False Zionist Quote: Racist Statements Misattributed to Ariel Sharon

The following is an example of statements misquoted, taken out of context or otherwise manipulated to present a distorted view of Zionist intentions and actions. The misquotes are found in op-eds in campus newpapers and mainstream press as well as on anti-Israel websites.

MISQUOTES:

Attributed to Ariel Sharon, from an interview with Amos Oz, Davar, Dec. 17, 1982:

You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer. . . . Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint.

Even if you prove to me that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don’t care. Even if Galilee is shelled again by Katyushas in a year’s time, I don’t really care. We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more until they will have had enough.

Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered, just one! If anyone even raises his hand against us we’ll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms.

Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us…And I don’t mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nurembarg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal.

What you don’t understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it.

FACT:

Amos Oz never met nor interviewed Sharon. In fact, the so-called “interview” was a literary device taken from Oz’s book “In the Land of Israel.” In the English version, the interviewee’s identity is not revealed, and is referred to as Z (Flamingo/Fontana 1983).

Apparently, Palestinian propagandists substituted Sharon’s name for Z in the Davar interview. The description of Z does not fit Sharon, and at one point Z refers to Sharon, Begin and General Eitan.

In a telephone conversation with journalist Holger Jensen, who had misattributed these quotes to Sharon, Amos Oz  confirmed that he had never met nor interviewed Sharon. For more information on Holger Jensen’s misuse of these quotes in the Denver Rocky Mountain News (“Obsessed Sharon applies brutal philosophy to advance Zionism,” April 13, 2002), read CAMERA’s update on Holger Jensen’s resignation.

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