[tw]

Originally posted by jaguar
Arafat started the currant infeda, but we all know sharon jsut loves letting blood.

From the very first sentence from an article in Economist.com entitled "The intafada" date 4 Apr 2002:

It was Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount in October 2000 that sparked a second intifada (uprising).

From a 5 Oct 2000 article entiled "War in Palestine" cited by that 4 Apr 2002 article:

The bonfire, nearly everybody agrees, was lit by an act of deliberate provocation: the decision on September 28th by Ariel Sharon, the leader of the Likud opposition, to demonstrate Israel’s sovereignty over Muslim holy sites in East Jerusalem. The two sides agree on little else.

Bottom line - Sharon started the second intafada - for reasons obvious and defined earlier.

This also from The Economist magazine in an article entited "Sharon's War" datad 4 Apr 2002:

... Palestinian leaders have calculated all along that Israeli escalation might bring them exactly what they wanted: international peacekeepers, and a leap beyond the gradualism of Oslo to a settlement that pushes Israel all the way back to its pre-1967 borders. The paradox of Mr Sharon's big new war is that it is also Mr Arafat's big new opportunity. He will not wish to squander it.
A second complication is that nobody can be sure of Mr Sharon's true war aims. He certainly has form. As defence minister, and architect of Israel's calamitous Lebanon war of 1982, Mr Sharon proved adept at saying one thing to his cabinet, another to the Americans, and implementing a third policy on the ground. It is all very well for the Americans and his coalition partners to hope that this war will force the Palestinians back to a ceasefire and peace talks. But Mr Sharon is a champion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and an avowed loather of Oslo.

Bottom line: Sharon's history is to create war (Lebanon invasion and the second Intafada) while routinely lying to everyone. Will the world step in, like in Bosnia, to stop a slaughter of a defenseless people by a racist government that is armed and financially supported by the US while protected by a naive US president? The answer is, like in Bosnia, the other world powers have no backbone - no balls - no military commitment to all those fine principals they claim to stand for. Even in Bosnia, Europe could not stop mass genocide until a president with intelligence and backbone said "enough" and told Europe how it would next act. The current US president has a political history of fearing anything that involves risk. His solution to the massacre in the Middle East - do nothing more than permit your representative to now talk to all parties. That for George Jr is a major action? Yes, if your support is behind a racist with history of subordination and mass murder.

Sharon sees a pushover president and it taking every advantage. A mental midget president who is shocked by a turn of events that everyone knew was coming. Barak's people, during the last election, sent out simulation draft notices to demonstrate what those people would get if Sharon was Prime Minister. Guess what. Barak's simulation was perfectly accurate. Just how much more can Sharon escalate? With George Jr, are there any limits to Sharon's violence?

What will happen next? Death rates on both side must increase drastically above the 300+ deaths this last month (which includes the massacre of five PA policemen - shot in the head execution style by unknown Israeli soldiers only because they were policemen and one of the few organizations not actively involved in any fighting). Sharon's agenda is ethnic cleansing of the occupied territories. Does the name Milosevik sound familiar? Does the military executions of another race sound familiar? Different nations. Same agenda. Article is entitled "Sharon's War" because he started and is THE reason for all current violence.