Over the days that followed, Israeli armored vehicles patrolled the trenches in an effort to prevent the flow of ambulances, commerce and foot traffic in and out of the city. When pressed by the international media, whose coverage of the siege forced an IDF retreat in the week that followed, Sharon spoke of the need to thwart Ramallah-based terrorists who planned an assault in Israel. The siege on Ramallah was merely the first manifestation of a dramatic shift in IDF policy under the leadership of Ariel Sharon. To release the funds, Sharon argues, would be to finance the murder of Jewish Israelis. Violence provokes armed reaction, not compromises.
Leaders have the responsibility to denounce violence, strip it of legitimacy, stop it.
Perhaps most remarkable have been the mild US rebukes of Israel's assassination policy of the last six months. The assassination policy itself went unchallenged. But such frank assessments of Israeli state-sanctioned violence and selective application of the principles of democracy should not encourage nostalgia for the kinder Israeli administrations of the past. Critical responses to the Sharon administration must look frankly at this history. All rights reserved.