I know. I know. You want to return to the scene of the dancing Israelis on 9-11. But there is one more quick lesson that needs to be covered before we climb back into the time machine and fast-forward back to 9-11. If we don’t cover this, you won’t be able to fully understand the "big picture".

During the 1967 war, Israel occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Thirty five years have passed since that war ended, yet the Israeli army continues the humiliating occupation of those Palestinian areas. Those areas are not part of the nation of Israel that was created in 1948 by the UN. What the Palestinian people are resisting today is not the 1948 confiscation of their land. They simply want the 1967 occupation to end. It is this ongoing occupation, not the 1948 creation of Israel, which fuels the conflict today. Prior to the current outbreak of hostilities, the majority of the Israeli people also supported the end of Israel's occupation and oppression of these territories. They elected Yitzak Rabin as Prime Minister and Rabin made more strides towards achieving peace than any of his processors. The 1990's were a quiet years in Israel. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin appeared to have finally reached a peace deal the US acting as the mediator.

This did not sit well with the hard core Zionists who ultimately hope to expand Israel's borders even more. Hopes for a lasting peace deal were soon dealt a major setback when a flurry of five  bullets were pumped into Prime Minister Rabin at close range as he was attending a 1995 Israeli peace rally. It was not an Arab that killed Rabin. It was a Zionist fanatic named Yigal Amir. Amir was a law student at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. He later told investigators that he had no regrets for his actions. 44  Amir, a bright young law student was willing to throw his life away in the service of  the Zionist cause. (More on that concept later on.)

At the head of the Israeli government today sits a brutal man who has been a guest of honor at George Bush's White House on a regular basis since he took office in October 2000. His name is Ariel Sharon. His fanatical Zionist supporters in Israel refer to him as "Arik King", but the Arabs know him as a lifelong butcher, terrorist, and war criminal. There was a time when Sharon was disgraced and his political career seemed to be over. The isolation of Ariel Sharon was the result a 1982 Palestinian massacre which Sharon engineered when he was Israel's Defense minister. It was the Israelis themselves who forced Sharon to resign.

Sharon's troops blocked the exits from the Sabra and Shattila refugee camps while a Lebanese militia, allied with the Israeli military, went into the camps and slaughtered more than 1,500 unarmed Palestinian civilians while raping many women.  45 Though these Lebanese militias were the ones who did the actual killing, it was Ariel Sharon who controlled the militias and it was Sharon's soldiers who stood by and blocked the camp exits, deliberately allowing the slaughter to take place.

A survivor of the attack who had been raped and shot went to Belgium and initiated a war crimes case against Sharon. Several Lebanese militia leaders were summoned to testify against Sharon. Shortly before their testimony, three of them were suddenly killed by unknown gunmen and car bombs. Israel's Mossad of course denied any responsibility for the strange and untimely deaths of these three witnesses against Sharon. 46  And if you believe that one, I’ll sell you the World Trade Center!

After nearly 20 years of political exile, Sharon made his comeback in October 2000. Knowing full well how much the Palestinians hated him for his role in the 1982 massacres, Sharon and a small army of Israeli soldiers showed up at the Temple Mount 47 - a site held sacred by both Muslims and jews. This was a deliberate provocation.  When the Muslims protested the Sharon provocation, the Israeli troops cracked down. Rocks were thrown and shots were fired. In just a matter of minutes, years of peace and the Israeli-Arab peace effort had been destroyed by Mr. Sharon’s bullying antics. When the fighting broke out, a frightened and propagandized Israeli population soon turned to a strong man for their protection - the very man who had deliberately instigated the violence in the first place. Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister.

True to form, Sharon has brutalized the Palestinian civilian population under the pretext of "self-defense". Armed and funded by Israel's wholly owned US Congress, the Israeli war machine can bulldoze Arab homes at will. The only weapon that the outgunned Palestinians can retaliate with is the "suicide bomber". With every suicide bombing, Sharon is able to "justify" even more attacks and occupy more land. The Zionist game plan is to ultimately drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza, just like the Irgun massacres had driven the Arabs out of Deir Yassin. Standing in the way of such a bold Zionist scheme were three major obstacles:

1. the force of world opinion. Prior to 9-11, the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation had gained the sympathy of many people around the world.
2. the force of Israeli domestic opinion (most Israelis wanted peace and were opposed to the 35 year occupation of Palestinian territories).
3. Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq, which had always been a champion of the cause of Palestinian self determination.

ARIEL SHARON AND SOME OF HIS PALESTINIAN VICTIMS

CHAPTER 9~