close to 40,000 homes—about one-fourth of all Beirut The same report further added: “Taking stock of the war’s toll, Israel announced that 344 of its soldiers had been killed and over 2,000 wounded…. Lebanese estimates, compiled from International Red Cross sources and police and hospital surveys, calculated that 17,825 Lebanese had died and over 30,000 had been wounded.” But this was not all. “On the evening of September 16, 1982, the IDF, having surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, dispatched approximately 300 to 400 Christian militiamen into the camps to rout what was believed. Due to his despicable role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, efforts were on to try Sharon as a war criminal in a Belgian court of law.

On June 18,2001, 23 survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres lodged a case in Belgium accusing Ariel Sharon (then defense minister and currently prime minister of Israel) with war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to activists who, were campaigning to indict Sharon: “The central figure is unquestionably General Ariel Sharon, then Israeli defence minister, who personally directed the military operations in Lebanon and who was in Beirut at the time of the events.….Certain information indicates that Mr Sharon, although preferring to allow his local collaborators to perform the massacre in the camps, might have planned it with a view to terrorising the entirety of the Palestinian population of the Lebanon into leaving, or retreating to the north of the country.….Concerning the Phalangist militia, they could be considered de facto auxiliary forces to the military power occupying South.” It is rather unfortunate that because of intense pressure from the US government, the Belgian government has now agreed to change its laws in such a way that Sharon and his co-conspirators cannot be tried in Belgium for war crimes anymore. “But despite this setback there is unlikely to be any letup in the efforts of the survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre to put Sharon on trial. It may, however, be noted that Sharon was indeed castigated for his role in the massacre by Israel’s own commission of enquiry headed by the then president of the Israel.

MASSACRE OF PALESTINIANS

Meanwhile, Israel has had the dubious distinction of attaining “paraiah” status in the UN because of the despicable deeds of its government. According to American Jewish Committe’s (AJC) own admission: “... since the fall of 1996… the world body has entered a new and regrettably familiar phase, reminiscent of the UN in the 1970s and 1980s…. In this vast and strife-torn world, no other country is subject to the relentless, indeed obsessive, attention that is focused on Israel.”  

According to another Zionist sympathizer, only the United States “can be counted on to quickly and unambiguously express its understanding of Israel’s situation and defend Israel’s right to strike back…. Europeans, by contrast, stumble. Zionist Israel is despised the world-over precisely because of its forcible occupation of Palestine and its most inhuman treatment of the Palestinian people for the last 55 years. Ariel Sharon’s infamy goes back even further. Sharon has never lost an opportunity to spill the blood of Palestinians ever since he joined the Haganah, the terrorist wing of the Zionist movement, way back in 1942. The scale of his cruelty has only increased with time. Thus, Sharon’s current role as prime minister has been equally appalling. The massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps in the West Bank town of Jenin in April 2002 is yet another example of his criminal acts.

BLOT ON THE INDIAN NATION

Under the circumstances, if the government of India does not withdraw the said invitation to Ariel Sharon forthwith, it would be a severe blot on the entire Indian nation. Any hesitancy on the part of the government of India to do so would only mean that the government has chosen to turn a blind eye to the horrendous crimes being perpetrated by Ariel Sharon and his fascist clique on the unfortunate people of Palestine, who are under the yoke of Israeli occupation. It would also mean that the present government has chosen to completely overturn the principled policies followed by all previous governments in India, which have fervently supported the just cause of the Palestinian people. It was reported that Ariel Sharon is scheduled to visit India from September 9 to 11, 2003, but the government of India, however, claims that the dates are yet to be finalized. If the dates are never finalized, it would save the Indian government the embarrassment of inviting a war criminal.