They might be worried about Sharon Osborne.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 8:27 am | #

I noticed that. In a few months it'll only be Sharon Osborne turning up on the google search.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 9:23 am | #

Perhaps I'm being sanctimonious, but I think the death of human being is sad and I think a reflection on someone's life when they die should be respectful as well as truthful.
Patrick | 01.05.06 - 9:55 am | #

That's twice you've done that.
Justin | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 10:37 am | #

the death of sharon will most certainly not be sad.
Damo | 01.05.06 - 10:49 am | #

Justin - you're right but I'm more confident this time.

Patrick - you're absolutely right, you are being sanctimonious.

Damo - You're right too. The only sad thing here is Patrick!
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 11:27 am | #

I do take Patrick's point but there is a long and honourable tradition of rejoicing at the death of tyrants.
Justin | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 11:44 am | #

talking of tyrants I will bet that you are annoyed saddam is on trial and probably about to be executed

you probably moan for weeks about that tyrant saddam
Z | 01.05.06 - 11:59 am | #

Sharon is but a figurehead; nothing in Zionville will change except for the propping up of a new figurehead --probably Netanyahu.
Al | 01.05.06 - 12:18 pm | #

Bibi or Mofaz will come out on top. Olmert has no base. Peres will be contender but naturally he just has to lose, or he wouldnt be peres.

as for Sharon, I will weep for him, he was a man of piece.
Hulkagaard | 01.05.06 - 2:14 pm | #

Zionville? Figurehead? Which delusional stream are we entering?
cb | 01.05.06 - 2:29 pm | #

he was a piece of man surely
damian walls | 01.05.06 - 2:33 pm | #

Remember this from March?

Jerusalem - God will strike dead "the evil one" who moves Israelis from the Gaza Strip, an influential rabbi and politician said, without referring directly to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

..."How cruel is this evil one who does such things," [Rabbi Ovadia] Yosef said in an apparent reference to Sharon. "The Holy One wants us all to return to the Torah, and then he will strike him with one blow and he will die. He will sleep and never wake up," Yosef said.

yeah, very spooky. I mean a grossly overweight 77 year-old glutton with a high-stressed lifestyle just isn't going to drop dead of a heart attack without G-d having it in for him is he?
stephen marks | 01.05.06 - 3:26 pm | #

Z

I think you have a point. Politics has a tribal aspect to it. But this is not completely irrational. If you think someone is on your side its reasonable (and much easier and less time consuming) to believe anything they support or say must be good. The left was quite preoccupied and critical of Saddam Hussein when he was an ally of the west and committing atrocities. Now the left wants to ensure he gets a fair trial. As a conservative Z?, you perhaps were not too bothered when Saddam invaded Iran and was killing Kurds.
Patrick | 01.05.06 - 3:56 pm | #

Maybe he got a stroke because he doesn't wear a kuppel.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 3:57 pm | #

I'm only sad that the old brute is clearly going to escape any sort of justice.
Meaders | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 5:25 pm | #

I'm reminded irresistibly of an old Private Eye cover:

http://www.strobes.uklinux.net/c...ers/ 124_big.jpg
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 5:28 pm | #

I'm a leftist and I would have been satisfied if Saddam had gotten the same treatment as the Romanovs or Mussolini or Ceaucescu.

As it is his actual trial is a propaganda exercise fr the west.

If Saddam got a fair trial his co-conspirators would be implicated to (to them) an intolorable degree.

So a fair trial for Saddam would be a good thing, better even than execution by popular acclaim, but the "international community" is incapable of givin' it him.

Leftists just like lift the curtain.
jossah | 01.05.06 - 5:29 pm | #

Meanwhile, the current BBC headline is "Israeli PM critical after stroke".

Critical of what? The hospital food?
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 5:31 pm | #

ps, sorry to be so blood-thirsty regarding toppled tyrants, personally I'd rather they didn't have to die. Exiled to the moon maybe.
jossah | 01.05.06 - 5:37 pm | #

"...there is a long and honourable tradition of rejoicing at the death of tyrants."

I really enjoyed the Caesars assassination on TV last night.
jossah | 01.05.06 - 5:42 pm | #

A friend of mine suggested that the army might take over given the fractious state of Israel's multi-multi-multi-party system.

The army isn't going to take over, silly. You don't know much about Israel if you think that might be the case.

But then what would the colonial settler state trade on if not its reputation as the "only democracy in the Middle East?"

Huh? It's not a colonial settler state, you nincompoop. Unlike the United States and Australia, and all those other states you aren't campaigning against their existence, Israelis are actually orginally ethnically from their region. One could even describe them as an indigenous people.

You've got to up your game a bit if you're going to carry on this anti Zionist lark, sonny.
Trev | 01.05.06 - 5:46 pm | #

Unlike the United States and Australia, and all those other states you aren't campaigning against their existence, Israelis are actually orginally ethnically from their region...

You've got to up your game a bit if you're going to carry on this anti Zionist lark, sonny.

Hell yes, with opposition like this, one's game must always be upped and at 'em. Be told, Mark.
Meaders | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 5:57 pm | #

Like Ariel Sharon, Tim is almost lifeless but still critical.
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 5:57 pm | #

("...actually originally ethnically...": all of them? just the one? two out of three? whatever, it's a wonderful phrase and I will use it accordingly.)
Meaders | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 5:59 pm | #

For "Tim" read "Trev".

Sigh. I was quite chuffed with that one-liner.
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 5:59 pm | #

"actually originally ethnically"

Truly, Madly, Deeply.
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 6:03 pm | #

Anyone who knows anything about Israel should realise that the army are already in control and have been for some time.
AJP | 01.05.06 - 6:40 pm | #

Yes AJP, but I'm not sure if any generals are offering themselves for election this time round so they might have to go for selection instead.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 7:24 pm | #

warszawa - thanks so much for that cover. I thought about maybe a million times since Sharon's first stroke.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 7:26 pm | #

re trials of tyrants. Who's trying who? Who tries the triers? I know this was Goering's defence but he had a point.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 7:32 pm | #

You're welcome, Mark, There are certain Private Eye jokes that can keep you laughing for life. Not constantly, I hasten to add, but intermittently, regularly, frequently.

I rarely comment on this excellent blog, but I do visit it most days. Here's lead in your pencil, or (if you prefer): Stay Healthy, But Remain Critical.
warszawa | 01.05.06 - 7:47 pm | #

Israel is an army with a state attached to it.
Hulkagaard | 01.05.06 - 7:54 pm | #

See what warszarwa says, elfie. At least someone out there loves you, eh?
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 7:58 pm | #

Steven Marks you are just vile. You are like one of those little boys who spent his time running around the playground shouting "Fatty" at the fat kid. Call yourself a socialist? You're just an angry 11 year old bully boy.

Stilly bullying at your age. And still can't recognise a Jew-hater when you see one. Perhaps there's a connection?
Alf Green | 01.05.06 - 8:03 pm | #

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef gets seconded by Pat Robertson! Ain't ecumentalism a beautiful thing?
Mooser | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 8:05 pm | #

Patrick I am sad not because of any thing Sharon was or stood for.

I firmly believe in the life to come and hence would not like to be in his shoes. He will reckon for the all the deaths he caused to old men, widows and children. I am sad for that reason alone.
unclejimbo | 01.05.06 - 8:15 pm | #

why would anyone want him to die after massive cerebral hemorrage?? i want to see him live on another 15-20 years..

Imagine, he won't even be able to take a dump on his own ever again after this favorable medical development.

Patrick -- Come off it please. Yes, you are being sanctimonius.

Bartholomew -- good one, it is truly spooky, but like i said I sincerely hope the fat bastard wakes up.
Abbass Hamadani | 01.05.06 - 9:41 pm | #

Come see what others are saying about -hopefully the late- Sharon.
May he burn in hell!
DesertPeace | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 9:48 pm | #

Media Matters has the video of Robertson.
Gosh, I wonder if this is gonna screw up their little Holy Land Theme Park deal they had going?
That would be a shame.
Mooser | Homepage | 01.05.06 - 10:55 pm | #

isreal is the only middle Eastern country that allow Arab women ro vote. oppenion polls have repeatedly shown that israeli Arabs prefer to live under jewish rather thasn palestinan rule. The same is true for the arabs of jerusalem. When the "fince"placed many of jerusalem's arabs on the Palestinian side,tens of thousands promptly decamped and moved to the israeli side, often finding housing in 'sett5lements.' Can it be that Palestinians find israeli rule preferable to the rule of the Palestinian authority?
Charles barton | 01.06.06 - 12:02 am | #

Alf Green should get a life. I wasn't poking fun at Sharon for being fat; I was poking fun at Ovadia Yosef suggesting G-d would strike him dead when his age and lifestyle meant he was a heart-attack risk for purely natural reasons which have nothing to do with his politics [which of course I deplore for the opposite reasons to Rabbi Yosef].

Not that I don't sympathise with the splendid Private Eye cover. I recall that at the same time an Irish socialist paper printed the following;

Dr Verwoerd: an obituary.

He was a bloodstained murdering bastard.

I'm glad he's dead.

I hope he roasts in hell.
stephen marks | 01.06.06 - 12:03 am | #

But I'll tell you one thing. When the old brute does die, and has what I am sure will be a very emotional funeral; if a BBC reporter subsequently admits to being moved to tears by the occasion, I will not be demanding that the BBC dismiss her.
stephen marks | 01.06.06 - 12:05 am | #

Actually the Vervoerd cover for when he died was brilliant. It was a pic of a Zulu dance in full exuberant fling and underneath was written: Vervoerd Dead. Africa Mourns.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 12:28 am | #

Private Eye cover, that is. sorry didn't make that clear.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 12:29 am | #

Yeah - the cover that warszawa very kindly, helpfully and memorably, linked to in an earlier comment - http://www.strobes.uklinux.net/c...ers/ 124_big.jpg

Keep up with the programme Isakofsky, warszawa and I are trying to have a schmooze-fest here.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 1:28 am | #

Here it is again, isakofsky, in case you missed it:

http://www.strobes.uklinux.net/c...ers/ 124_big.jpg

By the way, Ariel Sharon has had a stroke.
warszawa | 01.06.06 - 1:38 am | #

Charles barton stated:
isreal is the only middle Eastern country that allow Arab women ro vote.

No offense, but who the hell told you that Charlie?

In Lebanon, women vote and they are Arab, in Iran, women (including the Arab ones in Khuzestan) vote, as they do in most of the other countries of the region, although many of those elections are a bit of a sham.

Btw - I certainly won't shed a tear when the butcher of Beirut dies.
GregPotemkin | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 1:57 am | #

Additional point: thanks mooser for posting the video of Pat Robertson.

I must admit that when that guy (Robertson) dies, I will certainly miss him. If nothing else, he has always been good for a laugh.

.
GregPotemkin | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 2:03 am | #

Sorry to disappoint Bartholomew but the likelihood is that the blood thinner that Sharon was given by his doctors was the cause of the bleed. Most conservative doctors would not dream of giving blood thinner to a stroke victim on the grounds that a clot is less damaging to the brain than a bleed and the chances of a bleed are increased with blood thinner. Not divine but human intervention.
rootless cosmopolitan | 01.06.06 - 4:46 am | #

So G-d dunnit?
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 6:42 am | #

Let his epitaph be: "Too many innocent people should have mourned his death, had he not sent them on ahead of himself."
Montag | 01.06.06 - 6:53 am | #

I was trying to keep up but you're too quick with your fekkn flashy links and I-told-you-sos. Anyway, shurrup willya, I'm sitting sheeva for AS.
isakofsky | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 8:50 am | #

(Just to clarify - I don't really think for one moment that Ovadia's voodoo had any effect. But it's interesting nonetheless that he predicted a "blow" followed by "sleep", rather than a heart attack - and one suspects that the Israeli religious right, which has already pronounced a "pulsa denura" death curse on Sharon, will milk the prediction. Unless he wakes up, of course.)
Bartholomew | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 9:16 am | #

"While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Eugene V. Debs

Just to be sanctimonious one more time. Sharon was a highly immoral man who committed large scale atrocities. There could be no doubt that many of his actions were war crimes. Still, I don’t think its good to celebrate or gloat about his death - or anyone's.

Charles
I think what you say it true. Most Palestinians and many Arabs probably would prefer to live in Israel. Palestine / the occupied territories are very poor - with high unemployment and are subject to a brutal military occupation. Arab countries are mostly poor and highly illiberal. I wouldn’t want to live in either But this doesn’t justify Israel's apartheid laws against non-Jews nor its occupation nor its unwillingness to allow Palestinian statehood.
Many people from countries neighbouring South Africa preferred living and working in Apartheid South Africa - this didn’t make Apartheid ok.
I would prefer to live in a house where I was beaten once a day than a house where I was beaten twice a day.
Patrick | 01.06.06 - 11:01 am | #

Charles, the first step in shilling for "Isreal" is learning how to spell it.
Mooser | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 5:41 pm | #

Yes AJP, but I'm not sure if any generals are offering themselves for election this time round so they might have to go for selection instead.

Pretty Disgusting Mark. Its about what I expect from you at this point though
np | 01.06.06 - 6:13 pm | #

to stephen marks I assume you meant the bbc reporter was moved to tears when Arafat died and you were comparing Sharon's pending death to that of Arafat last year. Can we both admit that if she cries for Arafat but not for Sharon then she is tilted towards the Palestinian side?
np | 01.06.06 - 6:42 pm | #

But she was expressing what was touted as a personal view. When the Beeb tilts in Israel's favour it masquerades as impartial.

Could I say rj/np/cb/etc - it's not names that I delete or ban? It's silly time wasting comments, racism, insults, smears etc.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.06.06 - 7:14 pm | #

It is actually possible to be moved to tears by the death of a revered national leader, and by the grief his people express, regardless of your political opinion of the person.

I have to confess I was moved to tears by the expressions of grief at Princess Diana's funeral despite the fact that I am a militant republican, and think she was a spoiled airhead.

I would not call for any reporter to be sacked because they empathised sufficiently to be moved to tears at an outpouring of national grief. The question is whether the reporter is biased in their reporting of the news - not in a personal comment.

The shameful episode of the witchunt against the BBC reporter was a crude attempt at Zionist blackmail of the BBC by shameless lobbyists who cannot abide any coverage which does not stereotype every Palestinian as a murderous terrorist.

If the BBC had an ounce of guts they would have told the lobby to bog off.
stephen marks | 01.06.06 - 7:36 pm | #

ding dong the witch is dead, the witch is dead.

which old witch?

the wicked witch!

1 down, a couple more to go.

Karma......... It will slap you back in the face.
holla front | 01.06.06 - 7:53 pm | #

Maybe with Sharon out of the picture, it may become clearer that stealing Palestinian land is within the "Israeli consensus," and not the whim of one man (tho he was good at it). The difference between Beilin and Sharon is how much to steal.
Hulkagaard | 01.07.06 - 12:29 am | #

stephen marks-- Excuse me in your prior post I briefly misconstrued your written intent as conveying dissatisfaction with the BBC reporter who expressed personal sadness after Arafat's death. I don't particularly care whether a reporter expressed appropriate or inappropriate emotion. However your second post said the "Zionists" own expression of feeling constituted "blackmail" (even though the BBC story aired unimpeded and that was just a reaction to someone many regarded as a sworn enemy of the Jewish people). Shouldn't anyone (even those you disagree with) be allowed to express their opinions, just as the BBC does, and just as you do?
fkunds | 01.07.06 - 2:03 am | #

There's a whole bunch of us who really do wish many long years yet ahead for Sharon, the Hero of Sabra and Shatila -- as a drooling idiot in XXXL diapers.
Kassandra | 01.07.06 - 2:13 am | #

once again guys the "hero" (I think you mean perpetrator) of Sabra and Shatila was.. Elie Hobeikin. Sharon was responsible indirectly. He should have sent Jewish soldiers in to stop the massacre by Christians of Moslem Arabs. He was sort of like the Brits who watched the Jews (and kept them out of Palestine) while Hitler murdered six million of them, except on a scale 1/6000 times as large. You could call him Israel's Bevin
fkunds | 01.07.06 - 2:22 am | #

Hugh Thompson has died of cancer. He was the pilot of the helicopter at the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam who saved some Vietnamese by landing his copter between them and the advancing U.S. zombie-soldiers. He asked Lt. Calley to help him get the people out of the ditch, but the crud Calley said the only way he'd get them out was with a grenade. Thompson then realized that he needed to treat the G.I.s as hostile. He ordered his machine gunner to make the soldiers keep away while he got the Vietnamese to safety. Said if they didn't halt, he was under orders to shoot them. Thompson received all kinds of medals and awards, but Calley became a hero to the right-wing and was never really punished.

The problem was that the helicopter pilots overhead kept thinking they were watching a battle, until it became obvious that when they dropped a smoke bomb to mark a wounded civilian, the soldiers would walk up and kill them instead of giving them first aid. Eventually it sunk in that the only Vietnamese on the ground below were helpless civilians.
Montag | 01.07.06 - 3:50 am | #

Fkunds -- according to this article by Fisk, Sharon's responsiblity goes beyond malign neglect: http://www.kibush.co.il/show_fil...e.asp? num=11167
Hulkagaard | 01.07.06 - 4:08 am | #

Indeed. The comparison is not with Bevin but with the Nazis getting Ukrainian or Estonian militias to do their dirty work for them.
stephen marks | 01.07.06 - 10:58 am | #

It's worth pondering the fact that Israel's only ideological allies in the Middle East are the so-called Christian Phalangists who were founded after their first leader returned from attending one of Hitler's Nuremberg rallies.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.07.06 - 11:13 am | #

Patrick must be joking right? Its irony. Please tell me its irony. My only sadness is that I once knew a Palestinian woman who predicted with great bitterness that Sharon would die peacefully in his bed showered with hossana's and praise as opposed to being shot in a backstreet and mutilated as so many of his victims have been (this was during the period when Belgium was being threatened for allowing discussion of indictment of Sharon for war crimes).
johng | 01.07.06 - 5:17 pm | #

Elf is skating on thin ice, not for the first time, by alluding to Nazi connections of Israeli allies. Haj Amin Al Husseini was a much closer Nazi ally and some repute responsible for the formation of a bitterly evil and antiSemitic Bosnian brigade in Hitler's army. Moreover, that is his intent-- to try to equate the Jewish Holocaust victims and their survivors with the crimes of their enemies. It will never, in the long run, work
cb | 01.07.06 - 9:08 pm | #

Pierre Gemayel's nazi inspired phalange movement was a mass movement. The Grand Mufti was a solitary figure with no mass support among the Palestinians who was imposed on them by the Brits. The Mufti was a repugnant character for sure. But the point here is that a nazi inspired mass movement is the only ideological ally Israel has had in the Middle East.

I think we can leave it to better people like you to interpret Robert Fisk's words for him.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.08.06 - 12:48 am | #

Actually, the Phalange became royally miffed when Sharon laid siege to the Church of the Nativity and announced they were breaking with Israel. Maybe they kissed and made up later, but it's interesting that only ARAB Christians were willing to go on the warpath over the brutal Israeli siege of a Christian shrine. If it had been a Muslim shrine of course, there would have been serious repercussions.
Montag | 01.08.06 - 2:37 am | #

Edited By Siteowner
fkunds | 01.08.06 - 5:12 am | #

Edited By Siteowner
fkunds | 01.08.06 - 5:18 am | #

You still have to respond to Stephen Marks's point here - http://www.haloscan.com/comments...8558371/ #146672
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.08.06 - 5:36 am | #

Actually Avi Shlaim's 'collusion across the Jordan' provides an alternative take on the behaviour of Hussaini which I found interesting.

One difficulty confronting the Palestinian elite was the constant attempts by the Hashemites to fracture the Palestinian elite through their protracted negotiations with the Zionists both about the fate of the Palestinians themselves in any putative Zionist entity (I use the term advisedly as will be clear below and not in the recieved propaganda way) and about the political status of such an entity (the Hashemites wanted them to join a Jordanian federation and excercise a kind of quasi sovereignty within their own borders). At this stage of course the Hashemites were very close to the British who were also in charge of Palestine. These negotiations carried on all through the '20's and 30's according to Shlaim and even involved at one stage invitations for Zionist settlers in the Hashamite kingdom.

In this situation, ruled by a colonial authority, confronted by an armed Zionist movement based on mass migration, and at their back a neighbouring kingdom intent on annexing any land outside a putative Zionist state, its argued that the Palestinian elite very quickly began to run out of options.

It was in this situation that Hussaini was open to overtures from the axis. Its a useful perspective and sadly, acts as a mournfully accurate metaphore for the terrible situation of the Palestinian people since: surrounded by enemies and traitors and all sides, completely isolated and at the mercy of all, but somehow portrayed as besieging and threatening the most powerful state in the region.

You could'nt make it up, as they say. Sometimes Zionist propaganda functions almost like black humour. In each case however the Palestinian movement has been saved by erruptions from below. Thats a lesson worth remembering to.
johng | 01.08.06 - 1:24 pm | #

I'm often struck by the black humour element. It always looks deliberate to me.
Mark Elf | Homepage | 01.08.06 - 1:33 pm | #

yeah I've always thought that. There is often a kind of gleeful air of transgression as Palestinians are referred to as 'squatters' etc. The prevalence of euphumism is also interesting here (see especially your post of the ethnic cleansing conference in Acre, 'strong elements etc'). The black humour reminded me of a Palestinian version of the same:

'Palestinians might not have a state but they are the only human beings who can fly'

'Hows that?'

'Whenever the IDF fires into the air they get shot'.
johng | 01.08.06 - 2:32 pm | #

Then of course there is the old Israeli jok. Israel is a peace loving nation. A piece of Lebanon, a piece of Syria, a piece of Jordon, a piece of Egypt...' etc.
johng | 01.08.06 - 2:33 pm | #