Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been increasingly coming under attack.

In addition to the predictable assaults from elsewhere, many Jews--both in the Diaspora and in Israel itself--claim that Arik is now abandoning Israel.

Sorry, I just don't buy it.

And, furthermore, I'd like to ask many of those latter critics if they'd send their own sons to fight for a Gaza in which Jews are ridiculously outnumbered and surrounded by multitudes of Arabs--with one of the highest birthrates in the world--who have been raised in a millieu of bloodlust of Jews.

While I agree that a retreat must occur under adequate conditions, and that Arik must hold Arab feet to the fire bigtime--regardless of the international response--if attacks on adjacent Israeli communities continue to occur after the withdrawal, it is time to admit that the presence of Jews in Gaza, unfortunately, is simply too costly. And most Israelis agree with this assessment. 

I do agree that the danger that a Gaza withdrawal might serve as a precedent for Judea and Samaria--as well as the Golan--is very real and cannot be ignored. But despite the historical Jewish presence in Gaza and its use as an invasion route into Israel proper by Egypt over the millennia, Judea and Samaria are linked more solidly and historically to the land of Israel...and I do not believe that Arik will adhere to the Gaza precedent here.

Will Jews will be able to live anywhere that they want on the West Bank? No...But, then again, all former Israeli leaders understood that there would have to be a compromise here as well.

What Arik, or any leader, must have the backbone to insist upon is that any such territorial compromise, supported by United  Nations Security Council Resolution 242 itself in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War when it called for the creation of secure and recognized borders to replace Israel's former armistice lines which made it, among other things, a mere 9-miles wide and a constant temptation to its enemies, must be meaningful and do the job. Israel's major airport and communities, for example, must not be left at the mercy of Arab gunners and must be provided with a somewhat adequate buffer from those who take joy out of playing with Jewish body parts.

Perhaps I am na�ve, but I refuse to believe that Arik, a true hero of Israel, would want his legacy to be that of one who brought lasting harm to the resurrected nation of his people. I do believe he'll insist on such an adequate compromise. And I don't believe he'll simply abandon Israel to the Syrian butchers in the north either.

True, I'm a bit nervous with the continuing influence that former Secretary of State James "_ _ _ _ the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway" Baker has with the Bush family and the Foggy Folks. He promised Assad the First a total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan. But I also believe that the Israeli public itself would not allow its leaders to cave in to such suicidal madness, even if such leaders were that stupid or cowardly. And I don't believe Arik is either.

While many (including myself) fear that Arik's moves in Gaza and elsewhere may backfire, despite some good rationale behind his plans, I also believe that if they do backfire, terror will indeed now have an official address, and--as American bombers were free to hit Afghanistan and Iraq--thousands of miles away from the American heartland--Israeli F-15s and such will be free to replace helicopters to dish out payback exponentially...and then tell the complaining international hypocrites where they can go...

Turning next to the Gentile front, Sharon is typically demonized around the world, especially in circles whose darlings have been Arafat, Hamas, & Co.

College papers, like the University of Illinois' Daily Illini, have repeatedly gotten into the act. Like at least two others, the Georgetown University Hoya and University of Florida's Alligator, the Daily Illini claimed to quote Sharon as promising to burn Arab children.

I'm no lawyer, but, if ever a slander suit existed, this looks like a likely candidate. And many of those universities--so ready to put Israel under the high power lens while white washing or ignoring the truly murderous and oppressive garbage heap which largely surrounds it--are wealthy indeed...ripe for the pickings.

Here are the typical scenarios...

Muslims kill Jews, and we're told it's the Jews' own fault. How dare they want an existence beyond the perpetual wandering, "deicide people" in the Christian West or their "kilab yahud"-- Jew Dog -- status in the "tolerant" Muslim East!

Pick your problem. It's the Jews' fault.

Hate communists? Blame Karl Marx.

Hate capitalists? Read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And our Saudi Arab friends will gladly provide you with a copy...as they've done for decades. 

Muslims kill Christians, then Christians kill Muslims...

And that's also the Jews' fault. 

So, on that fateful, tragic day a few decades ago, when Arik gave the go ahead to his Christian Lebanese allies to enter into the twin Palestinian refugee camps to seek out those who were murdering their own people, no one knew exactly what would next transpire. It was, after all, in the heat of war. Things don't always go as planned under such conditions. Was it a wise decision? Probably not.

Arabs have a long history, unfortunately, of using their own non-combatants as human shields, a practice which is in blatant violation of the Perfidy and other clauses of the Geneva Convention. Arafat, Hamas, the PFLP, Islamic Jihad and others of their species typically set up shop amid schools, mosques, hospitals, apartment buildings, and the like...something America has recently found out for itself in Iraq. 

When Sharon gave the green light, he knew only too well what the Christian forces would be up against. Israel had entered Lebanon in the first place only because of the non-stop terrorism coming across the border from Lebanese soil which the latter's government was unable and/or unwilling to stop. 

But Arik did not expect the massacre which followed. Should he have anticipated "problems"? Possibly. It's easy to be the Monday morning quarterback. Sharon's "crime," for which he was punished by Israel itself (just like the Arabs would do to fellow Arabs if the situation was reversed, right?... sure...and I'm Santa Claus), was wanting to say "yes" to one of the few allies Israel had in the region. 

Again, in the heat of battle, things go awry. 

Arabs also like to cite the Deir Yassin incident involving the Irgun and Stern Gang during Israel's War of Independence. But, truth be told, innocents were killed there also because Jews were fired upon from those very same homes of "non-combatants" as in the alleged "Jenin massacre" experience over five decades later. This is not the same thing as seeking out innocents in restaurants, on buses, teen night clubs, or wherever for deliberate incineration and disembowelment a la the Arabs' Arafat/Hamas good cop/ bad cop team. 

Yes, Arik is hated...no doubt about it. He doesn't fit well into much of the Gentile world's vision of what a Jew should be or act like. 

He's hated because Arabs know that he sees through their lies and doublespeak to an all-too-willing-to-believe West which has its own long history of massacring and dehumanizing Jews. Even after Arafat's death, his likely successors still refuse to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish State, deny the Holocaust, and insist that Israel absorb millions of "returning" Arab refugees bent on its destruction...one way or another. They also have called all peace moves merely a "Trojan Horse," part of only a temporary hudna before the final goal of Israel's destruction can be achieved. 

Unlike Arik, Arabs and their allies prefer the breed of Jew more willing to bare the neck for the sake of empty, vaporous promises...or less. Yossi Beilin and crew come to mind. And apparently, observing the behavior of Belgium, France, the American State Department, those hypocritical, self-anointed sources of ethical enlightenment in much of academia, and too many others as well, so does much of the rest of the world. Israel also has those who share this preference, which can be found too often among Jews in the Diaspora as well. 

Too often Jewish professors are in the lead here while Arabs are laughing themselves blind over this. I witnessed this firsthand decades ago drinking Turkish coffee and watching belly dancers in a Middle East night club near New York University's Kevorkian Center For Near Eastern Studies in Greenwich Village where I did much of my own doctoral studies. Arabs were hysterical at Jews arguing among themselves over how much territory should be returned for "peace." They laughed because it made no difference to them... Size was/is not the issue when it comes to the subject of a Jewish State in what Arabs commonly refer to as "purely Arab patrimony." 

The good news is that the Oslo "peace" and the results of Camp David 2000 and Taba turned this pathetic breed of Jew, at least in Israel, into an endangered species. 

Truth be told, Arik is hated because he has been a first class warrior, feared by his enemies, in defense of his nation and people. 

He has played a higher than average role, even by Israeli standards, in foiling repeated attempts on the life of his sole, miniscule, resurrected nation by Arabs who gained most of the almost two dozen states they now call their own by conquering and forcibly Arabizing millions of native, non-Arab peoples and their lands. Have you noticed any courses being offered on this subject on campus lately? How about newspaper editorials? 

Despite his recent caving in to the pressure of Israel's "friends," I believe Sharon will, in the long run, still be Sharon. 

Arabs hate him for his crushing raids and actions against their armies... not his deliberate assaults on their innocents. That's, unfortunately, an Arab specialty. 

Not long ago, Belgium wanted to try Arik for "war crimes under its 1993 universal jurisdiction law. This was a bit interesting, to say the least, coming from a country whose human rights abuses during its colonial regime in Africa rank among the worst.

Hundreds of thousands of Black Africans were forcibly conscripted and virtually enslaved into building the railroads, working the rubber plantations and mines, torn from their families, tortured when "disobedient," forced to kill their own countrymen who dared to resist, etc. And all to make the Belgian White Man rich. Listen to this quote from the Library of Congress's Country Studies on Zaire/Congo: 

...the peoples...were subjected to a staggering sequence of wars, repression...the impact of this colonial experience was...devastating...ruthless exploitation of human and natural resources...reputation for brutality was well established... 

And then there was Belgium's less-than-glorious behavior during the Holocaust, a la its Vichy French counterparts. While there were some examples of courage, Belgium still deported about half of its 70,000 Jews to death camps and helped steal fortunes in property. In Prime Minister Verhofstadt's own toned-down words, "there were too many collaborators in Belgium."

Perhaps all of this--and lots more--helps explain Belgium's and others' insistence on making villains out of both Israel and Sharon. Like others in a guilt-ridden Europe and elsewhere, it helps in exorcising their own demons if they can paint the eternally victimized Jew and/or Jewish State in the role of the Nazi oppressor. It's the "see, our crimes are no worse than yours" syndrome. 

I guess his trial would have been like the one it conducted for Arab butchers and gassers of Kurds in Syria and Iraq. You know, the one they had after reading the Kurdish nationalist Ismet Cherif Vanly's book, The Syrian 'Mein Kampf' Against the Kurds (Amsterdam 1968). You didn't miss that one, did you? 

Or maybe it would be like the one Brussels called for after the majority Berber language and culture were outlawed in much of "Arab" North Africa. Or similar to the one it conducted due to some two million Black African Sudanese being killed and many more maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees, and the like over the past decades in the name of the Arab nation? 

Come now...Where were you all when all of these trials were going on? 

Yeah, right. 

And while you're trying to figure this all out, where were you when you missed the trials of the Belgians themselves when they had to account for their crimes against Black Africans and Jews? 

In fairness, and not to single out Belgium since the problem goes far beyond its own pathetic actions, Belgium has taken the lead in some areas of human civility over the past few centuries. Its endeavors, for example, to end the African slave trade were commendable. But it would have been more so had it not virtually replaced it with its own local colonial variety. This smelled too much like it was simply eliminating Arab and other competitors for the available Black African merchandise. Belgium's recent work in eliminating land mines deserves praise as well. 

But, as with all the others demonizing Israel and its leader these days, there are far too many skeletons in Brussels' own closet for it to have been pointing its hypocritical, double standard finger in the direction of Sharon. 

The problems illustrated by Belgium's behavior are mirrored too often elsewhere. 

And those in the Ivory Tower--whether they be tenured profs or student reporters--who specialize in focusing on Israel's alleged sins--while ignoring, for example, the plight of a truly stateless and oppressed people, some thirty million Kurds, or the Arab genocide against millions of Black Africans--would be wise to consider their own disgraceful transgressions in these regards.

Despite our fears and the risks, I believe that the Old Warrior still loves Israel and that, given the realities of having to work out a doable solution, he'll still insist on provisions necessary to deal with those fears and risks and do nothing to cause Israel lasting harm.