Sharon’s death: is this divine justice?!

It is natural to send sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of anyone suffering severe illness or death. And thus it should be with the deterioration of Ariel Sharon’s medical situation and his possible death today.

Nevertheless this should not prevent us from recognizing that his particular death will not be mourned by millions of people who were affected by his monstrous war crimes.

The victims of Qybya, the small Palestinian village near Ramallah, who in 1953 lost 45 houses and 69 civilians, most of them women and children, are probably feeling better today.

The families of 270 Egyptian prisoners of war who were butchered in Sinai in 1956 in cold blood under his command may also feel some comfort. They were demanding justice for such horrendous crimes from the UN, ICJ and international law but it seems that divine justice is the only one they will get.

The kids who were uprooted from their houses, which were there family homes for centuries, and were enforced to live without fathers as refugees in neighbouring countries would also be feeling some sense of justice today.

The sons, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers and relatives of the 30,000 (mostly civilians) killed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 (when Sharon was Defence Minister) are still having tragic nightmares because of such crimes. Can anyone blame them if they might celebrate the death of this war criminal?

Can the UN and the international community explain to the relatives of more than 2,700 Palestinian civilians butchered in Sabra and Shatila camps in September 1982, how this war criminal escaped indictment and persecution?

What do you think is the feeling of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their historical lands for new settlements under his minsterialship?

All the Palestinians and peace-loving people are asking why the UN Security Council did not move to impose sanctions on Israel after it refused, under his leadership, to implement the Security Council’s resolution to investigate the Jenin massacres on 2002!
This name nicknamed “bulldozer” was really a bulldozer: a bulldozer of blood, international law violations, massacres and genocides.

This bulldozer is also responsible not only for Palestinian blood, but for Arab blood and Jewish blood alike. His neo-nazi ideas of imposing his own agenda by “iron and fire”, his refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians and neighbouring Arabic countries and his insistence on continuing to uproot Palestinians and assassinate their leaders and activists, cost “Israelis” more than a thousand deaths.

So at the end, the kids who have grown up in exile, with no security, with minimum rights, with nightmares of blood of their relatives spilt in battlefields, villages and camps, will understand that at least there is divine intervention to bring some justice.

But is this justice enough? Should not this “bulldozer” spend his last days behind bars in The Hague? Is this divine justice proving more and more that there is no human justice? Does this give the Palestinians and other oppressed people any hope in the future, if they will be required to wait for divine intervention to get rid of every monster war criminal?

Over recent years the world has watched as the last of the Nazi war criminals have been brought to justice, and as dictators like Pinochet are finally being called to account. So it should be with those who have been responsible for horrendous state-sponsored violence which has been investigated and repeatedly condemned by the United Nations.

All peoples wish to live peacefully under a rule of law. However for any role of law to be respected it must be just and seen to be just by those it governs.

As we move to mark what might soon be the passing of a confirmed perpetrator of international war crimes and crimes against humanity, let us not rush to eulogise him, but stop to remember those who suffered at his hands.