Nice piece except for one small detail. Amoz Oz never interviewed Sharon. Holger Jensen falsely attributed this quote to Sharon in a column last month and was forced to apologize. - Tom
http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/362271p-2936404c.html Rocky Mountain News of Colorado
(April 15, 2002 5:20 p.m. EDT) - This is a mea culpa.
I made a grievous error in not verifying the authenticity of 20-year-old quotes attributed to Ariel Sharon that I used in my April 12 column on the Israeli leader. As it turns out, they were made not by Sharon but another unnamed Israeli soldier who died 11 years ago.
The interview in question was conducted by Amos Oz, one of Israel's leading authors and prominent in the Peace Now movement. He had access to many Israeli generals and politicians of that era but identified some of his interview subjects only by letters of the alphabet, leaving it up to his readers to decide who they were.
The interview with "Z" was published in the Israeli newspaper Davar on Dec. 17, 1982 (Davar ceased publication in 1996), and later republished in a book of Oz's collection of interviews, titled "In the Land of Israel."
I was in both Beirut and Israel that year and remember the uproar it caused.
When the interview first appeared after the invasion of Lebanon, "Z" was widely assumed to be Sharon because the interviewee was described as a military man "with a certain history," about 50 years of age, heavy-set and a prosperous farmer. All this fit the stocky Sharon, who had a farm, was the right age and certainly had "a history."
Sharon had lost his job as defense minister after being held indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinian refugees by Israel's Lebanese Phalange allies in Beirut. The military man interviewed by Oz justified the invasion of Lebanon, dismissed the massacre of Palestinians as one of the harsh realities of war - "how can you call 500 Arabs a massacre?" - and spoke contemptuously of Israeli pacifists as those with "soft and delicate hands."
Oz never revealed who "Z" was, saying he had promised to protect his identity. He held to that promise when I telephoned him Monday, but confirmed that it was not Sharon.
"I have never met or interviewed Sharon," Oz said.
The Middle East is full of mythology. History is rewritten to promote the viewpoints of Israelis or Palestinians and both sides in the conflict suffer from selective recall when it suits their purpose.
My job is to cut through mythology, not add to it.
So there it is. Another myth exploded, leaving much egg on my face. My critics will doubtless be delighted and my supporters disappointed - but not nearly as disappointed as I am in myself for not going to the source of those quotes in the first place. After 33 years in this business, I should know better.
My apologies to all.
Holger Jensen is international editor of the Rocky Mountain News. Contact him at hjens at aol.com.
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