Al-Ahram Weekly | Editorial | Not learning his lesson

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 March 2002 Issue No.576
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Not learning his lesson
Alleged Israeli war criminal Ariel Sharon seems to have learnt nothing from his long military career in the occupied Palestinian territories. For more than 50 years, Sharon has waged one dirty war after another other against the Palestinians, and each of his campaigns has ended in failure.
Shortly after occupying the Gaza Strip in 1967, the Israeli army led a massive offensive under Sharon's command against densely populated refugee camps, thinking this would crush forever Palestinian resistance. However, this reasoning proved wrong. The resistance emerged even stronger, and 35 years later it is inflicting heavy losses on the extremely advanced Israeli war machine.
Fifteen years after assaulting the refugee camps, Sharon claimed he could terminate the Palestinian presence in Lebanon. Not only was he forced out of office after an Israeli commission held him responsible for the horrific massacre of thousands of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, but the majority of Israelis now agree that invading Lebanon was a dire mistake for which they paid a heavy price.
Sharon took office as prime minister a year ago, promising to quell "Palestinian violence" within 100 days. Not only has he failed to achieve his goal, but almost all the parties involved in the Middle East are now convinced that the Israeli war veteran is the main threat to regional peace and security.
Sharon has given little attention to what is now known as the Saudi initiative, and he also turned down the offer announced by President Hosni Mubarak while in Washington to host a meeting between him and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
In a single week, more than 60 Palestinians and 20 Israelis were killed. Each day in Israel there is a successful resistance attack against army soldiers and armed settlers.
We can only hope that the Israeli public will recognise the peril that Sharon is putting them in, and back the only viable option that would end the ongoing violence: recognising Palestinian rights and putting an end to the ugliness of racism and occupation.

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