Sharon’s double triumph

by Robert Thompson

Mr Sharon has now got just what he wanted. His double triumph is horrendous. He is reported to have expressed sadness - what are commonly called "crocodile tears" no doubt!!!

First of all, he got apparently unconditional support from Mr George W. Bush for his plan to annex still more Palestinian land, while giving up the least important of the illegally occupied lands in the Gaza Strip. He also offered to give up a few outposts in the West Bank, while annexing definitively the major valuable areas currently under illegal occupation. He could thus either occupy or control all of the "Occupied Territories" and prevent the two-state solution from giving even the slightest freedom to the indigenous people of the Holy Land.

Now, by stressing the proposed "surrender" of the illegal colonies in the Gaza Strip, he has pushed his own Likkud Party into rejecting the proposals as being too generous. This enables him to appear (even if only to the mentally deficient and/or the Bush administration) to be in favour of peace, while continuing to expropriate and murder the oppressed Palestinians.

We heard on BBC Radio a woman leader of one of the colonies in the Gaza Strip, who made two blunt declarations:
1) the Palestinians had to understand that they should do as the Israelis told them, thereby clearly implying that the subject people formed part of what the Nazis called the "Untermenschen";
2) Israel would for evermore stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan without any break.

We have also heard this morning spokespersons for Israel putting out the old lie that Israel is a democracy. In the U.S.A. above all, you should think back to the Revolution in 1776 which created your country, when those who had no vote in certain of the American colonies revolted against being ruled by persons whose only claim to rule depended on voting in Great Britain.

Mr Sharon must be overjoyed to have brought off this double triumph, and he will no doubt get full support from the Bush régime for whatever he wishes to do next, with that régimes constant and total disregard for legality.