Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2014-01-03

Preparations for a state funeral have begun for Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Apartheid Israel.

The 85 year old, known as the butcher of Sabra and Chatila has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke eight years ago was described as critical after his kidneys and several other vital organs failed apparently due to an infection.

His two sons, Gilad and Omri, were at his bedside at the Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Hashomer Hospital, near Tel Aviv, as Israeli officials said plans were in hand to stage a state funeral for one of the most controversial figures in the Jewish state's 65-year history.

"He is in critical condition and his life is definitely in danger," Dr Zeev Rotstein, the hospital's director, told reporters. "I am no prophet, but the feeling of the doctors treating him and also that of the family with him is that there is a turn for the worse."

So as Sharon lies stricken on his hospital bed in the throes of death, how will history judge him?

Sharon’s history offers a monochromatic record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes going back to the early 1950s.

Robert Fisk writes: Israel's Prime Minister was a ruthless military commander responsible for one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century.

President George Bush acclaimed Ariel Sharon as 'a man of peace', yet the blood that was shed at Sabra and Chatila remains a stain on the conscience of the Zionist nation.

Research & Information Network (RAIN), Abu Bakr Dawjee said he pondered on what the people of Middle East and the people Lebanon thought about Sharon’s critical state.

“In 1982 Arial Sharon was the defense minister of Israel and he took the entire Israeli Army, went into Lebanon and surrounded Beirut and bombed it for weeks, killing an estimated 18,000 people mainly civilians,” said Dawjee.  

“He was also called the butcher of Sabra and Chatilla for surrounding two Palestinian refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut and allowing Christian militia men to go in and massacre an estimated 2,000 men, women and children,” added Dawjee.

Dawjee said there was a huge public outcry and demonstrations around the world including Israel against the massacre. “There was a commission of enquiry and he (Sharon) was held indirectly responsible for this massacre and had to resign from his post as defence minister at the time.”

Dawjee reiterates that despite the massacre, Israeli’s voted Sharon as Prime Minister in 2001.

“So I wonder what the people of the Middle East will feel when Ariel Sharon passes away and I wonder how many of the world’s leaders who attended Nelson Mandela’s funeral will attend Sharon’s funeral to honour him,” said Dawjee.

(Twitter: @Faizie143)