Alleged Ouze Merham interview of Ariel Sharon

In the first decade of the 21st century, a paragraph alleged to come from a 1956 interview of Ariel Sharon, conducted by an Israel Defense Forces general named Ouze Merham, was quoted in a number of publications. The paragraph advocates burning Palestinian children and raping Palestinian women and Arab girls, as well as Sharon claiming to have killed 750 Palestinian civilians during the Suez Crisis. The interview, the paragraph, and the existence of Ouze Merham himself have been denounced as fabrications. In 1956 Sharon, who later became Prime Minister of Israel, was a major in the IDF.
The alleged interview
According to the allegations, Sharon was interviewed by a general named Ouze Merham about his service in the 1956 Suez Crisis, and said the following:
Media usage
The disputed quotation was published by a number of media outlets and websites in the Muslim world and elsewhere in conjunction with anti-Israel commentary, including on IslamOnline; the English language Pakistani newspaper, The Nation; and the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Hayat, which published the quote in a July 11, 2005, opinion article. As'ad Abdul Rahman, chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopedia, used the quote as his lede for an opinion piece about alleged Jewish control of the world media in the Gulf News of December 4, 2004.
A student columnist used the quote in her December 11, 2003 Daily Illini column, but later admitted the quote was false and apologized.
The incident was still being discussed as late as 2007.
A columnist for The Hoya, the student newspaper of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., used the quotation on March 19, 2002, introducing it with "Then again, we shouldn't be surprised about Sharon's feelings toward Palestinians; in 1956 when talking with Israeli General Ouze Merham, he said "

The Daily Star English-language newspaper in Bangladesh published the quotation on January 31, 2005 in a commentary article by retired Brigadier General M. Abdul Hafiz, who introduced the quotation with "Back in 1956 in an interview with general Ouze Merham, Sharon, a remorseless butcher of Sabra and Shatilla, said "
Tariq A. Al-Maeena, a columnist for the Saudi Gazette, used the quotation on August 23, 2017 ("Netanyahu is calculatedly following the game plan set by his mentor Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister who once said in a recorded interview: `I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area.'").
 
< Prev   Next >