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Pastrami at The Nation

The Nation has an article on Sharon, ‘Pastrami & Champagne’, that begins with this quote: Three decades ago Winston Churchill’s grandson asked Ariel Sharon how Israel should deal with the Palestinians. “We’ll make a pastrami…

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The Nation has an article on Sharon, ‘Pastrami & Champagne’, that begins with this quote:

Three decades ago Winston Churchill’s grandson asked Ariel Sharon how Israel should deal with the Palestinians. “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich out of them,” he replied. “We’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”

Mission accomplished. On April 14 in Washington, Sharon unwrapped his pastrami sandwich and received George W. Bush’s seal of approval.

This highly questionable Sharon quotation (Churchill’s grandson?) appears on anti-Semitic sites all over the web. We challenge The Nation, a respected American opinion journal, to provide some proof that Sharon actually uttered these words. (Hat tip: Robert M.)

Comments to The Nation: click here

(See New York Times’ public editor Daniel Okrent’s recent comments on accuracy in opinion pieces.)

Note also that an advertisement for (convicted) Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy’s book ‘The Founding Myths of Israel’, including a web address for the despicable Institute of Historical Review, appears on p. 58 of the current issue of The Nation. See Blue Octavo Notebooks for comments on this.

UPDATE: Blue Octavo editor writes: ‘Winston Churchill’s grandson gave a talk at the National Press Club in October 2001 during which he recounts the alleged anecdote. (Here, at minute 52) The Nation’s description makes this sound alot more solid than that.

The Nation writes: ‘Our source is Geoffrey Aronson, a Washington-based expert on settlements from the Foundation for Middle East Peace’

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