hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle ariel sharon has died in being given a state funeral he was called controversial and even a peacemaker by mainstream media and political classes many others strongly reject these descriptions for much of the world particular the palestinians sharon's legacy is much more about hate violence intolerance and death on this edition of crossfire we ask a simple question who was ariel sharon. to cross-talk the life and times of ariel sharon i'm joined by my guest joshua landis in norman he is the director of the center of middle east studies at the university of oklahoma in washington we have use of moon year he is the executive director of

the palestine center and in tel aviv we cross to amir oren he is the defense and government writer for harat daily all right gentlemen cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i want fair time for all three of my guests here joshua if i go to you first in norman vice president joe biden said at the funeral about sharon that he was a complex man who engendered strong opinions. i suppose i could say that about you i could say that about myself how does that apply to mr sharon considering his history and his life. well we have two very different narratives about sharon for israelis he was the lion of israel he was a defender of the bulldozer people loved his ferocity his ability to kill arabs and to conquer the land of israel he believed that that israeli should settle it all from you know a u.s. perspective we have the same debate here with. the indian warriors the warriors the

white european settlers who killed american indians and settled the west general custer president andrew jackson who killed the many indians conquered big hunks of the united states and they are heroes to american in american historiography but to american indians in addition to people there of course villains who massacred harmless people in russia you could take somebody like catherine the great who grabbed a big hunk of poland of course the crimea and all the areas north of the black sea but of course catherine is very different because she made love in many ways to her people before she went to war against them in poland her first great love was the king of poland and that of course eased the conquest of poland so she made love and she made war whereas i suppose prime minister sharon was really the warrior he made war and he didn't make so much up aren't you so if i go to you in washington

a western media is being called a peace maker how can you possibly apply that to the late mr sharon go ahead sure you know i think joshua's kind of description of likening the differing narratives to you know those those one thousand century examples are interesting and effective but the difference is of course in modern times we have a far more defined and commonly accepted understanding of what is legal and illegal during war times than we did in those days and any objective observer looking at what ariel sharon did. through his lifetime both on the battlefield and in positions of power in the civilian political establishment can see that more often than not when given the opportunity he violated the laws of war and committed some some heinous crimes either directly or indirectly and of course the victims in most cases were palestinians. and so i think that you

know certainly the you know history is written by the victors and perspectives differ based on what side that you're on but we can look at things a little bit more objective lee in a time and place where the laws of war are better understood and we can all except that the massacre of civilians is unacceptable regardless to what your nationality is or what the nationality of the victims are and perpetrators of such crimes are stained with that reality for the rest of history and their legacy must reflect that regardless to how successful they were on the battlefield otherwise i mean would you like to reflect upon what we've heard from our two guests so far in the program go ahead. sure. joshua said about the various narratives is partly correct in the stereotype of israelis were plodded

sharon as the lion of judah and the victorious general are not too accurate some israelis did some others objected to his behavior on the battlefield as well as of the comparison to george armstrong custer is indeed right a test been mentioned in israel too not the andrew jackson and other parallels but custer yes because he was reckless and because. once too many he got his entire command and i had lighted by the adversaries and this was the main criticism lobbed at sharon internally regardless of what happened between israel and the neighboring arab states and between israel and the palestinians which is a point we can come back to within israel and especially. by his own

superiors his colleagues on the general staff and his subordinates he was criticized for escalating small rates. for no real purpose except he's own. quest for glory and for causing casualties on both sides d. is devoted to the israeli paratroopers which he led in the fifty's where killed almost the same way the palestinians and egyptians and jordanians where we can go to the other domain of israelis versus arabs if you want to now or a bit later in the provoke a jasher did did sharon leave and we know that he was in a coma for the last eight years of his liked. but did he leave israel a safer place because this is what the western media says that he was a man of security you know he protected israel but did in in the end because of his

inability or lack of vision to settle with the palestinians he did everything in his power to make sure that would never be a palestinian state did he make israel safer you know that is very hard to know his you know his. everybody points to the end of his life and says what if he changed in some ways because he was accused of human rights violations in eighty two in the in the massacre of subbranches teela that he began to realize that he could not just destroy the palestinians and hence he withdrew from gaza that you know this very complicated picture because the part of the conservatives in israel had for decades said we've got to get rid of gaza gaza is twenty five miles by five miles it's a densely populated over a million people it's this it's a lose that we can get rid of tons of palestinians by by giving it independence if

you will and withdrawing from gaza and that will solve the ticking time on the demographic time bomb for us but he did he gave away gaza in many ways in order to keep the west bank and israel has kept the west bank today the question is will that blow up in israeli hands he achieved the conquest the west bank the settlement of the west bank will that blow up in israel's hands in the future and cause. real distrust israel many people think it will many other israelis think it's just fine and that they will solve that problem somewhere down the road we really don't know the answer to that yet ok you said it seems to me and you're all experts here so correct me if i'm wrong but looking at the entire career of ariel sharon i don't think he changed his mind on anything at all i mean he's the father of the settlements i mean the biggest problem in resolving this issue right now is the settlements he's the father of the subtle and so ok i don't see any change and i

agree with what we just heard about gaza was just a pain in the ass get rid of it ok what you didn't serve his interests all right go ahead please right well look you have to look at the man's career in its totality if you focus on you know one brief episode where his intentions could be debated at the very end of his life to try to characterize the entirety of it i think you know we're not being fair jack to even analyzing his legacy. the point i want to make though is that you know john kerry said in his comments on the passing of ariel sharon something that i thought was very accurate he said that ariel sharon's journey was israel's journey and in reality one cannot divorce the actions of ariel sharon from the state which tolerated him with a culture of impunity episode after episode as early as one nine hundred fifty three was involved in leading commandos in the village of. demolishing homes of

palestinians while they were still inside seventy palestinians were killed most of them women and children all civilians. in this massacre great disgrace upon the state and again instead of being removed then from command and public life he was allowed to continue in the one nine hundred seventy s. in the gaza strip where he became most intimately familiar with god. he was the leader of the southern command of the israeli military and he in an attempt to subdue palestinian resistance in the refugee camps demolished thousands of houses displaced thousands of people and was alternately relieved of his command to southern command in the israeli military only to find his way back into the system so the israeli state which tolerated sharon over time is as much responsible through this culture of impunity for the war crimes he was allowed to. to carry

out precisely because they kept letting him back into positions of power and of course we know what happened in subbranches in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and we know what happened after he was recommended by an israeli commission never to hold a ministerial position again he became prime minister of israel in in two thousand and of course presided over the single largest period of expansion in settler population in the west bank since the menachem begun era so if we look at this man's reputation in its entirety you can only come away with one conclusion he believed in the use of force and the colonization of palestinian territory and more often than not he succeeded in large part because a state enabled him and allowed him to do so ok gentlemen i'm going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on ariel sharon stay with r.t. . if you.

so that on june sixteenth one thousand forty one we had a graduation party at school and the war broke out. the shops were always full of goods. but in september leningrad was blocked. one day mom went to europe saw that all the shelves were

empty. in november they bombed the diversity warehouses we use it was the main storage place for all the food in the city people eating the earth because it had small traces of sugar in it i tried to eat it as well but i couldn't. the third night it was incredibly heavy bombing and. it was a direct treat on that very shelter and everyone was buried underneath. all of them with dead. right on the seat. first for you and i think that you're.

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welcome back to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the life and times of ariel sharon. ok i mean i'd like to go back to you in tel aviv in your opinion how did sharon change israel and change the middle east because if we look at his life he's his in he was involved in the in the in the in the forty eight war he spanned the entire history of the israeli state up into the time of his illness and then death here how did he change israel and how did he change the middle east. will not allow us to go into detail. in looking into the entire history of the state of israel or even before the state was created but one has to remember that up until the six day war of one nine hundred sixty seven israel felt that it was the victim

in the conflict that it was the david and the entire arab world including the palestinians where the goliath now the tables were turned after sixty seven and especially after the peace agreements with egypt and jordan because compared to israel the palestinians look like the victims but we cannot judge nine hundred fifty three through the prism of nine hundred seventy three or twenty thirteen. and again until nine hundred seventy seven are real strong was only a military officer he became a politician in one hundred seventy three but only held positions of power in government. came to power in one thousand nine hundred. the seven as a military officer he was not beloved. universally some people admired him other resented him but in any event he was an executive agent of the

government he did not shape policy and if you ask whether it will change or whether it was mere but a mere i mean it began i think i think even you would agree a mirror i mean he made a personal decision to invade lebanon and he lied about it to his own government here i mean he did was quote unquote proactive it times and we all know what happened to israel and the lebanese people who are in that conflict go ahead. well peter peter let let let me find it. more complicated than lied to his government menachem begin our realtor on that the chief of staff of these really defense forces rafael they all had the plan in the back of their minds which they tried to hide from other ministers and from other military commanders because they wanted to see whether the first stage of the invasion goes on and whether the reagan administration. looks at it favorably or not

and they they planned went well to go in but let me go back to general the strong in the early seventy's when he came out for a palestinian state of course there was a caviar he wanted the house of my kingdom of jordan to become the you put this thing in state on the east bank of the jordan river rather than on the west of what he tried to do in lebanon and there he was of course short sighted strategically was changed the middle east tried to run the palestinians out of lebanon back into jordan where they will topple king hussein and then israel can create. a pact with the palestinian state of jordan it will shortsighted for many reasons of course the lebanese maronites were not able to hold power when the syrians were against it but also because the iran iraq war and the iranian revolution made has volodya merging power in lebanon. very near the marijuana law he said there

a lot said there joshua frango do you we had a short history lesson there but it seems to me that you know when you look at lebanon a failure it created has been a law we go look at gaza and then you have hamas now you have the radicalization of the shia in lebanon we have you bring in iran into the equation this is all the work the handiwork of missed. sharon well i you know i think one of the real turning points was the massacre to be that we heard about in one nine hundred fifty three and sharon had been given orders to create as much destruction as he could by ben-gurion he went and he exceeded anybody's expectations the americans condemned this act there were seventy you know largely women and children killed they condemned the act of said the person who perpetrated this should be punished and so forth there was a tense moment and then give there's a famous film clip of ben-gurion going up to sharon pinching his cheek and saying

he's a good boy and that encapsulates i think. he has your own established this policy of smashing the palestinians and the arabs and hitting them ten times harder than they could hit israel believing that in the end this would change the attitude of the arab world towards israel and they would leave it alone now we don't know whether this. policy has been a success for israel certainly israel has settled the west bank this was a vision of sharon's they have are secure today will that blow up in their hands in the future we just don't know the americans ultimately gave israel a pass and we saw the new york times obituary was very favorable jeroen and it by and large the american coverage of sharon has been to lionize him so you could say today that he got away with it that he has established

a greater israel. will history prove that that is a success you know we're reading books about the great startup nation israel's got an economy that's extraordinary bigger than all arab commies around it it's got more it's it has been an extraordinary success story in many ways will that explode will the arabs will it be a solid game story where eventually they'll come back and push the crusaders out of israel we don't know yet that would you like to reflect upon that because agree i agree with everything we just heard from joshua but can you know this vision to be maintained because it looks like you know they're at a dead end here with this so-called peace process which of course sharon was against from the very very beginning against the treaty with with egypt against. relations with the jordan eccentric scepter etc so his vision is has been fulfilled but can he can it will live on. sure i just want to respond first to

a couple of things that were said earlier and look at the history lesson that we were that we were treated to you know i understand that the israeli perception might be that they were underdogs prior to one nine hundred sixty seven but the objective reality historically speaking in terms of the battlefield and we know this because david ben gurion tells us so in his diary is that every stage of the war in one thousand nine hundred eight the israeli troops outnumbered the combined forces of the arab armies which were under disarray various commands and far less armed and poor and much more poorly trained and of course the outcome reflected that reality in the outcome was the mass the population of palestine and the israeli conquering of the vast majority of palestine as well so i'd object to that characterization of israel as an underdog even from from that state from that stage and lebanon of course you know. as it was mentioned sure only wanted to try

to shape the reality in lebanon by installing a government there and while the syrians and the iranians may have all had their desires you know the key factor there is that lebanon is an intensely complicated place when it comes to its domestic politics and that had as much to do with the outcome there as anything else as much as outside intervention but at the end of the day even among israelis on the right when it comes to the west bank and the settlement enterprise you know sharon was on the extreme end you look at some of the stances that he took and plans that he stood by in the one nine hundred seventy s. he you know he his vision for the west bank was really the closest to banta stand i was asian at some of the earliest stages more than anyone else more than draw bulls more than you got alone more than anyone else he wanted to create small pockets of . palestinian presence in the west bank that would be surrounded with israeli

settlements and so that is his legacy today and you know israel stuck with that reality today and is dealing with this question of essentially apartheid in the modern world because it is it drenched its presence among the palestinian population and can't find its way out amir if i go back to you and tell of eve how much did sharon change israeli politics moving to the right did it reflect his beliefs or did he push it that way with what is of the egg or the chicken here when it comes to right wing politics in israel today. i'm afraid we're giving him too much credit when we assign strategic visions. and long grange planning to sharon he was hungry for power he wanted to gain power by getting elected from the right and then governing from the center and even when he was in government he tried to get as much power within the cabinet so for

instance when menachem begin formed his first government and gave much are they on the foreign ministry and as a weitzman the defense portfolio much to sharon's sugaring sharon as a minister for agriculture. made. problems for begun by yon weitzman and jimmy carter by. leading the settlement activity but as defense minister in begging second government on the eve of the war in lebanon on he dismantled the settlements in yet meeting the roughest salient which was pup of the price of the agreement he tried to sabotage first and what he took from the experience of being ousted by the government following the recommendations of the commission of inquiry was that he should never take an agreement number two in the u.s. or in a straight and he let me jump in here hamas is out of time joshua i like to give

you the last word thirty seconds go ahead well the legacy of sharon's legacy is that he wanted to settle the west bank and he wanted to destroy any possibility of a two state solution and in many ways it looks like he has succeeded in doing that today will that destruction of the two state solution blow up and create an apartheid that is insoluble or will it not and that's that is the real big question mark hanging over israel today and and we don't know the answer to it yet although the situation is very difficult all right we're. run out of time gentlemen many thanks to my guests today in norman washington and in tel aviv and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember.

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