ARIEL Sharon’s death removes from the scene one of Zionism’s most ruthless killers. A man without conscience, Sharon was involved in several acts of mass murder, the most infamous being that at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Chatilla.

The number of fatalities, which included women and children, has never been fully calculated, but by a rough estimate up to 3,500 Palestinians were slaughtered – by gunfire and knives – in September 1982. Even though the massacre was carried out by the Phalangist militia, led by Elei Hobeika, Lebanese intelligence chief, the area was under Israeli occupation and, as reported later by the international media, Israeli soldiers were watching the carnage through their binoculars. A UN investigation report held Israel responsible for the atrocity, and in Israel itself the Kahan Commission, set up by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, held the Israeli armed forces guilty of the carnage for failing to stop the massacre.

Sharon, who as defence minister was the man behind Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, was then forced to resign. Begin was angry with him because Sharon had not informed him about the dimensions of the invasion, especially about the air-naval attack at dawn on Beirut.

The earliest of his massacres was in 1953 when Sharon ordered the coldblooded murder of 69 Palestinians, including 46 women and children in Jordan in 1953, when border skirmishes and forays across the Israeli-Jordanian borders were quite common.

Similarly, during the 1967 war, Sharon executed a number of Palestinian youths without a trial.

An event concerning Pakistan came to light when in December 1994, Admiral Bobby Inman asked President Clinton to withdraw his nomination as defence secretary because, as he told a press conference, he would be unable to stop Israel’s unauthorised use of intelligence at his disposal, going by his experience as the CIA’s deputy chief and acting head of the powerful National Security Council in the Carter administration. In 1981, after the Begin government chose to destroy Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, Inman realised that the Israeli planes could not have covered the long distance to the Iraqi site without the help of photographs from American satellites. This was, said Inman, a violation of the understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the latter would be given intelligence on security matters within 250 miles of Israel’s borders.

However, as Inman went deeper into the issue he found that Israel was also being supplied intelligence on countries as far away as Pakistan and Libya.

Inman, who served in the US navy intelligence for 30 years, then put his foot down and insisted on adherence to the 250-mile understanding.

The price Inman had to pay was a bad press, especially when the legendary NYT columnist William Safire, went after his skin, called him anti-Israel and labelled him a “tax cheat”. In this process Inman annoyed not only the powerful Israel lobby but also his boss, CIA chief William Casey. The most deadly attack on Inman came from Sharon, who stormed into the Pentagon to protest against Inman’s decision. However, the CIA deputy chief survived because Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger stood by him.

Sharon took part in all Arab-Israeli wars and later became a politician to adopt a hard line on all issues, especially the Jewish settlements, for it was under him in his various capacities that the settlements grew rapidly. In 2000, despite being warned of the dangers inherent in his move, Sharon visited holy Islamic sites in occupied Jerusalem, thus touching off the second intifada.

In 2001 he became prime minister, and in summer 2002 decided to reoccupy those Palestinian areas from which previously Israeli governments had ordered withdrawal according to the Oslo accords. Treating the peace treaty with contempt, Sharon invaded the liberated areas, carried out another massacre, this time at Jenin, and destroyed the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters and Yasser Arafat’s living quarters brick by brick. The world didn’t stir, and the Arab-Islamic world merely stood as a spectator.

Yet another example of the unhindered access which Israeli leaders have to the corridors of American power came in April 2003 when Bush Jr, who called Sharon “my friend”, unveiled a roadmap for peace, providing for a Palestinian state by 2005. It had the approval of the other three members of the Quartet — the EU, UN and Russia. What Bush forgot was that it hadn’t Israel’s approval. Sharon reprimanded him, and Bush backtracked, saying 2005 was “an unrealistic date”. He also declared that even after withdrawing from the West Bank, Israel would retain “some” land there. It is now confirmed that the speech which Bush read out was written by Sharon.