When we recently noted some Western pundits wondering whither the Arab Sharon, we could only wonder if any Arab writers would bravely make the same point. So we were struck by the way Mona Eltahawy, writing the Egyptian paper Asharq Alawsat, addresses the myths and facts of Ariel Sharon’s career with a touch of envy:
The Arab world hates Ariel Sharon so much not because he is responsible for the death of so many Arabs but because he is essentially the mirror image of the Arab leaders that have ruled us for decades. He is the better and improved mirror image.
If hatred for Sharon was based solely on the number of Arabs he has killed, then he would probably lose out to those responsible for the thousands killed in the fighting of Black September and the thousands more killed in Hama….
Sharon is the better and improved mirror image of an Arab leader because we have held what he does to us in much higher regard than anything we have done to each other.
Furthermore, Sharon is the typical military-man-turned-politician that so many Arab leaders are. But 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.
(Hat tip: Tom Gross)
