In Lebanon, there was an agreement not to liquidate Yasser Arafat. In principle, I'm sorry that we didn't liquidate him.QuartzGooner wrote:Chippy wrote:Sadly he did not face the war crimes trial he deserved.SPUDMASHER wrote:Israeli Ariel Sharon aged 85.
A very controversial character either loved or hated depending upon your viewpoint.
I do not see him as a war criminal with regards to Beirut massacres.
The Christians and Muslims had been wiping out each other's areas in tit-for-tat attacks for the previous seven years.
The BBC obituaries have portrayed him as a bloodthirsty spiteful man, but the 1950's Israeli reprisal operations into Jordanian Occupied West Bank were in response to intentional attacks on Israeli civilians.
The subsequent Arab civilian deaths in Qibya were a regrettable mistake, that mission went wrong.
The other reprisals were different in nature, they attacked military targets.
Could send this thread off an a contentious tangent and following on from the Anelka thread so will leave it there for now.
Everybody has to move, run and grab as many [Palestinian] hilltops as they can to enlarge the [Jewish] settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them.
The army is ready... to wipe out the Egyptian army. A generation will pass before Egypt threatens us again.
The quotes above, all of which are from Sharon, show that he had a pretty unpleasant side. He had a ruthless streak.
He also did a lot of good for Israel though and it shouldn't be forgotten. He was a man of the era and his methods show it. I think we have a more moderate regime in power today although peace will never be realised in the region owing to fault on both sides.
