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Unit 101 undertook a series of raids against Jordan, which then held the West Bank. The raids also helped bolster Israeli morale and convince Arab states that the fledgling nation was capable of long-range military action. Known for raids against Arab civilians and military targets, the unit is held responsible for the widely condemned Qibya massacre in October 1953. After a group of Palestinians used Qibya as a staging point for a fedayeen attack in Yehud that killed a Jewish woman and her two children in Israel, Unit 101 retaliated on the village. By various accounts of the ensuing attack, 65 to 70 Palestinian civilians, half of them women and children, were killed when Sharon's troops dynamited 45 houses and a school. Facing international condemnation for the attack, Ben-Gurion denied that the Israeli military was involved. In his memoir, Sharon wrote that the unit had checked all the houses before detonating the explosives and that he thought the houses were empty. Although he admitted the results were tragic, Sharon defended the attack, however: "Now people could feel that the terrorist gangs would think twice before striking, now that they knew for sure they would be hit back. Kibbya also put the Jordanian and Egyptian governments on notice that if Israel was vulnerable, so were they."
A few months after its founding, Unit 101 was merged with the 890 Paratroopers Battalion to create the Paratroopers Brigade, of which Sharon would also later become commander. Like Unit 101, it continued raids into Arab territory, culminating with the attack on the Qalqilyah police station in the autumn of 1956. Leading up to the Suez War, the missions Sharon took part in included: During a payback operation in the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Sharon was again wounded by gunfire, this time in the leg. Incidents such as those involving Meir Har-Zion, along with many others, contributed to the tension between Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, who often opposed Sharon's raids, and Moshe Dayan, who had become increasingly ambivalent in his feelings towards Sharon. Later in the year, Sharon was investigated and tried by the Military Police for disciplining one of his subordinates. However, the charges were dismissed before the onset of the Suez War. 1956 Suez War. Sharon commanded Unit 202 (the Paratroopers Brigade) during the 1956 Suez War (the British "Operation Musketeer"), leading the troop to take the ground east of the Sinai's Mitla Pass and eventually the pass itself against the advice of superiors, suffering heavy Israeli casualties in the process. Having successfully carried out the first part of his mission (joining a battalion parachuted near Mitla with the rest of the brigade moving on ground), Sharon's unit was deployed near the pass. Neither reconnaissance aircraft nor scouts reported enemy forces inside the Mitla Pass. Sharon, whose forces were initially heading east, away from the pass, reported to his superiors that he was increasingly concerned with the possibility of an enemy thrust through the pass, which could attack his brigade from the flank or the rear.
Sharon asked for permission to attack the pass several times, but his requests were denied, though he was allowed to check its status so that if the pass was empty, he could receive permission to take it later. Sharon sent a small scout force, which was met with heavy fire and became bogged down due to vehicle malfunction in the middle of the pass. Sharon ordered the rest of his troops to attack to aid their comrades. Sharon was criticized by his superiors and was damaged by allegations several years later made by several former subordinates, who claimed that Sharon tried to provoke the Egyptians and sent out the scouts in bad faith, ensuring that a battle would ensue. Sharon had assaulted Themed in a dawn attack, and had stormed the town with his armor through the Themed Gap. Sharon routed the Sudanese police company, and captured the settlement. On his way to the Nakla, Sharon's men came under attack from Egyptian MIG-15s. On the 30th, Sharon linked up with Eytan near Nakla. Dayan had no more plans for further advances beyond the passes, but Sharon nonetheless decided to attack the Egyptian positions at Jebel Heitan.
Dayan had no more plans for further advances beyond the passes, but Sharon nonetheless decided to attack the Egyptian positions at Jebel Heitan. Sharon sent his lightly armed paratroopers against dug-in Egyptians supported by aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery. Sharon's actions were in response to reports of the arrival of the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 4th Egyptian Armored Division in the area, which Sharon believed would annihilate his forces if he did not seize the high ground. Sharon sent two infantry companies, a mortar battery and some AMX-13 tanks under the command of Mordechai Gur into the Heitan Defile on the afternoon of 31 October 1956. The Egyptian forces occupied strong defensive positions and brought down heavy anti-tank, mortar and machine gun fire on the IDF force. Gur's men were forced to retreat into the "Saucer", where they were surrounded and came under heavy fire. Hearing of this, Sharon sent in another task force while Gur's men used the cover of night to scale the walls of the Heitan Defile.
Hearing of this, Sharon sent in another task force while Gur's men used the cover of night to scale the walls of the Heitan Defile. During the ensuing action, the Egyptians were defeated and forced to retreat. A total of 260 Egyptian and 38 Israeli soldiers were killed during the battle at Mitla. Due to these deaths, Sharon's actions at Mitla were surrounded in controversy, with many within the IDF viewing the deaths as the result of unnecessary and unauthorized aggression. Six-Day War, War of Attrition and Yom Kippur War. The Mitla incident hindered Sharon's military career for several years. In the meantime, he occupied the position of an infantry brigade commander and received a law degree from Tel Aviv University. However, when Yitzhak Rabin became Chief of Staff in 1964, Sharon again began to rise rapidly in the ranks, occupying the positions of Infantry School Commander and Head of Army Training Branch, eventually achieving the rank of Aluf (Major General). In the Six-Day War, Sharon, in command of an armored division on the Sinai front, drew up his own complex offensive strategy that combined infantry troops, tanks and paratroopers from planes and helicopters to destroy the Egyptian forces Sharon's 38th Division faced when it broke through to the Kusseima-Abu-Ageila fortified area. Sharon's victories and offensive strategy in the Battle of Abu-Ageila led to international commendation by military strategists; he was judged to have inaugurated a new paradigm in operational command. Researchers at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command studied Sharon's operational planning, concluding that it involved a number of unique innovations. It was a simultaneous attack by a multiplicity of small forces, each with a specific aim, attacking a particular unit in a synergistic Egyptian defense network. As a result, instead of supporting and covering each other as they were designed to do, each Egyptian unit was left fighting for its own life.
According to Sapir Handelman, after Sharon's assault of the Sinai in the Six-Day War and his encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army in the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli public nicknamed him "The King of Israel". Sharon played a key role in the War of Attrition. In 1969, he was appointed the Head of IDF's Southern Command. As leader of the southern command, on 29 July Israeli frogmen stormed and destroyed Green Island, a fortress at the northern end of the Gulf of Suez whose radar and antiaircraft installations controlled that sector's airspace. On 9 September Sharon's forces carried out Operation Raviv, a large-scale raid along the western shore of the Gulf of Suez. Landing craft ferried across Russian-made tanks and armored personnel carriers that Israel had captured in 1967, and the small column harried the Egyptians for ten hours. Following his appointment to the southern command, Sharon had no further promotions, and considered retiring. Sharon discussed the issue with Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who strongly advised him to remain at his post. Sharon remained in the military for another three years, before retiring in August 1973. Soon after, he helped found the Likud ("Unity") political party.
At the start of the Yom Kippur War on 6 October 1973, Sharon was called back to active duty along with his assigned reserve armored division. On his farm, before he left for the front line, the Reserve Commander, Zeev Amit, said to him, "How are we going to get out of this?" Sharon replied, "You don't know? We will cross the Suez Canal and the war will end over there." Sharon arrived at the front, to participate in his fourth war, in a civilian car. His forces did not engage the Egyptian Army immediately, despite his requests. Under cover of darkness, Sharon's forces moved to a point on the Suez Canal that had been prepared before the war. In a move that again thwarted the commands of his superiors, Sharon's division crossed the Suez, effectively winning the war for Israel. He then headed north towards Ismailia, intent on cutting the Egyptian second army's supply lines, but his division was halted south of the Fresh Water Canal. Abraham Adan's division passed over the bridgehead into Africa, advancing to within 101 kilometers of Cairo. His division managed to encircle Suez, cutting off and encircling the Third Army. Tensions between the two generals followed Sharon's decision, but a military tribunal later found his action was militarily effective.
Sharon's complex ground maneuver is regarded as a decisive move in the Yom Kippur War, undermining the Egyptian Second Army and encircling the Egyptian Third Army. This move was regarded by many Israelis as the turning point of the war in the Sinai front. Thus, Sharon is widely viewed as the hero of the Yom Kippur War, responsible for Israel's ground victory in the Sinai in 1973. A photo of Sharon wearing a head bandage on the Suez Canal became a famous symbol of Israeli military prowess. Sharon's political positions were controversial, and he was relieved of duty in February 1974. Bar Lev Line. Following Israel's victory in the six-day war, the war of attrition at the Suez Canal began. The Egyptians began firing in provocation against the Israeli forces posted on the eastern part of the canal. Haim Bar Lev, Israel's chief of staff, suggested that Israel construct a border line to protect its southern border. A wall of sand and earth raised along almost the entire length of the Suez Canal would both allow observation of Egyptian forces and conceal the movements of Israeli troops on the eastern side. This line, named after the chief of staff Haim Bar Lev, became known as the Bar Lev Line. It included at least thirty strong points stretching over almost 200 kilometers.
Bar Lev suggested that such a line would defend against any major Egyptian assault across the canal, and was expected to function as a "graveyard for Egyptian troops". Moshe Dayan described it as "one of the best anti-tank ditches in the world." Sharon, and Israel Tal on the other hand, vigorously opposed the line. Sharon said that it would pin down large military formations that would be sitting ducks for deadly artillery attacks, and cited the opinion of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who explained him "the great military disaster such a line could bring." Notwithstanding, it was completed in spring 1970. During the Yom Kippur War, Egyptian forces successfully breached the Bar Lev Line in less than two hours at a cost of more than a thousand dead and some 5,000 wounded. Sharon would later recall that what Schneerson had told him was a tragedy, "but unfortunately, that happened". Early political career, 1974–2001. Beginnings of political career. In the 1940s and 1950s, Sharon seemed to be personally devoted to the ideals of Mapai, the predecessor of the modern Labor Party. However, after retiring from military service, he joined the Liberal Party and was instrumental in establishing Likud in July 1973 by a merger of Herut, the Liberal Party and independent elements. Sharon became chairman of the campaign staff for that year's elections, which were scheduled for November. Two and a half weeks after the start of the election campaign, the Yom Kippur War erupted and Sharon was called back to reserve service. On the heels of being hailed as a war hero for crossing the Suez in the 1973 war, Sharon won a seat to the Knesset in the elections that year, but resigned a year later.
From June 1975 to March 1976, Sharon was a special aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He planned his return to politics for the 1977 elections; first, he tried to return to the Likud and replace Menachem Begin at the head of the party. He suggested to Simha Erlich, who headed the Liberal Party bloc in the Likud, that he was more able than Begin to win an election victory; he was rejected, however. He then tried to join the Labor Party and the centrist Democratic Movement for Change, but was rejected by those parties too. Only then did he form his own list, Shlomtzion, which won two Knesset seats in the subsequent elections. Immediately after the elections, he merged Shlomtzion with the Likud and became Minister of Agriculture. When Sharon joined Begin's government, he had relatively little political experience. During this period, Sharon supported the Gush Emunim settlements movement and was viewed as the patron of the settlers' movement. He used his position to encourage the establishment of a network of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to prevent the possibility of Palestinian Arabs' return to these territories. Sharon doubled the number of Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip during his tenure.
After the 1981 elections, Begin rewarded Sharon for his important contribution to Likud's narrow win, by appointing him Minister of Defense. Under Sharon, Israel continued to build upon the unprecedented coordination between the Israel Defense Forces and the South African Defence Force, with Israeli and South African generals giving each other unfettered access to each other's battlefields and military tactics, and Israel sharing with South Africa highly classified information about its missions, such as Operation Opera, which had previously only been reserved for the United States. In 1981, after visiting South African forces fighting in Namibia for 10 days, Sharon argued that South Africa needed more weapons to fight Soviet infiltration in the region. Sharon promised that the relationship between Israel and South Africa would continue to deepen as they work to "ensure the National Defense of both our countries". The collaboration in carrying out joint-nuclear tests, in planning counter-insurgency strategies in Namibia and in designing security fences helped to make Israel, South Africa's closest ally in this period. 1982 Lebanon War and Sabra and Shatila massacre.
As Defense Minister, Sharon launched an invasion of Lebanon called Operation Peace for Galilee, later known as the 1982 Lebanon War, following the shooting of Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov. Although this attempted assassination was in fact perpetrated by the Abu Nidal Organization, possibly with Syrian or Iraqi involvement, the Israeli government justified the invasion by citing 270 terrorist attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Israel, the occupied territories, and the Jordanian and Lebanese border (in addition to 20 attacks on Israeli interests abroad). Sharon intended the operation to eradicate the PLO from its state within a state inside Lebanon, but the war is primarily remembered for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. In a three-day massacre between 16 and 18 September, between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp were killed by the Phalanges— Lebanese Maronite Christian militias. Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign terrorists and the main training camp for European terrorists; the Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out." The killings followed years of sectarian civil war in Lebanon that left 95,000 dead. The Lebanese army's chief prosecutor investigated the killings and counted 460 dead, Israeli intelligence estimated 700–800 dead, and the Palestinian Red Crescent claimed 2,000 dead. 1,200 death certificates were issued to anyone who produced three witnesses claiming a family member disappeared during the time of the massacre. Nearly all of the victims were men.
The Phalange militia went into the camps to clear out PLO fighters while Israeli forces surrounded the camps, blocking camp exits and providing logistical support. The killings led some to label Sharon "the Butcher of Beirut". An Associated Press report on 15 September 1982 stated, "Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, in a statement, tied the killing of the Phalangist leader Bachir Gemayel to the PLO, saying 'it symbolises the terrorist murderousness of the PLO terrorist organisations and their supporters'." Habib Chartouni, a Lebanese Christian from the Syrian Socialist National Party confessed to the murder of Gemayel, and no Palestinians were involved. Robert Maroun Hatem, Hobeika's bodyguard, stated in his book "From Israel to Damascus" that Phalangist commander Elie Hobeika ordered the massacre of civilians in defiance of Israeli instructions to behave like a "dignified" army. Hatem claimed "Sharon had given strict orders to Hobeika...to guard against any desperate move" and that Hobeika perpetrated the massacre "to tarnish Israel's reputation worldwide" for the benefit of Syria. Hobeika subsequently joined the Syrian occupation government and lived as a prosperous businessman under Syrian protection; further massacres in Sabra and Shatilla occurred with Syrian support in 1985.
The massacre followed intense Israeli bombings of Beirut that had seen heavy civilian casualties, testing Israel's relationship with the United States in the process. America sent troops to help negotiate the PLO's exit from Lebanon, withdrawing them after negotiating a ceasefire that ostensibly protected Palestinian civilians. Legal findings. After 400,000 Peace Now protesters rallied in Tel Aviv to demand an official government inquiry into the massacres, the official Israeli government investigation into the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, the Kahan Commission (1982), was conducted. The inquiry found that the Israeli Defense Forces were indirectly responsible for the massacre since IDF troops held the area. The commission determined that the killings were carried out by a Phalangist unit acting on its own, but its entry was known to Israel and approved by Sharon. Prime Minister Begin was also found responsible for not exercising greater involvement and awareness in the matter of introducing the Phalangists into the camps.
The commission also concluded that Sharon bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge [and] not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed". It said Sharon's negligence in protecting the civilian population of Beirut, which had come under Israeli control, amounted to a dereliction of duty of the minister. In early 1983, the commission recommended the removal of Sharon from his post as defense minister and stated: We have found ... that the Minister of Defense [Ariel Sharon] bears personal responsibility. In our opinion, it is fitting that the Minister of Defense draw the appropriate personal conclusions arising out of the defects revealed with regard to the manner in which he discharged the duties of his office—and if necessary, that the Prime Minister consider whether he should exercise his authority ... to ... remove [him] from office. Sharon initially refused to resign as defense minister, and Begin refused to fire him. After a grenade was thrown into a dispersing crowd at an Israeli Peace Now march, killing Emil Grunzweig and injuring 10 others, a compromise was reached: Sharon agreed to forfeit the post of defense minister but stayed in the cabinet as a minister without portfolio.
Sharon's resignation as defense minister is listed as one of the important events of the Tenth Knesset. In its 21 February 1983 issue, "Time" published an article implying that Sharon was directly responsible for the massacres. Sharon sued "Time" for libel in American and Israeli courts. Although the jury concluded that the "Time" article included false allegations, they found that the magazine had not acted with actual malice and so was not guilty of libel. On 18 June 2001, relatives of the victims of the Sabra massacre began proceedings in Belgium to have Sharon indicted on alleged war crimes charges. Elie Hobeika, the leader of the Phalange militia who carried out the massacres, was assassinated in January 2002, several months before he was scheduled to testify trial. Prior to his assassination, he had "specifically stated that he did not plan to identify Sharon as being responsible for Sabra and Shatila." Political downturn and recovery. After his dismissal from the Defense Ministry post, Sharon remained in successive governments as a minister without portfolio (1983–1984), Minister for Trade and Industry (1984–1990), and Minister of Housing Construction (1990–1992). In the Knesset, he was member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense committee (1990–1992) and chairman of the committee overseeing Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union. During this period he was a rival to then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, but failed in various bids to replace him as chairman of Likud. Their rivalry reached a head in February 1990, when Sharon grabbed the microphone from Shamir, who was addressing the Likud central committee, and famously exclaimed: "Who's for wiping out terrorism?" The incident was widely viewed as an apparent coup attempt against Shamir's leadership of the party.
Sharon unsuccessfully challenged Shamir in the 1984 Herut leadership election and the 1992 Likud leadership election. In Benjamin Netanyahu's 1996–1999 government, Sharon was Minister of National Infrastructure (1996–98), and Foreign Minister (1998–99). Upon the election of the Barak Labor government, Sharon became the interim leader of the Likud party and subsequently won the September 1999 Likud leadership election. Opposition to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 as an act of "brutal interventionism". Sharon said both Serbia and Kosovo have been victims of violence. He said prior to the current Yugoslav campaign against Kosovo Albanians, Serbians were the targets of attacks in the Kosovo province. "Israel has a clear policy. We are against aggressive actions. We are against hurting innocent people. I hope that the sides will return to the negotiating table as soon as possible." During the crisis, Elyakim Haetzni said the Serbs should be the first to receive Israeli aid. "There are our traditional friends," he told Israel Radio." It was suggested that Sharon may have supported the Yugoslav position because of the Serbian population's history of saving Jews during the holocaust. On Sharon's death, Serbian minister Aleksandar Vulin stated: The Serbian people will remember Sharon for opposing the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against the former Yugoslavia and advocating respect for sovereignty of other nations and a policy of not interfering with their internal affairs.
Campaign for Prime Minister, 2000–2001. On 28 September 2000, Sharon and an escort of over 1,000 Israeli police officers visited the Temple Mount complex, site of the Dome of the Rock and Qibli Mosque, the holiest place in the world to Jews and the third holiest site in Islam. Sharon declared that the complex would remain under perpetual Israeli control. Palestinian commentators accused Sharon of purposely inflaming emotions with the event to provoke a violent response and obstruct success of delicate ongoing peace talks. On the following day, a large number of Palestinian demonstrators and an Israeli police contingent confronted each other at the site. According to the U.S. State Department, "Palestinians held large demonstrations and threw stones at police in the vicinity of the Western Wall. Police used rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition to disperse the demonstrators, killing 4 persons and injuring about 200." According to the government of Israel, 14 policemen were injured. Sharon's visit, a few months before his election as Prime Minister, came after archeologists claimed that extensive building operations at the site were destroying priceless antiquities. Sharon's supporters claim that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian National Authority planned the Second Intifada months prior to Sharon's visit. They state that Palestinian security chief Jabril Rajoub provided assurances that if Sharon did not enter the mosques, no problems would arise. They also often quote statements by Palestinian Authority officials, particularly Imad Falouji, the P.A. Communications Minister, who admitted months after Sharon's visit that the violence had been planned in July, far in advance of Sharon's visit, stating the intifada "was carefully planned since the return of (Palestinian President) Yasser Arafat from Camp David negotiations rejecting the U.S. conditions". According to the Mitchell Report,
The Mitchell Report found that In addition, the report stated, The Or Commission, an Israeli panel of inquiry appointed to investigate the October 2000 events, Prime Minister (2001–2006). After the collapse of Barak's government, Sharon was elected Prime Minister on 6 February 2001, defeating Barak 62 percent to 38 percent. Sharon's senior adviser was Raanan Gissin. In his first act as prime minister, Sharon invited the Labor Party to join in a coalition with Likud. After Israel was struck by a wave of suicide bombings in 2002, Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield and led the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier. A survey conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Center in May 2004 found that 80% of Jewish Israelis believed that the Israel Defense Forces had succeeded in militarily countering the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The election of the more pro-Russian Sharon, as well as the more pro-Israel Vladimir Putin, led to an improvement in Israel–Russia relations. In September 2003, Sharon became the first prime minister of Israel to visit India, saying that Israel regarded India as one of the most important countries in the world. Some analysts speculated on the development of a three-way military axis of New Delhi, Washington, D.C., and Jerusalem.
On 20 July 2004, Sharon called on French Jews to emigrate from France to Israel immediately, in light of an increase in antisemitism in France (94 antisemitic assaults were reported in the first six months of 2004, compared to 47 in 2003). France has the third-largest Jewish population in the world (about 600,000 people). Sharon observed that an "unfettered anti-Semitism" reigned in France. The French government responded by describing his comments as "unacceptable", as did the French representative Jewish organization CRIF, which denied Sharon's claim of intense anti-Semitism in French society. An Israeli spokesperson later claimed that Sharon had been misunderstood. France then postponed a visit by Sharon. Upon his visit, both Sharon and French President Jacques Chirac were described as showing a willingness to put the issue behind them. Unilateral disengagement. In September 2001, Sharon stated for the first time that Palestinians should have the right to establish their own land west of the Jordan River. In May 2003, Sharon endorsed the Road Map for Peace put forth by the United States, the European Union and Russia, which opened a dialogue with Mahmud Abbas, and stated his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future.
He embarked on a course of unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining control of its coastline and airspace. Sharon's plan was welcomed by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel's left wing as a step towards a final peace settlement. However, it was greeted with opposition from within his own Likud party and from other right wing Israelis, on national security, military, and religious grounds. Disengagement from Gaza. On 1 December 2004, Sharon dismissed five ministers from the Shinui party for voting against the government's 2005 budget. In January 2005, Sharon formed a national unity government that included representatives of Likud, Labor, and Meimad and Degel HaTorah as "out-of-government" supporters without any seats in the government (United Torah Judaism parties usually reject having ministerial offices as a policy). Between 16 and 30 August 2005, Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank.
Sharon controversially expelled 9,480 Jewish settlers from 21 settlements in Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank. After Israeli soldiers bulldozed every settlement structure except for several former synagogues, Israeli soldiers formally left Gaza on 11 September 2005 and closed the border fence at Kissufim. While his decision to withdraw from Gaza sparked bitter protests from members of the Likud party and the settler movement, opinion polls showed that it was a popular move among most of the Israeli electorate, with more than 80 percent of Israelis backing the plans. On 27 September 2005, Sharon narrowly defeated a leadership challenge by a 52–48 percent vote. The move was initiated within the central committee of the governing Likud party by Sharon's main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had left the cabinet to protest Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. The measure was an attempt by Netanyahu to call an early primary in November 2005 to choose the party's leader.
Founding of Kadima. On 21 November 2005, Sharon resigned as head of Likud, and dissolved parliament to form a new centrist party called Kadima ("Forward"). November polls indicated that Sharon was likely to be returned to the prime ministership. On 20 December 2005, Sharon's longtime rival Netanyahu was elected his successor as leader of Likud. Following Sharon's incapacitation, Ehud Olmert replaced Sharon as Kadima's leader, for the nearing general elections. Likud, along with the Labor Party, were "Kadima"s chief rivals in the March 2006 elections. Sharon's stroke occurred a few months before he had been expected to win a new election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals. In the elections, which saw Israel's lowest-ever voter turnout of 64 percent (the number usually averages on the high 70%), Kadima, headed by Olmert, received the most Knesset seats, followed by Labor. The new governing coalition installed in May 2006 included Kadima, with Olmert as Prime Minister, Labor (including Amir Peretz as Defense Minister), the Pensioners' Party (Gil), the Shas religious party, and Israel Beytenu.
Alleged fundraising irregularities and Greek island affair. During the latter part of his career, Sharon was investigated for alleged involvement in a number of financial scandals, in particular, the Greek island affair and irregularities of fundraising during the 1999 election campaign. In the Greek island affair, Sharon was accused of promising (during his term as Foreign Minister) to help Israeli businessman David Appel in his development project on a Greek island in exchange for large consultancy payments to Sharon's son Gilad. The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence. In the 1999 election fundraising scandal, Sharon was not charged with any wrongdoing, but his son Omri, a Knesset member at the time, was charged and sentenced in 2006 to nine months in prison. To avoid a potential conflict of interest in relation to these investigations, Sharon was not involved in the confirmation of the appointment of a new attorney general, Menahem Mazuz, in 2005. On 10 December 2005, Israeli police raided Martin Schlaff's apartment in Jerusalem. Another suspect in the case was Robert Nowikovsky, an Austrian involved in Russian state-owned company Gazprom's business activities in Europe.
According to "Haaretz", "The $3 million that parachuted into Gilad and Omri Sharon's bank account toward the end of 2002 was transferred there in the context of a consultancy contract for development of kolkhozes (collective farms) in Russia. Gilad Sharon was brought into the campaign to make the wilderness bloom in Russia by Getex, a large Russian-based exporter of seeds (peas, millet, wheat) from Eastern Europe. Getex also has ties with Israeli firms involved in exporting wheat from Ukraine, for example. The company owns farms in Eastern Europe and is considered large and prominent in its field. It has its Vienna offices in the same building as Jurimex, which was behind the $1-million guarantee to the Yisrael Beiteinu party." On 17 December, police found evidence of a $3 million bribe paid to Sharon's sons. Shortly afterwards, Sharon had a stroke. Illness, incapacitation and death (2006–2014). Sharon had been obese since the 1980s, and also had suspected chronic high blood pressure and high cholesterol – at tall, he was reputed to weigh . Stories of Sharon's appetite and obesity were legendary in Israel. He would often joke about his love of food and expansive girth. His staff car would reportedly be stocked with snacks, vodka, and caviar. In October 2004, when asked why he did not wear a bulletproof vest despite frequent death threats, Sharon smiled and replied, "There is none that fits my size." He was a daily consumer of cigars and luxury foods. Numerous attempts by doctors, friends, and staff to impose a balanced diet on Sharon were unsuccessful.
Sharon was hospitalized on 18 December 2005, following a minor ischemic stroke. During his hospital stay, doctors discovered a heart defect requiring surgery and ordered bed rest pending a cardiac catheterization scheduled for 5 January 2006. Instead, Sharon immediately returned to work and had a hemorrhagic stroke on 4 January. He was rushed to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. After two surgeries lasting 7 and 14 hours, doctors stopped the bleeding in Sharon's brain, but were unable to prevent him from entering into a coma. Subsequent media reports indicated that Sharon had been diagnosed with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) during his December hospitalisation. Hadassah Hospital Director Shlomo Mor-Yosef declined to respond to comments that the combination of CAA and blood thinners after Sharon's December stroke might have caused his more serious subsequent stroke. Ehud Olmert became Acting Prime Minister the night of Sharon's second stroke, while Sharon officially remained in office. Knesset elections followed in March, with Olmert and Sharon's Kadima party winning a plurality. The next month, the Israeli Cabinet declared Sharon permanently incapacitated and Olmert became Interim Prime Minister on 14 April 2006 and Prime Minister in his own right on 4 May.
Sharon underwent a series of subsequent surgeries related to his state. In May 2006, he was transferred to a long-term care facility in Sheba Medical Center. In July of that year, he was briefly taken to the hospital's intensive care unit to be treated for bacteria in his blood, before returning to the long-term care facility on 6 November 2006. Sharon would remain at Sheba Medical Center until his death. Medical experts indicated that his cognitive abilities had likely been destroyed by the stroke. His condition worsened from late 2013, and Sharon suffered from renal failure on 1 January 2014. After spending eight years in a coma, Sharon died at 14:00 local time (12:00 UTC) on 11 January 2014. Sharon's state funeral was held on 13 January in accordance with Jewish burial customs, which require that interment take place as soon after death as possible. His body lay in state in the Knesset Plaza from 12 January until the official ceremony, followed by a funeral held at the family's ranch in the Negev Desert. Sharon was buried beside his wife, Lily.
Personal life. Sharon was married twice, to two sisters, Margalit and Lily Zimmerman, who were from Romania. Sharon met Margalit in 1947 when she was 16, while she was tending a vegetable field, and married her in 1953, shortly after becoming a military instructor. Margalit was a supervisory psychiatric nurse. They had one son, Gur. Margalit died in a car accident in May 1962 and Gur died in October 1967, aged 11, after a friend accidentally shot him while the two children were playing with a rifle at the Sharon family home. After Margalit's death, Sharon married her younger sister, Lily. They had two sons, Omri and Gilad, and six grandchildren. Lily Sharon died of lung cancer in 2000. Sharon's sister, Yehudit, known as "Dita", married Shmuel Mandel. In the 1950s, the couple permanently left Israel and emigrated to the United States. This caused a permanent rift in the family. Shmuel and Vera Scheinerman were greatly hurt by their daughter's choice to leave Israel. As a result, Vera Scheinerman willed only a small part of her estate to Dita, an act which enraged her. At one point, Dita decided to return to Israel, but after Vera was informed by the Israel Lands Administration that it would not be legally possible to split the family property between Ariel and Dita, and informed her that she would not be able to build a home there, Dita, believing she was being lied to, cut her family in Israel off and refused to attend the funerals of her mother and sister-in-law. She reestablished contact with the family after Sharon's stroke. Sharon's sister has rarely been mentioned in biographies of him: he himself rarely acknowledged her and only mentioned her twice in his autobiography.
Legacy. A hugely consequential figure, Sharon remains a highly polarizing figure as well. While generally considered a great general and statesman among Israelis, Palestinians and numerous media and political sources revile Sharon as a war criminal. Human Rights Watch has contended that Sharon should have been held criminally accountable for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and other abuses. The Ariel Sharon Park, an environmental park near Tel Aviv, is named for him. In the Negev desert, the IDF is currently building its city of training bases, Camp Ariel Sharon. In total, a NIS 50 billion project, the city of bases is named after Ariel Sharon, the largest active construction project in Israel, it is to become the largest IDF base in Israel. Overview of offices held. Sharon served as prime minister (Israel's head of government) from 7 March 2001 through 14 April 2006 (with Ehud Olmert serving as "acting" prime minister beginning 4 January 2006, after Sharon slipped into a coma). As prime minister he led the 12th government during the 15th Knesset and the 13th government during the 16th Knesset.
Sharon served in the Knesset, first for several months in 1973, and later from 1977 through 2006. Sharon. From July 1999 through July 2000, Sharon served as the unofficial/honorary Knesset's opposition leader. Thereafter, from July 2000 through March 2001, he served as the first official designated Knesset opposition leader. Sharon was the leader of the Shlomtzion party from its 1976 founding until its 1977 merger into Likud. Sharon served as leader of the Likud party from 1999 through 2005, leaving to create Kadima which he led from 2005 through early 2006 (when he fell into a coma). In addition to these positions and his ministerial roles, Sharon also served as a special aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from June 1975 through March 1976. Electoral history. 2001 direct election for Prime Minister. Party leadership elections.
Romantic orientation Romantic orientation, also called affectional orientation, is the classification of the sex or gender which a person experiences romantic attraction towards or is likely to have a romantic relationship with. The term is used alongside the term "sexual orientation", as well as being used alternatively to it, based upon the perspective that sexual attraction is only a single component of a larger concept. For example, although a pansexual person may feel sexually attracted to people regardless of gender, the person may experience romantic attraction and intimacy, for example, with women only. For asexual people, romantic orientation is often considered a more useful measure of attraction than sexual orientation. The relationship between sexual attraction and romantic attraction is still under debate. Sexual and romantic attractions are often studied in conjunction. Even though studies of sexual and romantic spectrums are shedding light onto this under-researched subject, much is still not fully understood.
Romantic identities. People may or may not engage in purely emotional romantic relationships. The main identities relating to this are: Relationship with sexual orientation and asexuality. The implications of the distinction between romantic and sexual orientations have not been fully recognized, nor have they been studied extensively. It is common for sources to describe sexual orientation as including components of both sexual and romantic (or romantic equivalent) attractions. Publications investigating the relationship between sexual orientation and romantic orientation are limited. Challenges in collecting information result from survey participants having difficulty identifying or distinguishing between sexual and romantic attractions. Asexual individuals experience little to no sexual attraction (see gray asexuality); however, they may still experience romantic attraction. Lisa M. Diamond states that a person's romantic orientation can differ from whom the person is sexually attracted to. While there is limited research on the discordance between sexual attraction and romantic attraction in individuals, the possibility of fluidity and diversity in attractions have been progressively recognized. Researchers Bulmer and Izuma found that people who identify as aromantic often have more negative attitudes in relation to romance. While roughly 1% of the population identifies as asexual, 74% of those people reported having some form of romantic attraction.
A concept commonly used by people that experience discordant romantic and sexual attraction is the split attraction model, which tries to explain that romantic and sexual attractions are not exclusively tied together and is often used by people of the asexual and aromantic community to explain their differing romantic versus sexual orientations. The abbreviation aroace (or aro-ace) can be used for someone who is both aromantic ('aro') and asexual ('ace').
Anoa Anoa, also known as dwarf buffalo and sapiutan, are two species of the genus "Bubalus", placed within the subgenus "Anoa" and endemic to the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia: the mountain anoa ("Bubalus quarlesi") and the lowland anoa ("Bubalus depressicornis"). Both live in undisturbed rainforests and are similar in appearance to miniature water buffaloes, weighing . 'Anoa' itself is Celebic in origin cognate to words in other related Philippine languages in the same Austronesian family that name the common water buffalo ("anwáng" in Tagalog, "nuáng" in Ilocano, nuwang in Ifugaw etc). Both species of anoa have been classified as endangered since the 1960s and the populations continue to decrease. Fewer than 5,000 animals of each species likely remain. Reasons for their decline include poaching for hides, horns, and meat by the local peoples and loss of habitat due to the advancement of settlement. Currently, poaching is the most serious factor in most areas. Anoa are most closely allied to the larger Asian buffaloes, showing the same reversal of the direction of the hair on their backs. The horns are peculiar for their upright direction and comparative straightness, although they have the same triangular section as in other buffaloes. White spots are sometimes present below the eyes and there may be white markings on the legs and back; the absence or presence of these white markings may be indicative of distinct races. The horns of the cows are very small. The nearest allies of the anoa appear to be certain extinct Asian buffaloes, the remains of which have been found in the Siwalik Hills of northern India. Imagery of anoas may be present in the oldest rock art known as of 2024.
Both are found on the island of Sulawesi and the nearby island of Buton in Indonesia. They live singly or in pairs, rather than in herds like most cattle, except when the cows are about to give birth. Little is known about their life history as well. However, in captive individuals, they have a life expectancy of 20–30 years. The anoa take two to three years before they reach sexual maturity have one calf a year and have very rarely been seen to have more. Skulls of anoa cannot be accurately identified as to species, and there is likely hybridizing and interbreeding between the two in the zoo population. It is questioned as to whether the two species were different due to them occurring together in many different areas, as well as some interbreeding. A study of the mtDNA of ten specimens from different localities found a high mitochondrial genetic diversity between individuals identified as one or the other species, indicating support for recognition as two species. Distribution. Both the lowland anoa ("Bubalus depressicornis") and the mountain anoa ("Bubalus quarlesi") are endemic to the islands of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Both species appear to occur in the same areas. Sulawesi is a unique area because roughly 61% of the species found there are endemic species, including both anoa species.
Habitat. Traditionally, a key difference between the two species is the altitude at which they occur. The mountain anoa can be found at higher elevations than its lowland counterpart and is found in the forests. The lowland anoa was said to spend its time in the lower elevation areas and is also found in forests. Since 2005, however, these differences do not seem to be accurate, both species occur in the same areas in the same habitats. Morphology. The anoa have many physical characteristics of bovine relatives and are considered to be most closely related to the water buffalo, which was confirmed through DNA analysis. The physical characteristics of the two species are similar. The anoa is the smallest of the wild cattle species. When anoa are born, they have a set of thick, woolly fur that comes in many color variations ranging from yellow to brown. In adults, the fur is typically brown or black, and males tend to have darker variations. Hair thickness varies slightly between the two species based on elevation and distribution. In both species of anoa, horns are present in both males and females and are typically straight protuberances. Another defining characteristic of the anoa is an extremely thick hide underneath the thick fur.
Conservation. Both anoa species are endemic to the island of Sulawesi and are currently experiencing large declines in their populations. Knowledge of their decline has only recently been documented, however, and the villages and villagers lack the knowledge of how to help maintain or increase populations. The leading cause of their population decline is hunting by local villagers for meat, with habitat loss also being significant. One benefit of the lack of knowledge about the legal status of what they are doing is that villagers are open to communication with researchers on their harvests and hunting practices; where awareness of conservation issues has penetrated, villagers will lie about their activities. Logging is a large issue because both species prefer core forested habitats that are far away from humans and the influences that come with them. By logging, humans create much more fragmented habitats and, therefore, a decrease in the area where the anoa can breed and live. This habitat fragmentation also alters the natural mixing of populations of the anoa. This may lead to a loss in genetic diversity between the two species and, over time, could also lead to their decline.
External links. DIET COMPOSITION OF ANOA ("Bubalus" sp.) STUDIED USING DIRECT OBSERVATION AND DUNG ANALYSIS METHOD IN THEIR HABITAT from https://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/jitaa/article/view/7608/6259 Pujaningsih, R.i., et al. “DIET COMPOSITION OF ANOA ("Bubalus" sp.) STUDIED USING DIRECT OBSERVATION AND DUNG ANALYSIS METHOD IN THEIR HABITAT.” "Journal of the Indonesian Tropical Animal Agriculture", vol. 34, no. 3, 2009, doi:10.14710/jitaa.34.3.223-228.
Agner Krarup Erlang Agner Krarup Erlang (1 January 1878 – 3 February 1929) was a Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory. Erlang's 1909 paper, and subsequent papers over the decades, are regarded as containing some of most important concepts and techniques for queueing theory. By the time of his relatively early death at the age of 51, Erlang had created the field of telephone networks analysis. His early work in scrutinizing the use of local, exchange and trunk telephone line usage in a small community to understand the theoretical requirements of an efficient network led to the creation of the Erlang formula, which became a foundational element of modern telecommunications network studies. Life. Erlang was born at Lønborg, near Tarm, in Jutland. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and a descendant of Thomas Fincke on his mother's side. At age 14, he passed the Preliminary Examination of the University of Copenhagen with distinction, after receiving dispensation to take it because he was younger than the usual minimum age. For the next two years he taught alongside his father.
A distant relative provided free board and lodging, and Erlang prepared for and took the University of Copenhagen entrance examination in 1896, and passed with distinction. He won a scholarship to the university and majored in mathematics, and also studied astronomy, physics and chemistry. He graduated in 1901 with an MA and over the next 7 years taught at several schools. He maintained his interest in mathematics, and received an award for a paper that he submitted to the University of Copenhagen. He was a member of the Danish Mathematicians' Association (DMF) and through this met amateur mathematician Johan Jensen, the Chief Engineer of the Copenhagen Telephone Company (KTAS in Danish), an offshoot of the International Bell Telephone Company. Erlang worked for the Copenhagen Telephone Company from 1908 for almost 20 years, until his death in Copenhagen after an abdominal operation. He was an associate of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers. Contributions. While working for the CTC, Erlang was presented with the classic problem of determining how many circuits were needed to provide an acceptable telephone service. His thinking went further by finding how many telephone operators were needed to handle a given volume of calls. Most telephone exchanges then used human operators and cord boards to switch telephone calls by means of jack plugs.
Out of necessity, Erlang was a hands-on researcher. He would conduct measurements and was prepared to climb into street manholes to do so. He was also an expert in the history and calculation of the numerical tables of mathematical functions, particularly logarithms. He devised new calculation methods for certain forms of tables. He developed his theory of telephone traffic over several years. His significant publications include: These and other notable papers were translated into English, French and German. His papers were prepared in a very brief style and can be difficult to understand without a background in the field. One Bell Telephone Laboratories researcher is said to have learned Danish to study them. The British Post Office accepted his formula as the basis for calculating circuit facilities. In 1946, the CCITT named the international unit of telephone traffic the "erlang". A statistical distribution and programming language listed below have also been named in his honour. Erlang also made an important contribution to physiologic modeling with the Krogh-Erlang capillary cylinder model describing oxygen supply to living tissue.
Anyone Can Whistle Anyone Can Whistle is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Described as "a satire on conformity and the insanity of the so-called sane," the show tells a story of an economically depressed town whose corrupt mayor decides to create a fake miracle in order to attract tourists. The phony miracle draws the attention of an emotionally inhibited nurse, a crowd of inmates from a local asylum, and a doctor with secrets of his own. Following a tryout period in Philadelphia, "Anyone Can Whistle" opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway on April 4, 1964. The show received widely varied reviews (including negative notices from the "New York Times" and the "New York Herald Tribune"), and closed after a run of twelve previews and nine performances. The show's original run marked the stage musical debut of Angela Lansbury. In the decades since its closing, "Anyone Can Whistle" has seen relatively few productions compared to other Sondheim musicals; notable productions include a 1995 concert version at Carnegie Hall, a pair of stagings in London and Los Angeles in 2003 that incorporated revisions, and a 2010 concert staging for the Encores! program at New York City Center. However, its score has become acclaimed as a part of Sondheim's canon, and songs such as the title tune ("Anyone Can Whistle"), "Everybody Says Don't", and "There Won't Be Trumpets" have been performed widely.
Background. The show was first announced in "The New York Times" on October 5, 1961: "For the winter of 1962, [Arthur Laurents] is nurturing another musical project, "The Natives Are Restless". The narrative and staging will be Mr. Laurent's handiwork; music and lyrics that of Stephen Sondheim. A meager description was furnished by Mr. Laurents, who refused to elaborate. Although the title might indicate otherwise, it is indigenous in content and contemporary in scope. No producer yet." No news of the show appeared until July 14, 1963, in an article in "The New York Times" about Kermit Bloomgarden, where it discussed the four shows he was producing for the coming season; two were maybes, two were definite. One of the latter was a Sondheim-Laurents musical (now named "Side Show"). In a letter to Bloomgarden, Laurents wrote, "I beg you not to mention the money problems or any difficulties to Steve anymore. It depresses him terribly and makes it terribly difficult for him to work...It is damn hard to concentrate...when all the atmosphere is filled with gloom and forebodings about will the show get the money to go on?...Spare him the gory details." This behavior was considered unusual for Laurents, who did not have a reputation for kindness. Sondheim discovered that Laurents hated doing backers' auditions and he took over that responsibility, playing and singing more than 30. They found 115 investors to back the $350,000 production, including Richard Rodgers and Sondheim's father.
Eager to work with both Laurents and Sondheim, Angela Lansbury accepted the lead role as Mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, despite her strong misgivings about the script and her ability to handle the score. Also signed were Lee Remick as Nurse Fay Apple and Harry Guardino as Hapgood. Laurents had wanted Barbra Streisand for the role of Fay, but she turned it down to star in "Funny Girl". Following rehearsals in New York City, the company started pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia from March 2 to 21, 1964. Laurents, ignoring criticism about the show's message being trite and its absurdist style difficult to comprehend, poured his energies into restaging rather than dealing with the crux of the problem. The show suffered further setbacks when supporting actor Henry Lascoe, who played Comptroller Schub, suffered a heart attack during the show's out-of-town tryout, and was replaced by Gabriel Dell. According to Sondheim, "Lansbury was so insecure onstage, and unhappy with her performance, that we considered replacing her. Ironically, it soon became apparent that it had been Lascoe, an old pro...who had made her feel like an amateur. The minute his much less confident understudy took over, she felt free to blossom, which she spectacularly did." Sondheim called the reviews "humiliating" and the audiences "hostile."
Productions. After multiple revisions, the show opened on Broadway on April 4, 1964, at the Majestic Theatre, where it closed after 9 performances and 12 previews, unable to overcome negative notices from major papers such as the "New York Times" and the "New York Herald Tribune". Scenic design was by William and Jean Eckart, costume design by Theoni V. Aldredge, and lighting design by Jules Fisher. Choreographer Herbert Ross received the show's sole Tony Award nomination. The show became a cult favorite, and a truncated recording by the original cast released by Columbia Records sold well among Sondheim fans and musical theater buffs. "There Won't Be Trumpets," a song cut during previews, has become a favorite of cabaret performers. On April 8, 1995, a staged concert was held at Carnegie Hall in New York City as a benefit for the Gay Men's Health Crisis. The concert was recorded by Columbia Records, preserving for the first time musical passages and numbers not included on the recording by the original Broadway cast. For example, the cut song "There's Always a Woman" was included at this concert. Lansbury served as narrator, with Madeline Kahn as Cora, Bernadette Peters as Fay, and Scott Bakula as Hapgood. Additional cast included Chip Zien, Ken Page, and Harvey Evans, the only cast member from the original show to reprise his role.
In 2003, Sony reissued the original Broadway cast recording on compact disc. Two revivals were staged that year: one in London at the Bridewell Theatre and one in Los Angeles at the Matrix Theatre. The Ravinia Festival presented a staged concert on August 26 and 27, 2005, with Audra McDonald (Fay), Michael Cerveris (Hapgood) and Patti LuPone (Cora). On January 11, 2008, Talk Is Free Theatre presented the Canadian professional premiere (in concert) at the Gryphon Theatre in Barrie, Ontario, with a fundraiser performance on January 13 at the Diesel Playhouse in Toronto, Ontario. It starred Adam Brazier as Hapgood, Kate Hennig as Cora, Blythe Wilson as Fay, and Richard Ouzounian as Narrator, who also served as director. Choreography was by Sam Strasfeld. Additional cast included Juan Chioran as Comptroller Schub, Jonathan Monro as Treasurer Cooley, and Mark Harapiak as Chief Magruder. Musical direction was provided by Wayne Gwillim. Encores! presented a staged concert from April 8 through April 11, 2010, with Sutton Foster as Nurse Fay Apple, Donna Murphy as Mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, and Raul Esparza as Hapgood, with direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw. The production was the second most attended in "Encores!" history, and Stephen Sondheim was present at the post-matinee talkback on April 10.
A London production of "Anyone can Whistle" opened at the Jermyn Street Studio Theatre, London, in association with Primavera Productions, running from March 10, 2010, to April 17, 2010. The director is Tom Littler, with Musical Director Tom Attwood, and a cast that includes Issy van Randwyck (Mayoress), Rosalie Craig (Nurse Fay Apple) and David Ricardo-Pearce (Hapgood). Porchlight Music Theatre presented "Anyone Can Whistle" in 2013 as a part of "Porchlight Revisits" series, in which it staged three forgotten musicals per year. It was directed by Christopher Pazdernik and music directed by Aaron Benham. A new production directed by Phil Willmott opened at the Union Theatre in London, running from February 8 through March 11, 2017. A concert presentation of the show was presented by MasterVoices, under the direction and baton of Ted Sperling, on March 10, 2022, at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This production featured Vanessa Williams (Cora Hoover Hooper), Santino Fontana (J. Bowden Hapgood), Elizabeth Stanley (Fay Apple), Douglas Sills (Comptroller Schub), Eddie Cooper (Treasurer Cooley), and Michael Mulheren (Police Chief Magruder). Joanna Gleason served as the narrator for the event
IN 2022, a new production of the show ran at the Southwark Playhouse in London under the direction of Georgie Rankcom, with musical direction by Natalie Pound and choreography by Lisa Stevens. The show's cast featured Alex Young as Cora Hoover Hooper, Chrystine Symone as Nurse Fay Apple, and Jordan Broatch as J. Bowden Hapgood. This production was the largest staged version of the show since its debut on Broadway in 1964. Plot. Act One. The story is set in an imaginary American town that has gone bankrupt. (Its former major industry was an unidentified product that never wore out. Everyone has one now, and no one needs a replacement.) The only place in town doing good business is the local mental asylum, known as "The Cookie Jar", whose inmates look much healthier than the disgruntled townspeople ("I'm Like the Bluebird"). All the money is in the hands of Cora Hoover Hooper, the stylish, ruthless mayoress and her croniesComptroller Schub, Treasurer Cooley, and Police Chief Magruder.
the stylish, ruthless mayoress and her croniesComptroller Schub, Treasurer Cooley, and Police Chief Magruder. At the rock, a local mother, Mrs. Schroeder, tries to tell her child, Baby Joan, to come down from the rock, when Baby Joan licks itand a spring of water begins flowing from it. The town instantly proclaims a miracle, and Cora and her council eagerly anticipate tourist dollars as they boast of the water's curative powers ("Miracle Song"). It is soon revealed to Cora that the miracle is a fake, controlled by a pump inside the rock. The only person in town who doubts the miracle is Fay Apple, a skeptical but idealistic young nurse from the Cookie Jar. She appears at the rock with all forty-nine of the inmates, or "Cookies" in tow, intending to let them take some of the water. Schub realizes that if they drink the water and remain insane, people will discover the fraud. As he tries to stop Fay, the inmates mingle with the townspeople, until no one can guess who is who. Fay disappears, and hiding from the police, admits that she hopes for a hero to deliver the town Cora and her lackeys ("There Won't Be Trumpets"). Cora arrives on the scene with the Cookie Jar's manager, Dr.
Fay disappears, and hiding from the police, admits that she hopes for a hero to deliver the town Cora and her lackeys ("There Won't Be Trumpets"). Cora arrives on the scene with the Cookie Jar's manager, Dr. Detmold, who says that Fay has taken the records to identify the inmates. He tells Cora that he is expecting a new assistant who might help them. At that moment a mysterious stranger, J. Bowden Hapgood, arrives asking for directions to the Cookie Jar. He is instantly taken for the new assistant. Asked to identify the missing Cookies, Hapgood begins questioning random people and sorting them into two groups, group A, and group one, without divulging which group is the sane one. The town council becomes suspicious, but Hapgood simply questions them until they begin to doubt their own sanity. Cora is too caught up with his logic to care ("Simple"). As the extended musical sequence ends, the lights black out except for a spotlight on Hapgood, who announces to the audience, "You are all mad!" Seconds later, the stage lights are restored, and the cast is revealed in theater seats, holding programs, applauding the audience, as the act ends.
Act Two. The two groups are now in a bitter rivalry over which is the sane group ("A-1 March"). Another stranger, a French woman in a feathered coat appears. It is really Fay Apple in disguise. She introduces herself as the Lady from Lourdes, a professional Miracle Inspector, who has come to investigate the miracle. As Schub runs off to warn Cora, Fay seeks out Hapgood in his hotel, and the two seduce each other in the style of a French romantic film ("Come Play Wiz Me"). Fay tries to get Hapgood's help in exposing the miracle. Hapgood, however, sees through her disguise and wants to question her first. Fay refuses to take her wig off and confesses to him that this disguise, leftover from a college play, is the only way she can break out of her shell. She begins to hope, however, that Hapgood may be the one who can help her learn to be free ("Anyone Can Whistle"). Meanwhile, the two groups continue to march, and Cora, trying to give a speech, realizes that Hapgood has stolen her limelight ("A Parade in Town"). She and Schub plan an emergency meeting at her house. Back at the hotel, Hapgood comes up with an idea, telling Fay to destroy the Cookies' records, so both they and Fay can be free. When Fay is reluctant, Hapgood produces a record of his ownhe is her fiftieth Cookie. He is a practicing idealist who, after years of attempted heroism, is tired of crusading and has come to the Cookie Jar to retire. Inspired by his record, Fay begins to tear the records up. As she does, the Cookies appear and begin to dance ("Everybody Says Don't").
Act Three. Cora is at her house with her council. Schub has put the miracle on hiatus but announces that they can easily pin the blame on Hapgood. The group celebrates their alliance ("I've Got You to Lean On"). A mob forms outside the hotel, and Hapgood and Fay, still disguised, take refuge under the rock. Discovering the fraud, Cora and the council confront them. At that moment, Cora receives a telegram from the governor warning that if the quota of 49 cookies is not filled, she will be impeached. Schub tells her that since Hapgood never said who is sane or not, they can arrest anyone at random until the quota is filled. Hapgood refuses to help Fay stop the Mayoress since he has given up crusading. Although she knows she still isn't out of her shell, Fay angrily swears to go it alone ("See What it Gets You"). As Cora and the police force begin rounding up Cookies, Fay tries to get the key to the wagon from the guards in an extended ballet sequence ("The Cookie Chase"). As it ends, Fay is captured, and Dr. Detmold recognizes her.
Although she knows she still isn't out of her shell, Fay angrily swears to go it alone ("See What it Gets You"). As Cora and the police force begin rounding up Cookies, Fay tries to get the key to the wagon from the guards in an extended ballet sequence ("The Cookie Chase"). As it ends, Fay is captured, and Dr. Detmold recognizes her. Fay tells the townspeople about the fake miracle, but the town refuses to believe her. Detmold tells Cora that even without the records, Fay can identify the inmates from memory. Cora warns that she will arrest forty-nine people, normal or not, and Fay, helplessly, identifies all the Cookies, except Hapgood. She tells him the world needs people like him, and Hapgood can't turn himself in. He asks Fay to come with him, but she still can't bring herself to break free. They regretfully part ways ("With So Little to Be Sure Of"). Word comes of a new miracle from the town beyond the valley, of a statue with a warm heart, and the townspeople, including Magruder and Cooley, rush off to see if it is real.
They regretfully part ways ("With So Little to Be Sure Of"). Word comes of a new miracle from the town beyond the valley, of a statue with a warm heart, and the townspeople, including Magruder and Cooley, rush off to see if it is real. Soon the town is all but deserted, and Cora is alone again. Again, Schub has the answerthey can turn the entire town into one big Cookie Jar. Cora realizes she and Schub are meant for each other, and they dance off together. As Fay resumes work, Detmold's real new assistant Jane Borden Osgood arrives, and Fay is horrified to realize that she is even more rigid and disbelieving than Fay herself, and the new nurse marches the Cookies off to the next town to disprove the new miracle. Horrified at seeing what she might become, Fay returns to the rock calling for Hapgood. When he doesn't answer, she tries to whistleand succeeds in blowing a shrill, ugly whistle. Hapgood appears again, saying, "That's good enough for me." As they embrace, the water begins flowing from the rocka true miracle this time ("Finale").
Musical numbers. Notes Critical response. Howard Taubman in his "The New York Times" review wrote that Laurents's "book lacks the fantasy that would make the idea work, and his staging has not improved matters. Mr. Sondheim has written several pleasing songs but not enough of them to give the musical wings. The performers yell rather than talk and run rather than walk. The dancing is the cream." Steven Suskin wrote in his 2000 book about Broadway composers: The "fascinating extended musical scenes, with extended choral work... immediately marked Sondheim as the most distinctive theatre composer of his time. The first act sanity sequence... and the third act chase... are unlike anything that came before." Stuart King writing for London Box Office (April 2022) noted: "Southwark Playhouse (with Guildford graduate Georgie Rankcom at the directorial helm for this gender-fluid production) has resurrected the piece for a short run — just in time for Easter! But the burning question on Press Night was whether or not the cult 60s show would need a miracle to find a new, modern fan base, OR, have the subjects of political corruption, sexual identity and mental wellbeing potentially given the fundamentally flawed piece new meaning for a young and previously unfamiliar audience? This reviewer’s answer would be that it will almost certainly depend entirely on who you are, how you identify (if indeed you bother with such matters), whether corruption in public office bothers you (why wouldn’t it?) and probably most significantly of all, whether you consider yourself a Sondheim purist/aficionado/devotee."
Alcopop An alcopop (or cooler) is a category of mixed alcoholic beverages with relatively low alcohol content (e.g., 3–7% alcohol by volume), including: The term "alcopop" (a portmanteau of the words "alcohol" and "pop") is used commonly in the United Kingdom and Ireland to describe these drinks. In English-speaking Canada, "cooler" is more common but "alcopop" may also be used. Other terms include flavored alcoholic beverage (FAB), flavored malt beverage (FMB), "pre-packaged" or "premium packaged" spirit (PPS). In Australia and New Zealand "premix" and ready to drink (RTD) are both commonly used terms. "Spirit cooler" is used in South Africa for distilled alcohol versions. Hard seltzer is a related category of alcoholic drinks based on flavored seltzer water. Hard soda, meanwhile, is specifically related to soft drinks. Hard lemonade, which could be considered an alcopop, has been around for some time. Hard cider, on the other hand, is a fermented beverage similar to wine or beer. Description.
History. Wine coolers gained popularity in the US market in the 1980s when Bartles and Jaymes began advertising their brand of wine coolers, which were followed by other brands, including when Bacardi introduced the Breezer. A growth in popularity occurred around 1993 with Two Dogs, DNA Alcoholic Spring Water, Hooper's Hooch and Zima, which was marketed under the title of "malternative beverage." Wine coolers were on the decline due to the increase in the US federal wine tax, and using a malt-beverage base became the new industry standard. Later, Mike's Hard Lemonade was released in the United States, with humorous commercials depicting what they called "violence against lemons". Smirnoff also came out with another citrus-flavored malt beverage in the United States in the late 1990s called Smirnoff Ice, which promoted itself with flashy commercials, usually involving trendy young people dancing in unlikely situations and places. (In the UK, Smirnoff Ice is marketed by Diageo as a PPS.) Through its Alcopop-Free Zone® campaign, " Alcohol Justice has sought to ban alcopop sales entirely since the sweet and brightly colored alcoholic drinks may appeal to children. Many cooler advertising campaigns have been criticized as trying to make alcopops appeal to young drinkers. In the United Kingdom, a media outcry during the mid-1990s arose as the tabloid press associated alcopops with under-age drinking which damaged sales and led to British liquor stores withdrawing them from their shelves.
In response to a complaint from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conducted an extensive investigation in 2001. The agency "found no evidence of intent to target minors with FMB products, packaging, or advertising. Furthermore, after reviewing the consumer survey evidence submitted by CSPI in support of the proposition that FMBs were predominantly popular with minors, the FTC concluded that flaws in the survey's methodology limited the ability to draw conclusions from the survey data." The Federal Trade Commission again in 2003 investigated FMB ads, product placement, and internal company marketing documents after a directive from the conferees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. "The Commission's investigation found no evidence of targeting underage consumers in the marketing of FMBs. Adults 21 to 29 appear to be the intended target of FMB marketing" and found that "the majority of FMB drinkers are over the age of 27." In December 2003, Ireland raised the tax on flavored malt beverages to equal that of spirits, the second-highest in Europe. Germany has imposed an extra duty of 0.80 to 0.90 euro per bottle effective August 1, 2004. To circumvent higher taxation, some German producers have switched to wine coolers, which are being marketed the same way. Some bottles now carry a warning stating that they are not for consumption by people under the legal drinking age (under 18 in the UK and 21 in the United States). On May 11, 2008, the Australian Government increased the excise tax on alcopops by 70%, to bring it in line with the tax on spirits. There is the concern this tax will encourage consumers to buy straight spirits and mix the drinks themselves, possibly resulting in drinks with a higher alcohol concentration than the premixed alternatives. This tax was revoked during March 2009 meaning the government had to pay back the 290 million collected on the tax.
The Federal Trade Commission report states, "Further, industry-conducted research on consumers over the age of 21 who use FMBs shows that these consumers generally view the FMBs as substitutes for beer, ... This research also concludes that consumers are not likely to consume more than two or three FMBs on any occasion because of the products' sweetness. In March 2018, Coca-Cola announced it would be launching an alcopop product for the first time, a "chūhai" beverage in Japan. Brands. Brands of coolers are numerous and their alcoholic base vary greatly. Some notable brands include: VK, Smirnoff Ice, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Bacardi Breezer, Palm Bay, Skyy Blue, Jack Daniel's Hard Cola and, in the UK, WKD Original Vodka. Garage is an alcopop produced by the Finnish brewery Sinebrychoff. Health concerns. Alcohol-based sugar-sweetened beverages like alcopop, are closely linked to episodic drinking in adolescents. Attempts to discourage. Australia. The Australian government increased the tax on these drinks under the 2008 budget to the same rate as spirits, volumetrically, in an effort to stop binge drinking. The tax was criticized by the opposition as a tax grab, and voted down in the Senate on March 18, 2009. Before its rejection, the tax had already raised at least A$290 million after April 2008. In April 2009, some Labor party MPs planned to resubmit the tax to the Senate, and it was finally approved in August 2009, increasing the tax on the drinks from $39.36 to $66.67 per litre of alcohol. A 2013 study concluded that the tax had no impact on binge drinking of the drinks by teenagers.
Germany. On 1 July 2004 the German government increased the tax on mixed drinks based on spirits (e.g. vodka, rum) by roughly one Euro per 275-ml-bottle in order to discourage teenagers drinking excessively, although those drinks were already prohibited for those under the age of 18. This had two implications: The most common alcopops, such as Smirnoff Ice or Bacardi Breezer, were nearly taken off the market, while other manufacturers changed the recipes of their drinks to replace spirit alcohols with wine or beer, but with the same ABV, enabling these mixed drinks (which are not "alcopops" under German law) to be sold legally to minors 16 and 17 years of age. Philippines. In 2019, some senators including Pia Cayetano and former Special Assistant to the President Bong Go called for pullout of alcopops from the market due to "deceptive packaging that resembles fruit juices usually bought by young consumers". Alcopops also have seven percent alcohol content, which is slightly lower than that of local beer brand Red Horse Beer.
Sweden. Systembolaget blocked the sale of alcoholic soft drinks in Sweden until mid-1996, when Alkoholsortimentsnämnden decided, with reference to Treaty of Rome Article 30, that Systembolaget could not refuse to sell certain products. This led to great debate, where the marketing of the alcoholic soft drink was considered to be aimed above all at young people. After initially great sales successes, the popularity has now declined, and many of the alcoholic drinks' market shares have been taken over by sweeter varieties of cider that share many characteristics with the soft drink but have been fermented to their alcoholic strength. United Kingdom. In June 1997, Co-op Food became the first major retailer to place an outright ban on the sale of alcopops in its shops. This has since been revoked.
Alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from the Arabic word , ) is a basic, ionic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a soluble base has a pH greater than 7.0. The adjective alkaline, and less often, alkalescent, is commonly used in English as a synonym for basic, especially for bases soluble in water. This broad use of the term is likely to have come about because alkalis were the first bases known to obey the Arrhenius definition of a base, and they are still among the most common bases. Etymology. The word "alkali" is derived from Arabic "al qalīy" (or "alkali"), meaning (see calcination), referring to the original source of alkaline substances. A water-extract of burned plant ashes, called potash and composed mostly of potassium carbonate, was mildly basic. After heating this substance with calcium hydroxide ("slaked lime"), a far more strongly basic substance known as "caustic potash" (potassium hydroxide) was produced. Caustic potash was traditionally used in conjunction with animal fats to produce soft soaps, one of the caustic processes that rendered soaps from fats in the process of saponification, one known since antiquity. Plant potash lent the name to the element potassium, which was first derived from caustic potash, and also gave potassium its chemical symbol K (from the German name ), which ultimately derived from alkali.
Common properties of alkalis and bases. Alkalis are all Arrhenius bases, ones which form hydroxide ions (OH−) when dissolved in water. Common properties of alkaline aqueous solutions include: Difference between alkali and base. The terms "base" and "alkali" are often used interchangeably, particularly outside the context of chemistry and chemical engineering. There are various, more specific definitions for the concept of an alkali. Alkalis are usually defined as a subset of the bases. One of two subsets is commonly chosen. The second subset of bases is also called an "Arrhenius base". Alkali salts. Alkali salts are soluble hydroxides of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals, of which common examples are: Alkaline soil. Soils with pH values that are higher than 7.3 are usually defined as being alkaline. These soils can occur naturally due to the presence of alkali salts. Although many plants do prefer slightly basic soil (including vegetables like cabbage and fodder like buffalo grass), most plants prefer mildly acidic soil (with pHs between 6.0 and 6.8), and alkaline soils can cause problems. Alkali lakes. In alkali lakes (also called "soda lakes"), evaporation concentrates the naturally occurring carbonate salts, giving rise to an alkalic and often saline lake. Examples of alkali lakes:
Ain't I a Woman? (book) Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism is a 1981 book by bell hooks titled after Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech. hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s. She argues that the convergence of sexism and racism during slavery contributed to Black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in American society. White female abolitionists and suffragists were often more comfortable with Black male abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, while southern segregationalists and stereotypes of Black female promiscuity and immorality caused protests whenever Black women spoke. Hooks points out that these white female reformers were more concerned with white morality than the conditions these morals caused Black Americans. Further, she argues that the stereotypes that were set during slavery still affect Black women today. She argued that slavery allowed white society to stereotype white women as the pure goddess virgin and move Black women to the seductive whore stereotype formerly placed on all women, thus justifying the devaluation of Black femininity and rape of Black women. The work which Black women have been forced to perform, either in slavery or in a discriminatory workplace, that would be non-gender conforming for white women has been used against Black women as a proof of their emasculating behavior. hooks argues that Black nationalism was largely a patriarchal and misogynist movement, seeking to overcome racial divisions by strengthening sexist ones, and that it readily latched onto the idea of the emasculating Black matriarch proposed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose theories bell hooks often criticizes.
Meanwhile, she says, the "feminist movement", a largely white middle and upper class affair, did not articulate the needs of poor and non-white women, thus reinforcing sexism, racism, and classism. She suggests this explains the low numbers of Black women who participated in the feminist movement in the 1970s, pointing to Louis Harris' Virginia Slims poll done in 1972 for Philip Morris that she says showed 62 percent of Black women supported "efforts to change women's status" and 67 percent "sympathized with the women's rights movement", compared with 45 and 35 percent of white women (also Steinem, 1972). Reception. Since its publication, "Ain't I a Woman" has been critically acclaimed as groundbreaking in the study of feminist theory for discussing the correlation between the history of oppression Black women have faced in the United States and its lingering effects in modern American society. "Ain't I a Woman" is praised for tackling the intersection of race and gender that marginalizes Black women. hooks' writing has also opened the door for other Black women to write and theorize about similar topics. The book is commonly used in gender studies, Black studies, and philosophy courses.
The work has led to some criticism of her being "ahistorical, unscholarly (there were many complaints about the absence of footnotes), and homophobic". She does not provide a bibliography for any of her work, making it difficult to find the editors and publication information for the pieces listed under the "notes" section of her work. In "Theory as Liberatory Practice," hooks explains that her lack of conventional academic format was "motivated by the desire to be inclusive, to reach as many readers as possible in as many different locations as possible". In a book review of hooks' "Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work," Nicole Abraham criticizes hooks' unconventional format rationalization. Abraham suggests that, if her rationalization for not providing footnotes and bibliographic information in her writing is that it will help her reach a broader, presumably less academic audience, hooks either assumes that the average person is uninterested in pursuing her sources and ideas or implies that her readers are too lazy or unsophisticated for proper endnotes.
AMOS (programming language) AMOS BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language for the Amiga computer. Following on from the successful STOS BASIC for the Atari ST, AMOS BASIC was written for the Amiga by François Lionet with Constantin Sotiropoulos and published by Europress Software in 1990. The language was notable for its focus on media and game development capabilities, allowing users to easily create demanding multimedia software and games. It featured full structured code and numerous high-level functions for loading and manipulating images, animations, and sounds. These capabilities made it a popular choice among Amiga enthusiasts, particularly beginners, for creating video games (especially platformers and graphical adventures), multimedia applications, and educational software. History. AMOS competed on the Amiga platform with Acid Software's Blitz BASIC. Both BASICs differed from other dialects on different platforms, in that they allowed the easy creation of fairly demanding multimedia software, with full structured code and many high-level functions to load images, animations, sounds and display them in various ways.
The original AMOS was a BASIC interpreter which, whilst working fine, suffered the same disadvantages of any language being run interpretively. By all accounts, AMOS was extremely fast among interpreted languages, being speedy enough that an extension called AMOS 3D could produce playable 3D games even on plain 7 MHz 68000 Amigas. Later, an AMOS compiler was developed that further increased speed. AMOS could also run MC68000 machine code, loaded into a program's memory banks. To simplify animation of sprites, AMOS included the AMOS Animation Language (AMAL), a compiled sprite scripting language which runs independently of the main AMOS BASIC program. It was also possible to control screen and "rainbow" effects using AMAL scripts. AMAL scripts in effect created CopperLists, small routines executed by the Amiga's Agnus chip. After the original version of AMOS, Europress released a compiler (AMOS Compiler), and two other versions of the language: Easy AMOS, a simpler version for beginners, and AMOS Professional, a more advanced version with added features, such as a better integrated development environment, ARexx support, a new user interface API and new flow control constructs. Neither of these new versions was significantly more popular than the original AMOS.
AMOS was used mostly to make multimedia software, video games (platformers and graphical adventures) and educational software. The language was mildly successful within the Amiga community. Its ease of use made it especially attractive to beginners. One of AMOS BASIC's disadvantages, stemming from its Atari ST lineage, was its incompatibility with the Amiga's operating system functions and interfaces. Instead, AMOS BASIC controlled the computer directly, which caused programs written in it to have a non-standard user interface, and also caused compatibility problems with newer versions of hardware. Today, the language has declined in popularity along with the Amiga computer for which it was written. Despite this, a small community of enthusiasts are still using it. The source code to AMOS was released around 2001 under a BSD style license by Clickteam, a company that includes the original programmer. Software. Software written using AMOS BASIC includes:
Arcadia 2001 The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit home video game console released by Emerson Radio in May 1982 for a price of US$99, several months before the release of ColecoVision. It was discontinued only 18 months later, with a total of 35 games having been released. Emerson licensed the Arcadia 2001 to Bandai, which released it in Japan. Over 30 Arcadia 2001 clones exist despite the system being a commercial failure. The unrelated Arcadia Corporation, manufacturer of the Supercharger add-on for the Atari 2600, was sued by Emerson for trademark infringement. Arcadia Corporation then changed its name to Starpath. Description. The Arcadia is much smaller than its contemporary competitors and is powered by a standard 12 volt power supply so it can be used in a boat or a vehicle. It has two headphone jacks on the far left and right sides of the back. The system came with two Intellivision-style controllers with a 12-button keypad and "fire" buttons on the sides. The direction pads have a removable joystick attachment. Most games came with BoPET overlays that can be applied to the controller's keypads. The console itself has five buttons: Power, Start, Reset, Option, and Select.
There are at least three different cartridge case styles and artwork, with variations on each. Emerson-family cartridges come in two different lengths (short and long) of black plastic cases. Console variants and clones. Many variants and clones of the Arcadia 2001 have been released by various companies in different countries. These systems are mostly compatible with each other. In 1982, the Bandai Arcadia was released only in Japan. Four exclusive games were released for the system. Bandai Arcadia. In 1982, the Bandai Arcadia, a variant of the Emerson Arcadia 2001, was licensed and distributed to Japan by Bandai for a price of 19,800 yen. There were four Japan-exclusive games released by Bandai. Reception. After seeing the Arcadia 2001 at the summer 1982 Consumer Electronics Show, Danny Goodman of "Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games" reported that its graphics were similar to the Atari 2600's, and that "our overall impression of the game play was favorable for a system in this price range, though no cartridge stands out as being an exciting original creation". He called the controller offering both Intellivision-like disc and joystick functionality "A great idea".
Games. Emerson planned to launch the console with 19 games. Some Arcadia 2001 games are ports of lesser-known arcade games such as "Route 16", "Jungler", and "Jump Bug", which were not available on other home systems. Emerson actually created many popular arcade titles including "Pac-Man", "Galaxian" and "Defender" for the Arcadia, but never had them manufactured as Atari started to sue its competitor companies for releasing games to which it had exclusive-rights agreements. Early marketing showed popular arcade games, but they were later released as clones. For instance, the Arcadia 2001 game "Space Raiders" is a clone of "Defender", and "Breakaway" is a clone of "Breakout". Released games. There are 47 games known to have been released for the Arcadia 2001 and its clones. Bandai Arcadia Only. See here
Convex uniform honeycomb In geometry, a convex uniform honeycomb is a uniform tessellation which fills three-dimensional Euclidean space with non-overlapping convex uniform polyhedral cells. Twenty-eight such honeycombs are known: They can be considered the three-dimensional analogue to the uniform tilings of the plane. The Voronoi diagram of any lattice forms a convex uniform honeycomb in which the cells are zonohedra. History. Only 14 of the convex uniform polyhedra appear in these patterns: The icosahedron, snub cube, and square antiprism appear in some alternations, but those honeycombs cannot be realised with all edges unit length. Names. This set can be called the regular and semiregular honeycombs. It has been called the Archimedean honeycombs by analogy with the convex uniform (non-regular) polyhedra, commonly called Archimedean solids. Recently Conway has suggested naming the set as the Architectonic tessellations and the dual honeycombs as the Catoptric tessellations. The individual honeycombs are listed with names given to them by Norman Johnson. (Some of the terms used below are defined in Uniform 4-polytope#Geometric derivations for 46 nonprismatic Wythoffian uniform 4-polytopes)
For cross-referencing, they are given with list indices from Andreini (1-22), Williams(1–2,9-19), Johnson (11–19, 21–25, 31–34, 41–49, 51–52, 61–65), and Grünbaum(1-28). Coxeter uses δ4 for a cubic honeycomb, hδ4 for an alternated cubic honeycomb, qδ4 for a quarter cubic honeycomb, with subscripts for other forms based on the ring patterns of the Coxeter diagram. Compact Euclidean uniform tessellations (by their infinite Coxeter group families). The fundamental infinite Coxeter groups for 3-space are: There is a correspondence between all three families. Removing one mirror from formula_1 produces formula_2, and removing one mirror from formula_2 produces formula_3. This allows multiple constructions of the same honeycombs. If cells are colored based on unique positions within each Wythoff construction, these different symmetries can be shown. In addition there are 5 special honeycombs which don't have pure reflectional symmetry and are constructed from reflectional forms with "elongation" and "gyration" operations.
The total unique honeycombs above are 18. The prismatic stacks from infinite Coxeter groups for 3-space are: In addition there is one special "elongated" form of the triangular prismatic honeycomb. The total unique prismatic honeycombs above (excluding the cubic counted previously) are 10. Combining these counts, 18 and 10 gives us the total 28 uniform honeycombs. The C̃3, [4,3,4] group (cubic). The regular cubic honeycomb, represented by Schläfli symbol {4,3,4}, offers seven unique derived uniform honeycombs via truncation operations. (One redundant form, the "runcinated cubic honeycomb", is included for completeness though identical to the cubic honeycomb.) The reflectional symmetry is the affine Coxeter group [4,3,4]. There are four index 2 subgroups that generate alternations: [1+,4,3,4], [(4,3,4,2+)], [4,3+,4], and [4,3,4]+, with the first two generated repeated forms, and the last two are nonuniform. B̃3, [4,31,1] group. The formula_2, [4,3] group offers 11 derived forms via truncation operations, four being unique uniform honeycombs. There are 3 index 2 subgroups that generate alternations: [1+,4,31,1], [4,(31,1)+], and [4,31,1]+. The first generates repeated honeycomb, and the last two are nonuniform but included for completeness.
The honeycombs from this group are called "alternated cubic" because the first form can be seen as a "cubic honeycomb" with alternate vertices removed, reducing cubic cells to tetrahedra and creating octahedron cells in the gaps. Nodes are indexed left to right as "0,1,0',3" with 0' being below and interchangeable with "0". The "alternate cubic" names given are based on this ordering. Ã3, [3[4]] group. There are 5 forms constructed from the formula_3, [3[4]] Coxeter group, of which only the "quarter cubic honeycomb" is unique. There is one index 2 subgroup [3[4]]+ which generates the snub form, which is not uniform, but included for completeness. Nonwythoffian forms (gyrated and elongated). Three more uniform honeycombs are generated by breaking one or another of the above honeycombs where its faces form a continuous plane, then rotating alternate layers by 60 or 90 degrees ("gyration") and/or inserting a layer of prisms ("elongation"). The elongated and gyroelongated alternated cubic tilings have the same vertex figure, but are not alike. In the "elongated" form, each prism meets a tetrahedron at one triangular end and an octahedron at the other. In the "gyroelongated" form, prisms that meet tetrahedra at both ends alternate with prisms that meet octahedra at both ends.
The gyroelongated triangular prismatic tiling has the same vertex figure as one of the plain prismatic tilings; the two may be derived from the gyrated and plain triangular prismatic tilings, respectively, by inserting layers of cubes. Prismatic stacks. Eleven prismatic tilings are obtained by stacking the eleven uniform plane tilings, shown below, in parallel layers. (One of these honeycombs is the cubic, shown above.) The vertex figure of each is an irregular bipyramid whose faces are isosceles triangles. The C̃2×Ĩ1(∞), [4,4,2,∞], prismatic group. There are only 3 unique honeycombs from the square tiling, but all 6 tiling truncations are listed below for completeness, and tiling images are shown by colors corresponding to each form. Enumeration of Wythoff forms. All nonprismatic Wythoff constructions by Coxeter groups are given below, along with their alternations. Uniform solutions are indexed with Branko Grünbaum's listing. Green backgrounds are shown on repeated honeycombs, with the relations are expressed in the extended symmetry diagrams.
Examples. The alternated cubic honeycomb is of special importance since its vertices form a cubic close-packing of spheres. The space-filling truss of packed octahedra and tetrahedra was apparently first discovered by Alexander Graham Bell and independently re-discovered by Buckminster Fuller (who called it the octet truss and patented it in the 1940s). . Octet trusses are now among the most common types of truss used in construction. Frieze forms. If cells are allowed to be uniform tilings, more uniform honeycombs can be defined: Families: The first two forms shown above are semiregular (uniform with only regular facets), and were listed by Thorold Gosset in 1900 respectively as the "3-ic semi-check" and "tetroctahedric semi-check". Scaliform honeycomb. A scaliform honeycomb is vertex-transitive, like a "uniform honeycomb", with regular polygon faces while cells and higher elements are only required to be "orbiforms", equilateral, with their vertices lying on hyperspheres. For 3D honeycombs, this allows a subset of Johnson solids along with the uniform polyhedra. Some scaliforms can be generated by an alternation process, leaving, for example, pyramid and cupola gaps.
Hyperbolic forms. There are 9 Coxeter group families of compact uniform honeycombs in hyperbolic 3-space, generated as Wythoff constructions, and represented by ring permutations of the Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams for each family. From these 9 families, there are a total of 76 unique honeycombs generated: Several non-Wythoffian forms outside the list of 76 are known; it is not known how many there are. Paracompact hyperbolic forms. There are also 23 paracompact Coxeter groups of rank 4. These families can produce uniform honeycombs with unbounded facets or vertex figure, including ideal vertices at infinity:
Assassination Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, personal, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are ordered by both individuals and organizations, and are carried out by their accomplices. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin. Etymology. "Assassin" comes from the Italian and French Assissini, believed to derive from the word "hashshashin" (), and shares its etymological roots with "hashish" ( or ; from ""). It referred to a group of Nizari Ismailis known as the Order of Assassins who worked against various political targets. Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the Near East from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The group killed members of the Abbasid, Seljuk, Fatimid, and Christian Crusader elite for political and religious reasons. Although it is commonly believed that members of the Order of Assassins were under the influence of hashish during their killings or during their indoctrination, there is debate as to whether these claims have merit, with many Eastern writers and an increasing number of Western academics coming to believe that drug-taking was not the key feature behind the name.
The term "assassinare" (assassin) was used in Medieval Latin from the mid 13th century. The earliest known use of the verb "to assassinate" in printed English was by Matthew Sutcliffe in "A Briefe Replie to a Certaine Odious and Slanderous Libel, Lately Published by a Seditious Jesuite", a pamphlet printed in 1600, five years before it was used in "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (1605). Use in history. Ancient to medieval times. Assassination is one of the oldest tools of power politics. It dates back at least as far as recorded history. The Egyptian pharaoh Teti, of the Old Kingdom Sixth Dynasty (23rd century BCE), is thought to be the earliest known victim of assassination, though written records are scant and thus evidence is circumstantial. Two further ancient Egyptian monarchs are more explicitly recorded to have been assassinated; Amenemhat I of the Middle Kingdom Twelfth Dynasty (20th century BCE) is recorded to have been assassinated in his bed by his palace guards for reasons unknown (as related in the "Instructions of Amenemhat"); meanwhile contemporary judicial records relate the assassination of New Kingdom Twentieth Dynasty monarch Ramesses III in 1155 BCE as part of a failed coup attempt. Between 550 BC and 330 BC, seven Persian kings of Achaemenid Dynasty were murdered. The Art of War, a 5th-century BC Chinese military treatise mentions tactics of Assassination and its merits.
In the Old Testament, King Joash of Judah was assassinated by his own servants; Joab assassinated Absalom, King David's son; King Sennacherib of Assyria was assassinated by his own sons; and Jael assassinated Sisera. Chanakya (–283 BC) wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise "Arthashastra". His student Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, later made use of assassinations against some of his enemies. Some famous assassination victims are Philip II of Macedon (336 BC), the father of Alexander the Great, and Roman dictator Julius Caesar (44 BC). Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as did many of the Muslim Shia Imams hundreds of years later. Three successive Rashidun caliphs (Umar, Uthman Ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib) were assassinated in early civil conflicts between Muslims. The practice was also well known in ancient China, as in Jing Ke's failed assassination of Qin king Ying Zheng in 227 BC. Whilst many assassinations were performed by individuals or small groups, there were also specialized units who used a collective group of people to perform more than one assassination. The earliest were the sicarii in 6 AD, who predated the Middle Eastern Assassins and Japanese shinobis by centuries.
In the Middle Ages, regicide was rare in Western Europe, but it was a recurring theme in the Eastern Roman Empire. Strangling in the bathtub was the most commonly used method. With the Renaissance, tyrannicide—or assassination for personal or political reasons—became more common again in Western Europe. Modern history. During the 16th and 17th centuries, international lawyers began to voice condemnation of assassinations of leaders. Balthazar Ayala has been described as "the first prominent jurist to condemn the use of assassination in foreign policy". Alberico Gentili condemned assassinations in a 1598 publication where he appealed to the self-interest of leaders: (i) assassinations had adverse short-term consequences by arousing the ire of the assassinated leader's successor, and (ii) assassinations had the adverse long-term consequences of causing disorder and chaos. Hugo Grotius's works on the law of war strictly forbade assassinations, arguing that killing was only permissible on the battlefield. In the modern world, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the propaganda of the deed.
In Japan, a group of assassins called the Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu killed a number of people, including Ii Naosuke who was the head of administration for the Tokugawa shogunate, during the Boshin War. Most of the assassinations in Japan were committed with bladed weaponry, a trait that was carried on into modern history. A video-record exists of the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, using a sword. In 1895, a group of Japanese assassins killed the Korean queen (and posthumously empress) Myeongseong. In the United States, from 1865 to 1963, four presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy—died at the hands of assassins. There have been at least 20 known attempts on U.S. presidents' lives. In Austria, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg was carried out in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist. He is blamed for igniting World War I. Reinhard Heydrich died after an attack by British-trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in Operation Anthropoid, and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the United States to carry out a targeted attack, killing Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto while he was travelling by plane.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph Stalin's NKVD carried out numerous assassinations outside of the Soviet Union, such as the killings of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Yevhen Konovalets, Ignace Poretsky, Fourth International secretary Rudolf Klement, Leon Trotsky, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership in Catalonia. India's "Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, was shot to death on January 30, 1948, by Nathuram Godse. The African-American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel (now the National Civil Rights Museum) in Memphis, Tennessee. Three years prior, another African-American civil rights activist, Malcolm X, was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965. Cold War and beyond. Most major powers repudiated Cold War assassination tactics, but many allege that was merely a smokescreen for political benefit and that covert and illegal training of assassins continues today, with Russia, Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and other nations accused of engaging in such operations. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new Islamic government of Iran began an international campaign of assassination that lasted into the 1990s. At least 162 killings in 19 countries have been linked to the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The campaign came to an end after the Mykonos restaurant assassinations because a German court publicly implicated senior members of the government and issued arrest warrants for Ali Fallahian, the head of Iranian intelligence. Evidence indicates that Fallahian's personal involvement and individual responsibility for the murders were far more pervasive than his current indictment record represents.
In India, Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi (neither of whom was related to Mahatma Gandhi, who had himself been assassinated in 1948), were assassinated in 1984 and 1991 in what were linked to separatist movements in Punjab and northern Sri Lanka, respectively. In 1994, the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira during the Rwandan Civil War sparked the Rwandan genocide. In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by Yigal Amir, who opposed the Oslo Accords. In Lebanon, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, prompted an investigation by the United Nations. The suggestion in the resulting "Mehlis report" that there was involvement by Syria prompted the Cedar Revolution, which drove Syrian troops out of Lebanon. On 2 September 2022, a 35 year old Brazilian national attempted to assassinate the then vice-president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. However, the attempt was unsuccessful because the assassin's gun jammed.
United States government killing of citizens. In 2012, "The New York Times" revealed that the Obama administration maintained a "kill list" containing terrorism suspects. The list is sometimes referred to as a "disposition matrix," and President Obama made a final decision on whether anyone listed would be killed, without court oversight and without trial. In September 2011, American citizens Anwar Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan were assassinated in Yemen by the United States government via drone strikes. Two weeks later, Awlaki's 16-year-old son, also an American citizen, was killed in a strike targeting Ibrahim al-Banna, a senior operative in Al-Qaeda. Al-Banna was not killed in the strike. Further motivations. As a military and foreign policy doctrine. Assassination for military purposes has long been espoused: Sun Tzu, writing around 500 BC, argued in favor of using assassination in his book "The Art of War". Over 2000 years later, in his book "The Prince", Machiavelli also advises rulers to assassinate enemies whenever possible to prevent them from posing a threat. An army and even a nation might be based upon and around a particularly strong, canny, or charismatic leader, whose loss could paralyze the ability of both to make war.
For similar and additional reasons, assassination has also sometimes been used in the conduct of foreign policy. The costs and benefits of such actions are difficult to compute. It may not be clear whether the assassinated leader gets replaced with a more or less competent successor, whether the assassination provokes ire in the state in question, whether the assassination leads to souring domestic public opinion, and whether the assassination provokes condemnation from third-parties. One study found that perceptual biases held by leaders often negatively affect decision making in that area, and decisions to go forward with assassinations often reflect the vague hope that any successor might be better. In both military and foreign policy assassinations, there is the risk that the target could be replaced by an even more competent leader, or that such a killing (or a failed attempt) will prompt the masses to contemn the killers and support the leader's cause more strongly. Faced with particularly brilliant leaders, that possibility has in various instances been risked, such as in the attempts to kill the Athenian Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War. A number of additional examples from World War II show how assassination was used as a tool:
Use of assassination has continued in more recent conflicts: As a tool of insurgents. Insurgent groups have often employed assassination as a tool to further their causes. Assassinations provide several functions for such groups: the removal of specific enemies and as propaganda tools to focus the attention of media and politics on their cause. The Irish Republican Army guerrillas in 1919 to 1921 killed many Royal Irish Constabulary Police intelligence officers during the Irish War of Independence. Michael Collins set up a special unit, the Squad, for that purpose, which had the effect of intimidating many policemen into resigning from the force. The Squad's activities peaked with the killing of 14 British agents in Dublin on Bloody Sunday in 1920. The tactic was used again by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1969–1998). Assassination of unionist politicians and activists was one of a number of methods used in the Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997. The IRA also attempted to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by bombing the Conservative Party Conference in a Brighton hotel. Loyalist paramilitaries retaliated by killing Catholics at random and assassinating Irish nationalist politicians.
Basque separatists ETA in Spain assassinated many security and political figures since the late 1960s, notably the president of the Francoist government of Spain, Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco Grandee of Spain, in 1973. In the early 1990s, it also began to target academics, journalists and local politicians who publicly disagreed with it. The Red Brigades in Italy carried out assassinations of political figures and, to a lesser extent, so did the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 1970s and the 1980s. In the Vietnam War, communist insurgents routinely assassinated government officials and individual civilians deemed to offend or rival the revolutionary movement. Such attacks, along with widespread military activity by insurgent bands, almost brought the Ngo Dinh Diem regime to collapse before the US intervened. Psychology. A major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that most prospective assassins spend copious amounts of time planning and preparing for their attempts. Assassinations are thus rarely "impulsive" actions.
However, about 25% of the actual attackers were found to be delusional, a figure that rose to 60% with "near-lethal approachers" (people apprehended before reaching their targets). That shows that while mental instability plays a role in many modern assassinations, the more delusional attackers are less likely to succeed in their attempts. The report also found that around two-thirds of attackers had previously been arrested, not necessarily for related offenses; 44% had a history of serious depression, and 39% had a history of substance abuse. Techniques. Modern methods. With the advent of effective ranged weaponry and later firearms, the position of an assassination target was more precarious. Bodyguards were no longer enough to deter determined killers, who no longer needed to engage directly or even to subvert the guard to kill the leader in question. Moreover, the engagement of targets at greater distances dramatically increased the chances for assassins to survive since they could quickly flee the scene. The first heads of government to be assassinated with a firearm were James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, the regent of Scotland, in 1570, and William the Silent, the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands, in 1584. Gunpowder and other explosives also allowed the use of bombs or even greater concentrations of explosives for deeds requiring a larger touch.
Explosives, especially the car bomb, become far more common in modern history, with grenades and remote-triggered land mines also used, especially in the Middle East and the Balkans; the initial attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand's life was with a grenade. With heavy weapons, the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) has become a useful tool given the popularity of armored cars (discussed below), and Israeli forces have pioneered the use of aircraft-mounted missiles, as well as the innovative use of explosive devices. A sniper with a precision rifle is often used in fictional assassinations; however, certain pragmatic difficulties attend long-range shooting, including finding a hidden shooting position with a clear line of sight, detailed advance knowledge of the intended victim's travel plans, the ability to identify the target at long range, and the ability to score a first-round lethal hit at long range, which is usually measured in hundreds of meters. A dedicated sniper rifle is also expensive, often costing thousands of dollars because of the high level of precision machining and handfinishing required to achieve extreme accuracy.
Despite their comparative disadvantages, handguns are more easily concealable and so are much more commonly used than rifles. Of the 74 principal incidents evaluated in a major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century, 51% were undertaken by a handgun, 30% with a rifle or shotgun, 15% used knives, and 8% explosives (the use of multiple weapons/methods was reported in 16% of all cases). In the case of state-sponsored assassination, poisoning can be more easily denied. Georgi Markov, a dissident from Bulgaria, was assassinated by ricin poisoning. A tiny pellet containing the poison was injected into his leg through a specially designed umbrella. Widespread allegations involving the Bulgarian government and the KGB have not led to any legal results. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was learned that the KGB had developed an umbrella that could inject ricin pellets into a victim, and two former KGB agents who defected stated that the agency assisted in the murder. The CIA made several attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro; many of the schemes involving poisoning his cigars. In the late 1950s, the KGB assassin Bohdan Stashynsky killed Ukrainian nationalist leaders Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera with a spray gun that fired a jet of poison gas from a crushed cyanide ampule, making their deaths look like heart attacks. A 2006 case in the UK concerned the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko who was given a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210, possibly passed to him in aerosol form sprayed directly onto his food.
Targeted killing. Targeted killing is the intentional killing by a government or its agents of a civilian or "unlawful combatant" who is not in the government's custody. The target is a person asserted to be taking part in an armed conflict or terrorism, by bearing arms or otherwise, who has thereby lost the immunity from being targeted that he would otherwise have under the Third Geneva Convention. It is a different term and concept from that of "targeted violence", as used by specialists who study violence. On the other hand, Gary D. Solis, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, in his 2010 book "The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War", wrote, "Assassinations and targeted killings are very different acts." The use of the term "assassination" is opposed, as it denotes murder (unlawful killing), but the terrorists are targeted in self-defense, which is thus viewed as a killing but not a crime (justifiable homicide). Abraham D. Sofaer, former federal judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote on the subject:
When people call a targeted killing an "assassination", they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States ... U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests... But killings in self-defense are no more "assassinations" in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition. Author and former U.S. Army Captain Matthew J. Morgan argued that "there is a major difference between assassination and targeted killing... targeted killing [is] not synonymous with assassination. Assassination... constitutes an illegal killing." Similarly, Amos Guiora, a professor of law at the University of Utah, wrote, "Targeted killing is... not an assassination." Steve David, professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, wrote, "There are strong reasons to believe that the Israeli policy of targeted killing is not the same as assassination." Syracuse Law William Banks and GW Law Peter Raven-Hansen wrote, "Targeted killing of terrorists is... not unlawful and would not constitute assassination." Rory Miller writes: "Targeted killing... is not 'assassination. Eric Patterson and Teresa Casale wrote, "Perhaps most important is the legal distinction between targeted killing and assassination."
On the other hand, the American Civil Liberties Union also states on its website, "A program of targeted killing far from any battlefield, without charge or trial, violates the constitutional guarantee of due process. It also violates international law, under which lethal force may be used outside armed conflict zones only as a last resort to prevent imminent threats, when non-lethal means are not available. Targeting people who are suspected of terrorism for execution, far from any war zone, turns the whole world into a battlefield." Yael Stein, the research director of B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, also stated in her article "By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to 'Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing: The argument that this policy affords the public a sense of revenge and retribution could serve to justify acts both illegal and immoral. Clearly, lawbreakers ought to be punished. Yet, no matter how horrific their deeds, as the targeting of Israeli civilians indeed is, they should be punished according to the law. David's arguments could, in principle, justify the abolition of formal legal systems altogether.
Targeted killing has become a frequent tactic of the United States and Israel in their fights against terrorism. The tactic can raise complex questions and lead to contentious disputes as to the legal basis for its application, who qualifies as an appropriate "hit list" target, and what circumstances must exist before the tactic may be used. Opinions range from people considering it a legal form of self-defense that decreases terrorism to people calling it an extrajudicial killing that lacks due process and leads to further violence. Methods used have included firing Hellfire missiles from Predator or Reaper drones (unmanned, remote-controlled planes), detonating a cell phone bomb, and long-range sniper shooting. Countries such as the US (in Pakistan and Yemen) and Israel (in the West Bank and Gaza) have used targeted killing to eliminate members of groups such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas. In early 2010, with President Obama's approval, Anwar al-Awlaki became the first US citizen to be publicly approved for targeted killing by the Central Intelligence Agency. Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in September 2011.
United Nations investigator Ben Emmerson said that US drone strikes may have violated international humanitarian law. "The Intercept" reported, "Between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes [in northeastern Afghanistan] killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets." Countermeasures. Early forms. One of the earliest forms of defense against assassins was employing bodyguards, who act as a shield for the potential target; keep a lookout for potential attackers, sometimes in advance, such as on a parade route; and putting themselves in harm's way, both by simple presence, showing that physical force is available to protect the target, and by shielding the target if any attack occurs. To neutralize an attacker, bodyguards are typically armed as much as legal and practical concerns permit. Notable examples of bodyguards include the Roman Praetorian Guard or the Ottoman Janissaries, but in both cases, the protectors sometimes became assassins themselves, exploiting their power to make the head of state a virtual hostage or killing the very leaders whom they were supposed to protect. The loyalty of individual bodyguards is an important question as well, especially for leaders who oversee states with strong ethnic or religious divisions. Failure to realize such divided loyalties allowed the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in 1984.
The bodyguard function was often executed by the leader's most loyal warriors, and it was extremely effective throughout most of early human history, which led assassins to attempt stealthy means, such as poison, whose risk was reduced by having another person taste the leader's food first. Modern strategies. With the advent of gunpowder, ranged assassination via bombs or firearms became possible. One of the first reactions was simply to increase the guard, creating what at times might seem a small army trailing every leader. Another was to begin clearing large areas whenever a leader was present to the point that entire sections of a city might be shut down. As the 20th century dawned, the prevalence and capability of assassins grew quickly, as did measures to protect against them. For the first time, armored cars or limousines were put into service for safer transport, with modern versions virtually invulnerable to small arms fire, smaller bombs and mines. Bulletproof vests also began to be used, but since they were of limited utility, restricting movement and leaving the head unprotected, they tended to be worn only during high-profile public events, if at all.
Access to famous people also became more and more restricted; potential visitors would be forced through numerous different checks before being granted access to the official in question, and as communication became better and information technology more prevalent, it has become all but impossible for a would-be killer to get close enough to the personage at work or in private life to effect an attempt on their life, especially with the common use of metal and bomb detectors. Most modern assassinations have been committed either during a public performance or during transport, both because of weaker security and security lapses, such as with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, or as part of a coup d'état in which security is either overwhelmed or completely removed, such as with Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The methods used for protection by famous people have sometimes evoked negative reactions by the public, with some resenting the separation from their officials or major figures. One example might be traveling in a car protected by a bubble of clear bulletproof glass, such as the MRAP-like Popemobile of Pope John Paul II, built following an attempt at his life. Politicians often resent the need for separation and sometimes send their bodyguards away from them for personal or publicity reasons. US President William McKinley did so at the public reception in which he was assassinated.

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