After Sharon what?

EVEN if he gets out of his current health crisis, it is highly unlikely that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be able to resume his work. The nearly five years of his prime ministership have been marked by the brutality that is his characteristic. He ordered the reoccupation of parts of the areas Israel had vacated, presided over yet another massacre — this time at Jenin — and ordered more murders, including those of Hamas founder Sheikh Taha Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rentissi. He finally buried the Oslo peace process, which had already been subverted by Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Ehud Barak, his predecessors as prime ministers, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. “Escalate! Escalate!” — that was his basic diplomatic and military doctrine. As defence minister he employed massive force while invading Lebanon, specifically targeting civilian buildings inhabited by Palestinians and launching a simultaneous naval, air and land attack on Beirut from dawn to dusk uncaring of the casualties it inflicted on non-combatants. The peak of his lust for blood came when he let the Phalangist militia under his control and led by Eli Hobeika massacre Palestinian refugees in camps at Sabra-Chatilla. For this latter act he was indicted by an Israeli court. Behind him he will leave no noble legacy that young Israelis could hope to cherish. All that his life in power symbolized was brutality and cunning, besides utter hatred for the Palestinian people, whose land migrants from Europe and America occupied, making them flee by using the most cruel means, including the massacre epitomized by the name Deir Yassin.

In August last, Sharon decided to pull out of the Gaza strip for highly perverse reasons. The withdrawal had nothing to do with the fact that the Gaza strip and the West Bank were Israeli-occupied territories but because that would help him achieve a more ambitious plan for lebensraum: to annex most of the West Bank, leaving a small bit of territory that, together with Gaza, would constitute a Palestinian state. Evidently, hawks in his Likud party did not go along with him, since they did not believe in vacating Gaza at all. So Sharon formed a party of his own, Kadima, and was — according to the well-informed Israeli newspaper Maariv — readying his plans when fate intervened.

The big question now is: what after Sharon? Elections are due in March, but, according to opinion polls, Likud and Labour are trailing behind Kadima. Barring some exceptions, all Israeli politicians are hawks, but the most pugnacious of them is Mr Netanyahu. Even if his party does not get a plurality in Israel’s multi-party elections, he can form a coalition with Labour to head a new hawkish government determined to re-occupy Gaza. Re-occupation in any case is Sharon’s legacy. The Maariv story cannot be lightly dismissed, because it was this paper that first broke the news about Israel’s plan to pull out of Gaza. Will Mr Netanyahu or Mr Ehud Olmert, Kadima’s number two, try to achieve this? One cannot predict how things will go, but one thing is for certain: the time for creating a Greater Israel could not be more ideal for the Zionists. The Arab-Islamic world is militarily weak, the communist world, which traditionally supported the Arab and Palestinian causes, has disappeared, while the only superpower that calls the shots in the world today would be more than willing to go along. Historians can then debate endlessly whether history will tolerate this criminality.

Tragedy again

TRAGEDY has struck Haj again. Over 350 people are believed to have died in Thursday’s stampede at Mina and nearly 300 injured. The disaster occurred as the pilgrims were performing the last of the Haj rituals. Last week, 76 people were killed when a hostel building collapsed in Makkah. The stampede took place during the stoning ritual, which has been marked by similar incidents in the past also. In 1990, a stampede had occurred in a Makkah tunnel, with the death toll put at 1,426. An estimated 2.5 million performed the Haj this year, and the huge figure underlines the problems posed for crowd control. The Saudi authorities have been progressively expanding and streamlining facilities to make the performance of Haj as safe and organized as possible. A senior Saudi official has been quoted as saying that the stampede was caused by “unruly pilgrims and a problem with luggage”. Many pilgrims carry their luggage with them during this last Haj ritual; the luggage falls and people trip over it; a stampede results and many get crushed under-foot. The atmosphere is overcharged with religious devotion and fervour, and the average pilgrim is willing to overlook his own safety and that of others in fulfilling his sacred obligation.

A general lack of discipline marks societies that provide the bulk of the pilgrims. The situation is chaotic in their home countries at the best of times; the failing can assume grave proportions in the midst of such a vast multitude as seen during the Haj. The inquiry into the Mina incident undertaken by the Saudi authorities will go into this aspect, as no doubt it will look into any possible mismanagement or security lapses that may have played a part in the tragedy. Haj quotas have been fixed and are usually observed. But the sheer numbers can overwhelm the best of arrangements, and it is on regulating the numbers that attention should be concentrated. Those who have performed the Haj once should not insist on going again. There is need for decisions to be undertaken without any other consideration coming in the way.

Spread of leshmaniasis

THE news that the skin disease leshmaniasis is fast spreading in the earthquake-hit areas only points to the dismal state of public health facilities in the country, not to mention the government’s inability to prevent an outbreak. Since the earthquake struck, there was always a danger of an epidemic breaking out. Had it not been for many of the international health agencies working in these areas, far more casualties would have occurred. The unsanitary conditions people are living in are a breeding ground for a variety of diseases — as the outbreak of leshmaniasis now shows. The skin disease is a contagious parasitic one caused by the bite of a sand fly and one of its serious effects is that its wounds can disfigure the body, particularly the face. As with any contagious disease, early diagnosis is viral, as is spreading awareness about its prevention and cure among the people.

Unfortunately, over the last five years, the outbreak of the disease has occurred in various parts of the country, particularly Sindh, and even then, the health authorities have done nothing to prevent its spread or reoccurrence. An injection of gulcantine, which has proved to be the most effective treatment, costs only Rs30 but whenever an outbreak occurred, it was available at five times the price — which only made things difficult for the poor patients down with leshmaniasis. The government must prevent this, for there is a danger that people will turn to quacks, as they are wont to do, in the absence of information or access to proper health care. It is equally important that the areas be fumigated to avoid further outbreaks. All precautionary steps must be taken to check the spread and those afflicted be given the necessary treatment at government hospitals.