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Quote by: Melvyn Are you saying that Sharon gets some personal satisfaction out of killing, that his actions are divorced from the need for Israeli self-defense? How would you know something like that. At his most murderous, I would never have thought that Arafat was on a personal basis, eager to kill. As with Arafat, Sharon believes he has to be ruthless and tough to fend off more attacks. He may be wrong tactically and strategically, but he is not a self-gratifying murderer. |
sharon doesn't need to believe that he needs to be ruthless, sharon IS ruthless. i'll ignore the fact that sharon was found to be indirectly responsible for the massacres in sabra and shatila by the kahan commission in '83..... (imo, it's too bad that sharon couldn't have died alongside arafat.)
now, i don't know for a fact that sharon is eager to kill palestinians - just as you don't know for a fact that sharon is not. but, i have not seen any convincing signs from him that he is concerned about the effects of his policies. and, it is undeniable that he firmly believes in harsh collective punishment and has shown utter disregard for the plight of average palestinians.
that said, i certainly believe that israel has a right to defend itself from terrorist attacks, and i also believe that its efforts to do so have been extremely counterproductive - and all too often directed at civilians. (note: i don't buy IDF excuses that they fired on "suspected terrorists" - that is a weak excuse that they've used too many times for it to have any credibility left.)
anyways, it looks like abbas made a good, and very difficult, decision... let's see how successful this turns out to be.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/...ast/index.html