Journal.ie’s Damien Kiberd Lashes Out at Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon, Sinai during the 1973 Yom Kippur war (GPO/REX).

The Irish news website, Journal.ie, featured a rather belated (January 26th 2014) article by journalist Damien Kiberd, entitled “Damien Kiberd: Why was Ariel Sharon’s funeral such a lonely affair?”. It reflected, with an undue harshness, upon the legacy of the former Israeli prime-minister.

In recent years Journal.ie has developed a reputation for publishing articles that criticise Israel in a particularly intense fashion. Unfortunately, Kiberd’s article follows in this tradition.

Kiberd is a well-known journalist, and the presenter of several topical radio discussion programmes. He is known for possessing Irish Republican sympathies, and for belonging to the ‘Irish National Congress’ lobby group. He is also a principal patron of ‘The Ireland Institute’, an organisation that has published numerous anti-Israeli screeds, and hosted a variety of anti-Israeli events, such as mini film festivals, and art exhibitions.

Armchair psychologism

Kiberd, feigning a sense of fair-minded academic distance from his subject, initially asks the reader:

“WAS ARIEL Sharon a psychopath and a war criminal? Or was he just a good soldier…”

However, Kiberd would soon throw in highly-descriptive terms, describing Sharon’s legacy as “blood-strained”, and concluding that: “His ‘post hoc’ efforts to explain himself rarely convinced.”

Kiberd portrays Sharon as a boorish almost simple-minded individual:

“Like all strongmen Sharon posed a problem for those who were more politically astute than he. He was quarrelsome, plain-speaking and given to righteous insubordination.”

It is difficult to accept that Ariel Sharon was not an especially astute politician. He succeeded in a highly competitive environment. He took risks that few other politicians would dream of, and yet he again triumphed politically. To draw a somewhat undeserved parallel with a corrupt Irish politician, Sharon would give Teflon-Bertie a run for his money, regardless of the stove upon which Bertie found himself.

Kiberd noted that Sharon was a sabra, the term for a Jewish person born in the region, particularly before Israel’s foundation. Sabras have a reputation for being forthright, which those unfamiliar with the culture can interpret as rudeness. Sharon could be described as a paragon of the sabra -, tough, uncompromising independent. Thus, Sharon’s bluntness should be understood within the context of a culture that was particularly forthright in its speech, and his “plain-speaking” may have even been an asset politically.

Kiberd on Qibya

Damien Kiberd leaves the reader in little doubt where he thinks blame ought to be placed, in relation to the deaths of civilians in the village of Qibya (or Kibya), during October 1953:

“Following a grenade attack which killed an Israeli mother and two children, Sharon led a reprisal raid on the Jordanian village of Qibya. Sharon’s unit planted explosives in 45 Arab homes, killing 70 civilians, mainly women and children. Lamely, he claimed shortly afterwards that he thought the houses were empty.”

Between 42 [source: Armistice Committee meeting, October 27th 1953] and 69 civilians were killed at Qibya, along with military personnel. Whether or not Ariel Sharon’s account of the killing of civilians in the village is correct, Kiberd fails to note that Jordan and Egypt were conducting an unofficial war against Israel at the time, and the reprisal against the village was due to it being a continued source of attacks against Israel.

Israel was unable to protect its borders, which had effectively become lawless, leading to the killing of close to a thousand Israeli’s between 1951 and 1955, due to Fedayeen attacks inside Israel’s border. These circumstances led to the commissioning of Sharon’s special forces unit, and eventual war with Egypt in 1956.

Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Martin Gilbert, Eighth Edition, 2005, page 58.

It may seem difficult to believe Sharon’s account in the present political climate, where the protection of civilians is of far greater importance. However, if the intent was to commit a genocide in Qibya, Sharon’s force would have prevented the movement of approximately 1500 people fleeing the village at the onset of the attack. The charges to destroy approximately 41 of the village’s grandest buildings, were set with little time to spare searching for civilians. Smaller diversionary attacks were initiated in other areas of the West Bank, to deflect the attention of the Jordanian army. Finally, many of those in Sharon’s unit were not experienced soldiers, with the attack on Qibya merely being their second mission as a force. Whatever the truth of the events, Kiberd refuses to give Sharon’s account a hearing.

Kiberd also attacks Sharon on the 2005 evacuation of Jewish settlers in Gaza:

“Again and for the last time he employed the same crude ‘force majeure’ type logic as he used more than fifty years earlier during the attack at Qibya.”

Kiberd’s puzzling claim is likely to be an error in terminology. However, it is interesting to note that the phrase ‘force majeure’ is a legal term, referring to an act of God/nature, or an accident of a significant kind, beyond the capacity of one contractual party.

On Sabra and Shatila

Kiberd lays moral responsibility for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre at Sharon’s feet:

“In 1982 following the slaughter of thousands of mainly Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon Sharon tried the old Ben-Gurion trick of shifting the blame. He said that it was the work of a vengeful Christian militia. Israel had no involvement. But a tribunal of inquiry established by Israel’s government accused Sharon of being “indirectly responsible”.

Kiberd clearly suggests Sharon was directly involved, or complicit, in the massacre. He states Sharon was pulling a “trick” of shifting blame onto a Phalangist Christian militia, as if it is untrue that such a group carried out the massacre! Tellingly, Kiberd uses the words “He [Sharon] said…”, which is oddly subjective phrasing. It reinforces Kiberd’s assertion that Sharon was indeed playing a “trick”, by inferring that the claim the militia carried out the massacre is in some way untrue. Moreover, Kiberd’s wording suggests Sharon’s version of the facts, regarding Phalangist involvement, is not corroborated.

Kiberd asserts, as a fact, that thousands of civilians were murdered at the camps. However, the death toll cannot be verified. It ranges from a few hundred (according to Lebanon) to several thousand. Most credible estimates are based on high hundreds to lower-thousand figures. Reuters state ‘hundreds’ died while the BBC claim it was “at least 800”.

Subsequently, Kiberd seems to accept that the Phalangists were instigators of the massacre:

“The Kahan commission said that the Defence minister had not shown the slightest consideration that by allowing the Falangist militia to have access to the camps he was inviting slaughter.”

Whilst the Kahan Commission did find that the risks of massacre were “neither discussed nor examined”, it is incorrect to suggest that the Commission indicated Sharon, as then Minister of Defence, shouldn’t have allowed the militia into the camp. The commission’s report stated:

“We have already said above that we do not assert that the decision to have the Phalangists enter the camps should under no circumstances ever have been made. It appears to us that no complaints could be addressed to the Defense Minister in this matter if such a decision had been taken after all the relevant considerations had been examined”

Thus, the Kahan Commission found that Sharon had failed to address the risks of this action, rather than state the act itself was unacceptably dangerous. Whilst the report harshly criticised Sharon, it did not go as far as to suggest his actions constituted an invitation of the Phalangists to commit a massacre.

The Commission also noted that there was good reason to allow the Phalangists enter the camp:

“The decision to have the Phalangists enter the camps was taken with the aim of preventing further losses in the war in Lebanon; to accede to the pressure of public opinion in Israel, which was angry that the Phalangists, who were reaping the fruits of the war, were taking no part in it; and to take advantage of the Phalangists’ professional service and their skills in identifying terrorists and in discovering arms caches.”

If Kiberd wishes to solely cite the Kahan Commission’s report, instead of obfuscation, it behoves him, as a responsible journalist, to point out that Sharon was found not to be complicit in the massacre.

With reference to Sabra and Shatila, Kiberd states that Sharon’s politicial career “was marked by rivers of blood.” That is an unduly colourful description when his own source, the Kahan Commission, noted:

“No intention existed on the part of any Israeli element to harm the non-combatant population in the camps.”

Casting a shadow on Sharon’s funeral

Damien Kiberd applies a somewhat absurd contrast, by making the rather fanciful comparison between the international circus surrounding Mandela’s death, and Sharon’s more sedate funeral service:

“The great and the good, who fought for front row seats at Mandela’s protracted funeral, decided a ‘no show’ was the wisest course of action.”

Whilst the turnout to Sharon’s funeral wasn’t substantial, it is stretching credulity to describe it as an embarrassment. The Western world was quite well represented. Even Egypt sent a low-level diplomat, a symbolic gesture, given Sharon’s role in their wars. The “no-shows” largely constituted Africa and South America, both regions having long been hostile to Israel at a diplomatic level. It is unlikely a significant number of diplomats from these territories would have turned up, regardless of the senior Israeli politician, except perhaps dovish types, being buried. The immense attention given to Mandela’s death is unlikely to be replicated for many years to come, an obvious point Kiberd is surely aware of.

Kiberd’s prejudice is all too evident when he engages in needless, rather conspiratorial, speculation:

“Biden and Blair may have swapped notes ahead of the ceremony. Rather than deal directly with Sharon’s blood-stained legacy both diffused the issue by employing metaphors borrowed from construction.”

Must former British prime minister, Tony Blair, and current US vice-president, Joe Biden, have necessarily agreed with Kiberd, to the extent that he sees conspiracy when they do not express their disapproval of Sharon, especially at a most unfitting time of his funeral service?

“Biden referred to Sharon as the “bulldozer”, his nickname in some quarters. Blair noted that he had left a “lot of debris in his wake”. In death, as in life, Sharon was not exactly the first name on anybody’s dance card.”

The sarcasm of Kiberd’s “dance card” remark clearly indicates that Sharon was in some way a boorish anti-social individual. Kiberd misleads the reader in the above quotes, by stripping away the context in which the terms were used by both Blair and Biden. It is widely reported that Sharon earned the name “bulldozer” due to the forceful way in which he negotiated, rather than for being supposedly unsociable, a point which “Journal.ie” also noted two-weeks before Kiberd’s article.

Moreover, Biden described his friendship with Sharon, which lasted several decades and felt “like a death in the family.”

To quote Blair’s remarks more fully:

“Once decided he was unflinching. He didn’t move, he charged. He could leave considerable debris in his wake.”

This is of course a reference to the dramatic about-turns in Sharon’s political career, which Kiberd twists into a reference concerning “Sharon’s blood-stained legacy”, making out that there was a near-conspiracy of silence by these guests at the former Israeli prime-minister’s funeral. He even finds it necessary to make an odd reference to Blair wearing a yarmulke at the funeral, as a sign of respect.

Did Kiberd ever consider that both Blair and Biden may have genuinely respected the Sharon, to have paid tribute without voicing subtle reservations? Why did Kiberd feel the need to misrepresent the tributes delivered by two friends at Sharon’s funeral, and to construct a further character assassination?

A conclusion

Damien Kiberd’s article contains a number of other errors of lesser consequence, for example he wrote:

“After the Gaza withdrawal in 2004 [note: the withdrawal from Gaza occurred in 2005] Sharon himself became the target of political extremists. One religious leader invoked an ancient curse that called upon the angel of death to kill him. Some weeks later his brain ceased to function.”

Whilst there was a number of verbal attacks on Sharon at this time, the curse to which Kiberd is most likely referring, for it was noted for citing the Angels of Death, occurred some six months before his stroke in January 2006. The other notorious curse against Sharon was delivered in March 2005. Kiberd wrote:

“Psychopath or a good soldier? The ‘no show’ of global leaders at his final goodbye nods to a life of contradictions.”

The above might suggest Sharon occasionally acted in a fashion that Kiberd would have found acceptable. However, Kiberd’s hatred for the subject of his article is also evident due to his criticism of Sharon’s evacuation of Gaza’s Jewish settlements! Does Kiberd support Jewish settlements? It is extremely unlikely but when it comes to Sharon, it’s a case of damned if he did, damned if he didn’t!

Kiberd clearly suggests, to the reader, that Ariel Sharon was a psychopath. His demonising article includes factual misrepresentations of the Kahan Commission’s report, with the likely intent of construing that Sharon was in fact responsible for the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, which he associates with the spilling of ‘blood’. Perhaps Kiberd should consider re-directing that ire at the actual architect of the massacre, one Elie Hobeika?

Mr. Kiberd asks “why Ariel Sharon’s funeral was such a lonely affair?” To a large extent, it is due to the lazy forwarding of half-truths by journalists not sufficiently motivated to read widely available reports, and, of course, those with a blatant anti-Israel agenda, peddling the prejudicial perspectives of propagandists.







Also published at Crethi Plethi.

RTÉ’s Error-Laden Coverage of Ariel Sharon’s Death

(Updated: January 27th 2014)

Members of the Knesset guard carry the coffin of Ariel Sharon,
Jerusalem, January 13th 2014 (Source: Reuters/Ronen Zvulun)

The mainstream media has long exhibited a distinctive hostility toward Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime-minister (2001-2006), and military commander of some renown, due to his successes in the Six Day War (1967), and Yom Kippur War (1973). Media coverage, in the immediate aftermath of Sharon’s death, was no exception.

The day of Sharon’s death (January 11th 2013), RTÉ, Ireland’s public service broadcaster, featured a report by journalist Carole Coleman, entitled “Divisive Israeli leader Ariel Sharon dies”, that exemplified this pointed hostility. In relation to the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, Coleman stated:

“When hundreds of Palestinians were massacred in refugee camps by Christian milita, Sharon was held personally responsible, earning him the reputation of a ‘war criminal’.”

Coleman clearly indicates that Sharon was in some way knowingly complicit to the massacre itself.

The Kahan Commission, established by Israel soon after the massacre took place, constitutes the principal study of the event. It is typically cited by journalists, when referring to Sharon’s supposed guilt in the massacre, and is very probably the source Coleman cites because it is renowned for ascribing “personal responsibility” to Sharon. However, like that of many other journalists who have cited Sharon’s “personal responsibility” in this regard, Coleman’s assertion is wholly misleading. The Kahan Commission wrote:

“We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense bears personal responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office”

The Commission pointed out that these duties included the protection of those Arab-Palestinians living within the camps. It found that Sharon bore responsibility for failing to account for “the danger of bloodshed and revenge” that would likely follow from allowing an allied Lebanese Phalangist militia into the camps, to find PLO terrorists. Thus, his failings were due to negligence, rather than complicity or collusion. As a result of these failings, the Commission sought his dismissal as Minister of Defense.

The Kahan Commission criticised Sharon harshly but did not deem him to be anything resembling a “war criminal”. Rather, his reputation was muddied by a stream of accusations before and after its findings. As if to bolster her claim, perhaps as a form of citation, Coleman’s report features the well-known image of a February 1983 Time Magazine cover (Verdict on the Massacre: “It should have been foreseen”), which appeared soon after the Commission’s report. The edition featured an article, which claimed that Sharon had colluded in the massacre. It was without foundation, and Sharon took legal action in the US against the publication. The jury determined that he was defamed by the article. It found that Sharon had provided sufficient evidence to prove that Time Magazine’s claims were false.

Screen-grab of Carole Coleman's RTE news report, January 11th 2014

 In the report, Coleman went on to state that Sharon is responsible for initiating the Second Intifada:

“More controversy in 2000, when, as Likud leader, he visited the al Asqa Mosque, a site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount. The visit caused outrage and sparked the Second Palestinian uprising.”

And so Coleman reiterates the well-worn tale that Sharon’s September 2000 visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount “sparked” the Second Intifada. With the benefit of hindsight, it has become widely known that Sharon’s visit was nothing other than a convenient excuse for initiating the Second Intifada.

It has been reported that Sharon’s tour of the Temple Mount was deemed to be acceptable by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Numerous Arab-Palestinian sources have confirmed that the PA President, Yasser Arafat, had planned the Second Intifada as an attempt to take the initiative, and strengthen his hand diplomatically, after he walked out of the Camp David talks.

Moreover, Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, did not include a tour of the environs of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is situated upon the historic site. Israeli government sources state that the PA gave the Temple Mount visit the green-light as long as it did not include the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Coleman also claimed Sharon was going to pre-emptively pull out of the West Bank:

“He’s understood to have wanted a withdrawal from the West Bank, in preparation for an eventual Palestinian state.”

Without elucidation, Coleman presents Sharon’s plan as part of a prospective peace process. However, it seems Sharon given up on a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority, as indicated by letters exchanged with President George Bush II. After the gesture of returning Gaza, without any concessions, Sharon sought to pull back a significant number of settlers that lived in communities deep within the West Bank area, whilst retaining the larger settlement blocs near the 1949 Armistice Line. Although Jerusalem would possibly be denied for a prospective Arab-Palestinian state, this strategy was nonetheless somewhat in line with prior negotiations for a two-state solution.

Doubling Down

The following day (12th January 2014), RTE News services continued to give prolific coverage to Ariel Sharon’s death, mainly featuring a report, entitled “Ariel Sharon lies in state”, by a journalist called Karen Creed. She stated:

“Many world leaders have paid tribute to Ariel Sharon’s significant role in Israeli history, while his critics regret that he was not brought to justice before he died. Across the Middle East many have condemned him as a tyrant, recalling his role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This Palestinian woman survived the massacre that was led by Sharon in Beirut in 1982 but her family were killed. She describes the 32 years of suffering endured since loosing her husband, son and brother-in-law, and says Sharon only suffered for eight years, referring to his time in a coma.”

Creed subsequently added: “On Sharon’s home soil a very different picture was being painted today of the military leader, heralded for relentlessly pursuing his country’s security”, suggesting she was presenting different perspectives, or perhaps subtlety indicating that support for Sharon was misguided, because similar contextualisation was not provided before, or during, the section referring to the Arab worlds celebration of his death, a point in the report that included the Arab-Palestinian woman’s views.

Although Creed’s report attempts to provide two broad perspectives of Sharon the man, it attacks his reputation more intensely than Coleman’s report, by presenting the assertion, that Sharon led the massacre, as constituting an established fact, when it describes the circumstances of the Arab-Palestinian woman. Notably, the report also includes an image of the same 1983 Time Magazine cover, which contained a discredited article claiming that Sharon had colluded in the massacre.

Moreover, Creed’s error is compounded by a failure to mention that the massacre was actually carried out by a Lebanese militia, rather than the Israeli forces under Sharon’s command. Thus, the report is particularly misleading, its effort to be balanced, or to appear so, an extremely superficial endeavour.

Conclusion

Carole Coleman has developed a reputation, in some quarters, for bias, due in part to an unprofessional interview with George Bush II, in which she latterly boasted that she wished to strike him during the event.

In years past, Coleman’s coverage of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict was often a source of discussion amongst Irish supporters of Israel. Her unreserved acceptance of Sharon’s guilt at Sabra and Shatila, the misleading reference to the Kahan Commission, the further citation of a discredited source, and the undeserved attribution of blame for the Second Intifada, will likely not alleviate those concerns.

The reflexive bias of RTÉ’s coverage of Ariel Sharon’s death was not dissimilar to that of its coverage of Lee Rigby’s murder, in which the national broadcaster gave full voice to Islamic extremists.

All news providers have an ethical responsibility to report news without prejudice. This is particularly important with public service broadcasters, because they often possess a near-monopolistic influence on the views of a nation. Commentator Eoghan Harris pointed out that “RTE is the most important influence in shaping the Irish moral imagination.” Unfortunate then that this imagination is moulded in such a poorly informed and politicised fashion.

Update (January 27th 2014)

After receiving a number of complaints from viewers, concerning Karen Creed’s report, RTE broadcast a correction at the end of their 6pm and 9pm news bulletins yesterday, a transcript of which is below:

“A recent RTE news report on the death of former Israeli prime-minister Ariel Sharon. It was stated that Mr. Sharon led the 1982 massacre in Beirut at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. While a subsequent Israeli government enquiry found that Mr. Sharon bore indirect responsibility, we were not correct to report that the massacre was led by him.”

Whilst the correction should be welcomed, it nonetheless lacks clarity by continuing to use the words ‘indirect responsibility’, without explaining that Sharon’s guilt was deemed, by the Kahan commission, to be negligence, rather than of actual complicity in the massacre. Moreover, the online media-player version of the January 12th report by Karen Creed has not been amended, nor does the transmitted admission of error appear to have been posted online by RTE.

Also published at Crethi Plethi.