March 11, 2005

Blair more Sharonic than Sharon

Here's a quirky article from Daphna Baram expressing her annoyance at Ken Livingstone and the British left for having double standards towards Blair and Sharon. See this:
I agree that my prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is a war criminal. From the intentional killing of 69 civilians in the village of Qibya in 1953, through the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, all the way to the wild bombing of Palestinian cities in the last few years, his career is steeped in vile criminality.
So what's the problem? It's this:
if justice is to be dispensed evenly, what about your prime minister? Yes, Tony Blair, the bloke who took the British army into Iraq and butchered tens of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal war and under a false pretext? What is he, exactly? I, for one, think he deserves to share a cell with Ariel Sharon. Indeed, Sharon may reasonably protest: he is yet to be responsible for killings in such numbers.
I could warm to this theme but then:
I know the British left were against the war in Iraq. But it is rare to hear them refer to Blair as "a murderer", "a butcher", or "a war criminal". Blair is more often presented, even by ardent anti-war commentators, as "misled", "mistaken", "sincere but wrong", "well meaning but cheated by Bush", "acting out of great religious conviction", and so on.
Eh? Alright, I haven't heard "butcher" but only Lib Dems, anti-war Conservatives and some anti-war Labourites wear kid gloves to criticise that lying, murdering, ok here goes, butchering, war criminal Blair. Did she not see those banal posters with expressions like Tony B. Liar? Or Bliar Bliar, Iraq's on fire? Or the picture of Blair's nose transmogrifying into a cruise missile? Did she not hear the cry "who are the terrorists"? the reply wasn't Sharon, it was Bush and Blair. I think some anti-war people have even tried to mount some kind of war crimes prosecution against Blair. But a wonderful person like Dapha Baram was bound to have something powerful to throw at those of us who have been supporting Ken through his little spat with the zionist movement:
Even Ken decided to rejoin Mr Blair's party after the criminal invasion of Iraq, and at a time when sinister hints as to British and American intentions in Iran and Syria were already in the air. This is what makes serious Jews and Israelis sneer at his statements against Sharon.
Actually in my recent solidarity with Ken I did forget to sneer at his opportunism. Perhaps there's some lesser-evilism in us all.

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