Ariel through the Arab looking glass

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is this man? "A harsh, insensitive and cruel commander, soon after he took office he broke with the custom of his predecessors, who tried to respect the religious sensitivities of the occupied people, and he recklessly provoked armed insurrection by a confrontational visit to a holy site and with his ruthless suppression of resistance."

Mirror, is it Ariel Sharon, who in 2000 defiantly visited Jerusalem's most holy Islamic shrine? No, silly, it is Pontius Pilate, who around 26 AD marched into Jerusalem, his soldiers carrying standards bearing the image of the "divine" emperor, and who, some 10 years later, was stripped of his office by the Roman governor of Syria following the umpteenth murderous attack on civilians.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is this man? "The wide national support that (he) managed to elicit at different crossroads in his controversial career as a military man and politician was born out of his ability to manoeuvre through periods of despair that he had often been instrumental in generating in the first place. The support for (him) was always the result of the hopelessness and despair that he himself had generated."

Mirror, is it President Nasser of Egypt? Is it Saddam Hussein in his heyday? The Christian Lebanese general, Michel Aoun? President Hafiz al-Asad of Syria? Is it Yasser Arafat? Is it one of the generals of Algeria? Who is it, mirror?

It is Ariel Sharon, points out the Egyptian commentator Mona Eltahawy, as described by former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, in his recent book Scars Of War, Wound Of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

It is as a stubborn, irascible and vindictive man that contemporary Jewish historians, Josephus and Philo, describe Pilate. Christians remember a more hesitant and indecisive, even if still cynical, man. Memory is always selective.

And a man's life can be read in more than one way, especially when it is one's own life and the fists of power have thrown memory into turmoil.

Suleiman Abdul Hadi is a Palestinian leader of the refugees of the Sabra Shatila camps. He recalls scenes of "bodies and blood" every time he sees Mr Sharon on TV. Suleiman Abdul Hadi lost his mother and brother during the 1982 massacre of the same camps by Lebanese Christian militiamen who shot and hacked to death men, women and children, 800 in all, mostly civilians, over two nights and a day.

Palestinian survivors say the camps were surrounded by Israeli forces under General Sharon's command, which illuminated the two long nights with flares (so that the murderers could see better) and shot dead at least one Palestinian who escaped from his camp bearing a white flag.

These survivors and many other Arabs remember a war criminal who was never tried in court - either for his responsibility in the 1982 massacres, or for many others, dating back to the 1940s, that have been alleged to be his responsibility.

However, if Palestinian-American writer Ramzi Baroud has recently written in Cairo's Al Ahram Weekly to insist on Mr Sharon's record of violence, it is because the Arab memory of Mr Sharon is multi-faceted. As Mr Sharon struggles for his life in hospital, commentators are remembering his figure in different ways, drawing Mr Sharon into their own debates. There are those who believe that he was no different at the end of his political life than he was at the beginning. In the pullout from Gaza they see a politician insisting on the right of unilateral action by Israel, with the aim of strengthening other occupied territories (Israeli settlements on the West Bank have increased since the Gaza withdrawal). It is a view shared by some on the Israeli left.

But some Arab leaders and commentators do appear persuaded, like others on the Israeli left, that Mr Sharon had indeed changed. One former Egyptian diplomat told the BBC that Mr Sharon was capable of delivering peace. President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt made statements that suggested likewise. Other Arab intellectuals have explained away the more visceral popular hatred for Mr Sharon as the emotions of the street.

However, some excitement has also been noticeable on urbane chat shows. One Egyptian TV journalist asked a guest whether he thought that Mr Sharon's setting up of a centrist political party could be a model to be followed by other Arab leaders. Mr Sharon here appears as a model for Arab reform - for a third way beyond Egypt's ruling party and the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas.

The image of Mr Sharon the reformer has drawn the scorn of New York-based Ms Eltahawy. But in her column for the leading international Arab daily, Asharq Alawsat, she also described Mr Sharon as a "quintessential Arab leader". In the hatred for Mr Sharon the butcher, she sees a crippling Arab tendency: "Arab victimhood makes sense only when we are being victimised by Israel. The horrors we visit upon each other are irrelevant".

She reminds her readers that many more Palestinians died in the fighting with Jordanian forces in September 1970; and that although an Israeli inquiry found Mr Sharon indirectly responsible for the 1982 massacres (though he was never tried), no such inquiry has to date been held to discover who among the Lebanese was directly responsible. And "unlike so many of these military men whose paths to power in the Arab world have been paved with forged elections, Sharon was actually democratically elected".

The idea that Mr Sharon represents not a specifically Israeli style of leadership but a Middle Eastern one is being pressed by a Lebanese Maronite Christian, Chibli Mallat, Jean Monnet professor of European law at the University of St Joseph in Beirut and presidential candidate: "The political demise of Mr Sharon is an opportunity for a new generation to end a long period where politics has been dominated by warlords and militia leaders. It should give way to a new spirit in the region based on justice and accountability for the signal crimes perpetrated by the likes of Ariel Sharon and Saddam Hussein, and to the emergence of human rights presidents and prime ministers".

Mr Mallat was born in 1960 and saw his generation cut down and dispersed during the Lebanese civil wars. Ms Eltahawy was born in 1967, the year of the nadir of Arab nationalism. If their views are representative of their peers, we may be seeing the articulation of an Arab, self-critical, civic consciousness that will have profound consequences for the region.

ranierfsadni@europe.com