Evil Does Often Triumph
John Chuckman
It did appear that that mountainous bulk of murder and corruption, Ariel Sharon, was about to leave politics. Much as with Al Capone, authorities only caught up with him through a trail of crooked money.
But we have heard less of his retirement lately and rather more about his plan to leave Gaza. Apparently, after killing hundreds of its occupants, including scores of innocent bystanders as Israeli helicopters fired missiles into city streets, Sharon thinks he'll get some good press about leaving Gaza.
Of course, what Sharon truly is leaving is an impossible situation. Gaza is a small, fenced-in enclave of nearly a million Palestinians where only the most mentally unbalanced Israeli settlers insist on living a life of guard towers, razor wire, patrols, and spies. Sharon's army is tired of protecting a few machinegun-toting fanatics, not to mention the small fortune it can save by ending the protection.