rfmcdonald | [BRIEF NOTE] A Matter of Style (Reply)

My thanks to the indispensable

charlemagne77 for linking to this Counterpunch article by Alexander Cockburn about Emma Brockes, the journalist from The Guardian responsible for the recent revelatory interview with Chomsky. Cockburn disapproving contrasts Brockes' treatment in 2005 of Chomsky with her treatment of Sharon in her 2001 interview, claiming that she "knows when to mind her manners," and that "[t]he contrast between this decorous treatment of a genuine, full-bore war criminal and Brockes' tetchy malevolence and dishonesties in her piece about Chomsky is very marked."

That isn't how I read the article, though. Bear with me, as I quote two passages at length.

And so we enter the second, still more surreal, phase of the visit. Sharon leads us into the courtyard, where we climb into a fortified Land Rover with bullet-proof glass. Sharon, the photographer and I squeeze into the back seat. Two men with Uzi machine guns get in the front. We drive onto the main road flanked by two further Land Rovers packed with armed guards. Sharon is utterly distracted, leaning forward in his seat, eyes flitting, talking urgently in Hebrew to the men in front. More armed guards can be seen behind the tree-line. Once off the road onto farmland, he relaxes a little. In formation with the other trucks, we climb the hill.

"I like animals," he says abstractly. We stop at the top of the hill. The guards get out, Sharon gets out, we get out, and all stand for a moment in silence, admiring the expanse of brown earth before us. It is the golden hour, the sun is like honey. Squinting, Sharon turns and leads us to a small, fenced area at the very summit of the hill. In it is planted a willow tree, a bench and a single grave with a headstone inscribed in Hebrew: Lily Sharon. "In Spring, this place is all covered in bee-yoo-tiful flowers," he says. "One day, I will be buried here too, next to my wife." There are tears in his eyes. He turns his back and takes several steps towards the willow tree, before bowing his head. Then he lifts it and looks across the land, like Nelson at the prow of a ship. "What will happen to the Jews in 30 years, 300 years, 3,000 years? I feel all the ties and roots of the Jewish people in this place. There has been non-stop Jewish life here for thousands of years. That is what I stand for. This is not a campaign. It's a war for our survival. The Jews have one, tiny, small country. A country with many talents, but a tiny small country. We demand only one thing: to live peacefully. We have the right and the ability to defend ourselves and we will never give up. It is our duty. That is what I feel."

How can he live like that? How can anyone live when living is just a matter of survival? Sharon snaps out of his reverie and looks annoyed. "What do you mean, to live?" he says. "You don't have to be a scared person. I've had so many tragedies. I've managed to withstand things that you may think you cannot tolerate. But I have the strength. First of all I am a Jew. That is my duty."

It is tempting to speculate that the personal risk that Sharon has lived under for practically all of his life has influenced his political decision-making. He says not. "Look. I have worries, but in difficult times, that is when I am quiet. You cannot allow yourself to do things thinking that, otherwise you're dead. It's dangerous. Would you like to see the cows?"

And again:

The question of racism is not one he likes to discuss. When I ask if people were right to call Zeevi a racist - he referred to Palestinians as "lice" and a "cancer" - Sharon becomes inarticulate with annoyance. "I don't see any place for that. I will stop there. There is no time to refer to all those kind of things." Those "kind of things" are international opinions he finds objectionable and so-called "gossip". But his own views on the subject are controversial. He answers a question about whether there are essential differences between Arabs and Jews - the cornerstone of any racist doctrine - by expounding the inability of Arabs to live democratically. "Oh, they are different," he says of the two races. "Israel is a democracy. The only democracy in this part of the world. From Iran across Africa to the Atlantic, there is one tiny small democracy and that is Israel." I suggest that the Palestinians in the occupied territories don't see much democracy. "They suffer heavy casualties, we suffer heavy casualties and there is one man, only one, to blame and that's Arafat, because he could have avoided it. Look, they committed the most terrible murders. In wars, civilians are killed. We know that. It's a tragedy, BUT, to take civilians as a target is something that one cannot forgive."

This will strike some as rich coming from a man famous around the world for the quantity of blood on his hands. In 1953 Sharon led a raid on the Palestinian village of Qibya, during which his men massacred 69 civilians. Later, as many as 20,000 people died in Israel's invasion of Lebanon, which the then prime minister Begin claimed he ran like a personal project. And most notoriously, he was held partially to blame for the massacre at the Shatilla and Sabra refugee camps in southern Lebanon. In 1982, Sharon was defence minister when Christian militias were allowed to enter the camps to root out "terrorist factions". They wound up killing at least 800 innocent people. Some account put the death toll as high as 2,000. How is that not an unforgivable targeting of civilians? Sharon tutts dismissively. "They can accuse us as much as they want to." The car stops. "You want to see some sheep?"

To me, in the above interview Brockes is quietly showing up the contradictions between Sharon's professed desire for peace in a secure pastoral homeland and his actual behaviour as an ally to mass murderers when not a mass murderer himself. This may just be me, a single reader. And so, a poll.

[Poll #606764]