http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp&mador=4&datee=1/21/0
1&id=107345
The questions Sharon is not being
asked
By Uzi Benziman, Ha'aretz
In American political culture, it is assumed that any candidate
for president (or any other office) will give the public an
accounting of his past. It is routine for the news media to
confront candidates with their prior statements, their bank
balances, their positions on issues and their commitments.A
salient example that comes to mind is the Miami Herald's
journalistic scoop of Democratic Party presidential hopeful
Senator Gary Hart's romantic escapade with a woman not his wife.
The liaison forced Hart to quit the race in May 1987. It was not
his tryst with model Donna Rice that toppled him, but rather the
fatal damage their affair caused the credibility of his claims to
placing a high value on upright moral behavior.
The journalistic disclosure was the result of a persistent
attempt, not only of the Miami Herald but also of other news
organizations, to discover contradictions between Hart's public
moral stance and his private life.
MK Ariel Sharon (Likud) is going around markets and shopping
malls these days as if he didn't have a can of worms hanging on
his tail. The media has accepted his candidacy for prime minister
as perfectly normal and acceptable. It doesn't hound him with any
tough questions and it doesn't bother him with any embarrassing
information about his past. It has made its peace with the tactic
set by his campaign headquarters: to forget his past, not to
present his ideas face on, and to show him as a smiling, benign
senior statesman. The media has made no effort to disturb the
false tranquility of this new image.
But one can and should badger Sharon with some tough questions.
Here are a few examples of what he should be asked:
In November 2000, you declared it was possible to have saved
the two reserve soldiers who were lynched to death in Ramallah.
How, in your opinion, could they have been saved?
It has been reported that you recommended to Prime Minister
Ehud Barak to retake Jericho and have Mohammed Dahlan killed. Are
these the sort of measures you will take as prime minister?
Do you regret your September visit to the Temple Mount, which
served as the match that lit the latest Intifada? Would you do it
again?
On the first day of the Israeli Defense Forces' withdrawal
from Lebanon, you attacked Barak for the withdrawal, claiming it
brought shame on the army. Do you still hold this view?
In April 2000, you warned that an Arab flood would inundate
our beaches and streets and disrupt life for Jews as a result of
the peace agreement. Under the peace agreement that you are aiming
for, would Arab tourists be banned from visiting Israel?
What did you mean when you warned the Arabs of the Galilee,
in December 1980, that if they do not moderate their stance, the
tragedy of 1948 would repeat itself?
After the Wye agreement was signed with your participation as
foreign minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, you
called on settlers to grab every hillside and claim a stake. How
does this recommendation jibe with the agreement and its spirit?
Doesn't this constitute a call to violate the law and illegally
seize assets?
You were a recalcitrant minister who fought with his
colleagues and acted against the bidding of prime ministers under
whom you served. What evidence is there that you are capable of
leading a government and a state?
During a cabinet meeting on June 1, 1980, you declared that
security was above all law. Do you still hold this view?
Why did you not mention in your autobiography a revolt by
paratroop officers against you after the entrance into a
death-trap during the 1956 War? And why did you omit mention of
Major General Yosef Geva's decision to dismiss you as head of the
training division for lying?
Why also did you not mention your responsibility for chasing
Bedouins away from parts of the Negev in a move that came under
scrutiny through a petition to the High Court?
And what about General Geva's conclusions as to your part in
contributing to delays in stretching bridges over the canal in the
Yom Kippur War?
And what about your attempts to reach a political pact with
the left ahead of 1977 elections?
Why also did you not mention the gatherings of senior IDF
staff in which serious criticism was leveled against your behavior
during the Lebanon War?
What about all this, and much, much more..
