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Yet the reality was that his soldiers were far more humane than Russians who blew up entire neighborhoods in Chechnya. His men probably killed fewer civilians than did our outnumbered and trapped heroes in Mogadishu. Unlike the Kuwaitis, Sharon did not ethnically cleanse Palestinians; unlike the Jordanians he did not murder them in the thousands; unlike the Syrians he did not wipe out an entire town and pave it over; and, of course, unlike the Arab heroes, Nasser and Saddam Hussein, he did not gas civilians.

No, he sent combatants house-to-house, to pry out killers from boobytrapped parlors, in narrow streets where gunmen shot and then ducked into living rooms. No matter — he was Mr. Sharon and his soldiers were Israelis, and so the world dammed this new Sherman come alive. A corrupt international community that ignored thousands who were beheaded, incinerated, and blown apart in the Congo, Bosnia, India, and Rwanda has demonized him for a "massacre" in which less than a 100 Palestinians were killed in efforts to apprehend the murderers among them.