As everyone knows, Ariel Sharon passed away today

 

He was involved in some pretty unsavoury activities such as complicity in the massacre in Lebanon, but at the same time he tore down Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory as PM and made great efforts in the peace process and formed his own peace committed party after resigning from Likud

 

So how will you judge him?

It's really difficult to judge a character as complex as Ariel Sharon in today's age, when everything seemingly has to be boiled down into a 140-character take-home line. What else can you make of a character responsible for such horrifying war crimes but who did more than any other to advance the peace process since Rabin? Yet at the same time did so for wholly pragmatic, hard-headed reasons with logic that would disgust the vast majority of pro-Palestinians.

 

His time as Prime Minister was almost entirely made up of Nixon going to China moments. There aren't many other leaders who'd have the ability and willingness to take on the settlers (having established decades of credit as their spiritual leader) and to disengage from Gaza. Kadima was a masterstroke of a party formation.

 

I doubt we'd have peace now had he lived on and not had the stroke at such a pivotal point - it's difficult to know how he would have reacted to the Hamas extremists being elected in January 2006, something which he also bears culpability for by patronising and ignoring the moderates of Fatah for so long (after all - what message does that send to the Palestinians? If moderation can't ever get anywhere, extremism only ever looks like the answer.) - but we'd be a hell of a lot closer than we are under fucking Netanyahu.

His record is a bit like that of Blair. Some definite positives but one very big negative. His role in Lebanon is hard to ignore o matter how much good he did. I remember the Sabra and Shatilla massacres very well. They did a lot to turn me from being broadly sympathetic to the Palestinians to being rather more firmly on their side.

His record is a bit like that of Blair. Some definite positives but one very big negative. His role in Lebanon is hard to ignore o matter how much good he did. I remember the Sabra and Shatilla massacres very well. They did a lot to turn me from being broadly sympathetic to the Palestinians to being rather more firmly on their side.

 

Mmmhm hes not a saint, thats for sure.