Wednesday 31 July 2002

The Andrex Puppy

Imagine the Andrex puppy with a HUGE chip on its shoulder and command of the world's 5th most powerful military, then think of Ariel "The Butcher" Sharon.

I don't care what anyone says, the man is an unlimited liability!


From butcher to 'Lion' to Prime Minister of Israel
Source: The Guardian

At about eight o'clock on a warm autumn evening Ahmed al-Badoui was standing guard in a grove of olive trees on a rocky slope just beneath his village of Qibya. It was dusk and people were settling down for the night. Moonlight picked out the jagged limestone crags typical of the rolling hills and valleys north of Jerusalem. The city itself was only about 10 miles away but could not be seen. The first warning came when al-Badoui saw a dark shape flicker across the rocks at the edge of the olive field.
At first, he thought it was someone trying to steal olives. He gripped his wooden cudgel tightly and shouted a challenge. His answer came in a hail of bullets. One smashed into his wrist, another into his side. The impact of the heavy rounds knocked 22-year-old al-Badoui, a strapping 6ft farmer, into the dusty earth.

As he staggered to his feet he screamed to wake his village: 'The Jews are coming, the Jews are coming.'

It was mid-October 1953. Within eight hours al-Badoui's home was rubble. By dawn the next morning Israeli special forces would have dynamited much of the village and killed 69 people. Their leader was Ariel Sharon, the man who, unless the polls are outrageously inaccurate, seems certain to be Israel's Prime Minister by the middle of this week.

The attack was a typical Sharon operation. It was thorough, violent, ruthless, attention-grabbing and deeply controversial. His style has changed little from his first battles in the years after Israel's independence to the debacle in Lebanon that led to the deaths of hundreds of Israeli soldiers and more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians at the hands of Christian militiamen in 1982.

Sharon's motto has been the same - always escalate...

Two other little-known incidents from Sharon's early career have also surfaced. Earlier in 1953, Sharon led another punitive raid against an Egyptian-run refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Interviews with participants reveal that even some of his own soldiers were uneasy at his ruthlessness and objected to the plan. But the attack went ahead and 15 people were killed.

His television advertisements have shown Sharon, 72, play up to what one aide said was the old warrior's 'Andrex image' - soft and strong...