# The Legacy of Ariel Sharon **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 11, 2014, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530 "2014-01-11T19:19:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/41 "2014-01-14T15:45:32Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > My wife, a lifelong Meretz voter who spend her teenage years protesting outside Sharon’s office, yesterday admitted to me that she thought Sharon had been a good Prime Minister. What did he accomplish as Prime Minister? I don’t remember the Sharon premiership being particularly peaceful or anything\*, so I’m assuming you are referring to domestic policy and perhaps economic growth? \*I understand that he was (eventually) pretty progressive regarding the two state solution but could never sell it to his own party. I may be misunderstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/42 "2014-01-14T16:59:17Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > He famously leaked the names of members of Ken Starr’s staff to the press he thought were closeted gay men. “Famously?” I’m not sure that’s the right term. This is the first I’ve heard about it. It’s not mentioned in his Wikipedia entry, and gooling turned up a single article from 1998 where it’s described as an unsourced rumor that Blumenthal denies. > [@](#): > > I’ll admit if they were married men having affairs that would have been one thing, but they weren’t and someone who thinks being gay is comparable to adultery is homophobic. I’m not clear on where the “comparable to adultery” thing is coming from. Even if the story is true, that doesn’t make Blumenthal a homophobe, it makes him someone willing to use society’s homophobia against his political enemies. Which is kind of douchey, but not actually homophobic in and of itself. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/43 "2014-01-14T18:38:39Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Third of all, if Egypt and Jordan hadn’t attacked Israel in 1967, then those territories would never have come under Israeli control. Excellent post aside from this; Egypt and Jordan didn’t attack Israel in 1967, Israel attacked them. They planned to attack Israel in 1967 and were going to attack Israel in 1967 but Israel attacked them preemptively rather than wait for them to initiate the war. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Except for the last, why would they have any say in this? The OTs were part of Egypt and Jordan before Israel occupied them. They don’t want them back. How is it acceptable for Egypt and Jordan to have had Palestinians as stateless persons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip when they ruled them but unacceptable for Israel? Why was it acceptable for Egypt to negotiate the return of the Sinai from Israeli occupation but to not have or want the Gaza Strip returned to their control? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/44 "2014-01-14T19:17:21Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > The OTs were part of Egypt and Jordan before Israel occupied them. They don’t want them back. How is it acceptable for Egypt and Jordan to have had Palestinians as stateless persons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip when they ruled them but unacceptable for Israel? 1. Well, they were **not** stateless persons then, were they? 2. How does any of that constitute an excuse for Israel to treat them as stateless persons now? > [@Dissonance](#): > > Why was it acceptable for Egypt to negotiate the return of the Sinai from Israeli occupation but to not have or want the Gaza Strip returned to their control? Why was it **un** acceptable? They wanted the Sinai back because it’s historically Egyptian territory and a defensive tier against Israel; reasonable reasons, which don’t apply to the Gaza Strip. And did Israel ever even **offer** Gaza to Egypt? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/45 "2014-01-14T23:14:44Z")
[quote=“BrainGlutton, post:44, topic:678530”] 1. Well, they were **not** stateless persons then, were they? 2. How does any of that constitute an excuse for Israel to treat them as stateless persons now?[/QUOTE BrainGlutton, your logic makes utterly no sense. You’re claiming that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip were “not stateless persons” when ruled by Nasser even though he refused to let them be Egyptian citizens and forced them all to live in refugee camps while not letting them out. Now you’re claiming the Palestinians of the Gaza and the West Bank are “stateless persons” under the Israelis event though they have more rights and more autonomy. Please explain your logic because it’s utterly ridiculous and looks like you hold Israel to ridiculous double standards. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/46 "2014-01-15T00:21:03Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I’ll admit if they were married men having affairs that would have been one thing, but they weren’t and someone who thinks being gay is comparable to adultery is homophobic. What **Miller** said. Besides that, even if it were homophobic, and even if it were Max Blumenthal rather than his father, that’s pretty textbook _ad hominem_. Even if Max Blumenthal were an overt homophobe, that wouldn’t mean he was wrong about his views on Israel. Of course, he is wrong on his views on Israel, his argument’s crap, his reporting biased and sensationalist, and he’s an idiot. But his hypothetical homophobia has nothing to do with that. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/47 "2014-01-15T08:04:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. Well, they were **not** stateless persons then, were they? Umm, yeah, they were. Egypt exercised military control of the Gaza Strip from 1948-67 and neither granted them statehood nor annexed the territory, exactly what you are condemning Israel for doing from 1967. The difference is that Egypt allowed the Gaza Strip to be used to launch terrorist attacks on Israel, see the [Palestinian fedayeen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_fedayeen) > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. How does any of that constitute an excuse for Israel to treat them as stateless persons now? This is both a straw man and irrelevant. I did not say the current situation is acceptable, nor do I think Israel is a white knight in the situation. It is irrelevant as your initial statement was > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There’s really no excuse for that, and that part of the situation is entirely and solely the Israelis’ fault. This is clearly untrue, Egypt would not annex them or grant them statehood either. You want to blame the plight of the Palestinians and their lack of statehood solely on Israel, when the situation is much more complex than that. The Kuwaiti leadership’s role that **Ibn Warraq** alluded to earlier was the expulsion of 200,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in the wake of Desert Storm for the PLO’s backing of Saddam during the war. [Kuwait’s lack of support for Palestinians after the Gulf War was a response to the alignment of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the PLO with Saddam Hussein, who had earlier invaded Kuwait. Palestinians began leaving Kuwait during one week in March 1991, following Kuwait’s liberation from Iraqi occupation. On March 14, 1991, only 200,000 Palestinians were still residing in Kuwait, out of initial 400,000.[7] In total, nearly 200,000 Palestinians left Kuwait after the Gulf War.[1] As many as 4,000 Palestinians were killed by vigilante groups.[8]]([Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (1990–91) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_exodus_from_Kuwait_(Gulf_War))) If you want a good look at the insanity of Middle East politics in a nutshell, look no further than [Black September](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan). The West Bank was also being used by the Palestinian fedayeen to launch terrorist attacks on Israel from, and the Palestinian refugee and West Bank population grew to outnumber the Jordanian population in Jordan by 2-1. > [@](#): > > In Palestinian enclaves and refugee camps in Jordan, the Jordanian Police and army were losing their authority. Uniformed PLO militants openly carried weapons, set up checkpoints and attempted to extort “taxes”. During the November 1968 negotiations, a seven-point agreement was reached between King Hussein and Palestinian organizations: > [ul] > [li]Members of these organizations were forbidden from walking around cities armed and in uniform[/li][li] They were forbidden to stop and search civilian vehicles[/li][li] They were forbidden from competing with the Jordanian Army for recruits[/li][li] They were required to carry Jordanian identity papers[/li][li] Their vehicles were required to bear Jordanian license plates[/li][li] Crimes committed by members of the Palestinian organizations would be investigated by the Jordanian authorities[/li][li] Disputes between the Palestinian organizations and the government would be settled by a joint council of representatives of the king and of the PLO.[/li][/ul] > > The PLO did not live up to the agreement, and instead came to be seen more and more as a state within a state in Jordan. > … > Between mid-1968 and the end of 1969, no fewer than five hundred violent clashes occurred between the Palestinian guerrillas and Jordanian security forces. In September 1970 Jordan had had enough, and the Jordanian Army was sent into the Palestinian refugee camps to clear out the PLO. There was heavy fighting, and Arafat claimed the Jordanians killed between 10,000 and 25,000 Palestinians; more realistic estimates still put the death toll at between 1,000 and 2,000. In response Syria invaded Jordan, and after initial success the Syrian armor came under heavy and effective air attack by the Royal Jordanian Air Force and were driven out of the country. The Syrian Air Force didn’t come to the aid of the Syrian Army to protect them from these air attacks **because Israel threatened to intervene on the side of Jordan if they had**. Politics, strange bedfellows and all that. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why was it **un** acceptable? They wanted the Sinai back because it’s historically Egyptian territory and a defensive tier against Israel; reasonable reasons, which don’t apply to the Gaza Strip. This is just lazy thinking or cognitive dissonance. How can you possibly square this statement and this one: > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. Well, they were **not** stateless persons then, were they? You can’t have your cake and eat it too; either the population of Gaza were stateless people when Egypt controlled it, refusing to either grant them statehood or annex the territory as the Gaza Strip wasn’t historically Egyptian territory or it was a part of Egypt thus making the occupants not stateless persons. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And did Israel ever even **offer** Gaza to Egypt? You should really read up on such things before asking questions like this, as it merely demonstrates your ignorance. [Camp David Accords Key points of the West Bank and Gaza section.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords#Key_points_of_the_West_Bank_and_Gaza_section) > [@](#): > > Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the representatives of the Palestinian people should participate in negotiations on the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects. > (1.) Egypt and Israel agree that, in order to ensure a peaceful and orderly transfer of authority, and taking into account the security concerns of all the parties, there should be transitional arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza for a period not exceeding five years. In order to provide full autonomy to the inhabitants, under these arrangements the Israeli military government and its civilian administration will be withdrawn as soon as a self-governing authority has been freely elected by the inhabitants of these areas to replace the existing military government. > (2.) Egypt, Israel, and Jordan will agree on the modalities for establishing elected self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza. The delegations of Egypt and Jordan may include Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza or other Palestinians as mutually agreed. The parties will negotiate an agreement which will define the powers and responsibilities of the self-governing authority to be exercised in the West Bank and Gaza. A withdrawal of Israeli armed forces will take place and there will be a redeployment of the remaining Israeli forces into specified security locations. The agreement will also include arrangements for assuring internal and external security and public order. A strong local police force will be established, which may include Jordanian citizens. In addition, Israeli and Jordanian forces will participate in joint patrols and in the manning of control posts to assure the security of the borders. > (3.) When the self-governing authority (administrative council) in the West Bank and Gaza is established and inaugurated, the transitional period of five years will begin. As soon as possible, but not later than the third year after the beginning of the transitional period, negotiations will take place to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza and its relationship with its neighbors and to conclude a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan by the end of the transitional period. These negotiations will be conducted among Egypt, Israel, Jordan and the elected representatives of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. … The negotiations shall be based on all the provisions and principles of UN Security Council Resolution 242. The negotiations will resolve, among other matters, the location of the boundaries and the nature of the security arrangements. The solution from the negotiations must also recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinian peoples and their just requirements. Egypt didn’t want it back, the whole Key points of the West Bank and Gaza section was ditched because the UN General Assembly objected to it for not addressing the Palestinian right of return, and Egypt happily made formal peace with Israel and acknowledge its right to exist in exchange for Israel returning control of the Sinai to Egypt which it had occupied since 1967. Oh, and finally, you should really drop this nonsense about condemning Israel for not annexing the Gaza Strip. You’d be screaming bloody murder if Israel had annexed the OT in 1967. Again, you can’t have it both ways; you can’t criticize Israel in good faith for not ‘solving’ the situation by annexing the territories when you’d be condemning Israel for flagrant expansionism by military aggression if they had done so. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/48 "2014-01-15T12:09:43Z")
Israel did annex East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and get all sorts of shit about that, with a lot of people not recognizing the annexations. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/49 "2014-01-15T13:45:05Z")
Dissonance: > [@](#): > > Excellent post aside from this; Egypt and Jordan didn’t attack Israel in 1967, Israel attacked them. They planned to attack Israel in 1967 and were going to attack Israel in 1967 but Israel attacked them preemptively rather than wait for them to initiate the war. OK, maybe for Egypt “attack” is the wrong word, but they certainly initiated the war, by expelling the UN peacekeepers, closing the Suez Canal, and massing troops in the Sinai well ahead of any overt Israeli threat. Jordan, on the other hand, did attack Israel in 1967 before any Israeli actions against them. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/50 "2014-01-15T17:48:54Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > OK, maybe for Egypt “attack” is the wrong word, but they certainly initiated the war, by expelling the UN peacekeepers, closing the Suez Canal, and massing troops in the Sinai well ahead of any overt Israeli threat. Initiate isn’t the right word either, Israel clearly initiated the war, not Egypt. I don’t say this as a criticism of Israel, which was fully justified in attacking Egypt and initiating the war but the fact remains that Israel started the war, not Egypt. Egypt and Syria were going to go to war with Israel in 1967 but rather than letting them start the war with the onus for having done so squarely on their shoulders, Israel elected to launch a preemptive war against them. It is simply untrue to say that Egypt attacked Israel or that Egypt initiated the war, Israel did. Again, Egypt clearly wasn’t an innocent party as they were planning on attacking Israel and would have had Israel not beaten them to the punch. As for expelling the UN peacekeepers, etc, none of those actions initiated a war. The IAF destroying the Egyptian Air Force on the ground initiated the war. They were, however, conditions that Israel had previously declared it would go to war over so again, Egypt clearly wasn’t an innocent party. [Dupuy and Dupuy, The Encyclodepdia of Military history](http://www.amazon.com/The-Harper-Encyclopedia-Military-History/dp/0062700561): > [@](#): > > Israel had earlier announced that it would go to war under any of the following conditions: closing the strait of Tiran; sending of Iraqi troops to Jordan; signing of an Egyptian-Jordanian defense pact; withdrawal of UNEF forces. All of these conditions now existed. War was thus inevitable, although Nassar surprisingly did not think his actions would provoke an Israeli attack. > [@cmkeller](#): > > Jordan, on the other hand, did attack Israel in 1967 before any Israeli actions against them. There was sporadic small arms fire all along the West Bank by both sides after Israel attacked Egypt and Syria but I’ll concede that it was Jordan’s choice to enter the war rather than leaving it contained to both sides taking pot shots at each other; Israel didn’t want Jordan in the war and was willing to let it go and not escalate things but Hussein felt he couldn’t be seen sitting on the sidelines while Egypt was pummeled and ordered artillery fire on Israel. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530/51 "2014-01-15T21:06:29Z")
It seems to me that various ME nations don’t want Palestinians in their country because their country isn’t Palestinians’ native land, unlike Israel which is Palestinians’ native land, but Israel would rather let them get slaughtered by the thousands in other peoples’ lands. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-ariel-sharon/678530.md?page=2)