Zionist (Wet) Dreaming

I don't know how much more simple-minded commentary on Ariel Sharon in the corporate media I can take. Here, for example, is the concluding paragraph from Jonathan Freedland's obituary (?) in the Guardian online:

"The tragedy for both sides is that the right people to speak that truth [about the Palestinian nakba] were the founding generation. Those who fought the war of 1948 were best placed to close its wounds. An intriguing habit of Sharon's was to refer to places in Israel by their original, Arabic names - thereby acknowledging the truth that usually lies buried beneath the soil. Leading his nation to do the same could have been Ariel Sharon's final mission. They will have to do it without him."  (Ariel Sharon's final mission might well have been peace, 4/1/14)

As if this "intriguing habit" - assuming it ever existed - meant anything more than the fact that Sharon was born and raised in ARAB PALESTINE.

Incredibly, while ms journalists/pundits such as Freedland have no problem spotting war criminals in every other corner of the globe, when it comes to the Israeli variety they go all fey and fall all over themselves in an effort to sanitise the unsanitisable. So here we have Freedland seriously speculating that had Sharon not fallen victim to a stroke in 2006 he'd now be leading an Israeli version of Australia's Sorry movement! Time, as always, to get real:

"Finally in power [in 1977] after 30 years in opposition, the [Israeli] right dreamed of a new map of Israel, and Begin knew how to galvanize the masses with his pioneering speeches. But Likud did not know how to make this map happen. For Sharon, however - a child of Kfar Malal - it wasn't complicated: irrigation systems needed to be set up, roads marked out and houses built. The division of labor was as follows: Begin would speak about the need to increase Israeli settlements... while Sharon would be the contractor. Sharon turned to a new generation of pioneers from Gush Emunim... inspired by the Bible... Ariel shared their love of the land of Israel and the certainty that they were the legitimate owners of the land of their ancestors... From 1977 to 1981 he established more than 60 settlements in Judea-Samaria. Then, in the course of his various later posts - defense, industry and commerce, infrastructure, housing - he reinforced these settlements and increased their number, until they reached 150. Sharon fought against the whole world to strengthen the Jewish presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and he did not appreciate it when, years later, those in charge of the settlements preferred Benjamin Netanyahu over him as the right-wing candidate for prime minister." (Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait, Uri Dan, 2006, pp 77-8)

Fantasies like Freedland's do not arise spontaneously of course - they require a process of indoctrination, preferably from one's earliest days. In an obituary on his mother's death, Freedland wrote:

"Whatever view you ultimately take on the Israel-Palestine question, you cannot hope to understand that conflict unless you also understand this... craving for a place the Jews could call their own." (In death - as in life - my mother was rescued by love, The Guardian, 18/5/12)

Swallow the Zionist dogma that "Jews" must have "a place of their own" - preferably in Palestine - and even a butcher and thief like Sharon will come up smelling like roses.