What did Ariel Sharon think of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in March 1995, and why is it significant to know this?
Knesset member Sharon revealed himself in a Jerusalem Post article published on March 31, 1995, entitled ?The Enemy Within.? Anyone mentioned in that article, or clearly alluded to, was deemed by Mr. Sharon an enemy of the Jewish state. The only person explicitly named in the article is Yossi Sarid. But, as we shall see, it?s quite clear that Mr. Sharon also had Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in mind - indeed, the entire Left.
The article laments the fact that the Labor Party was not part of the government during the 1982 war in Lebanon, when Mr. Sharon served as Prime Minister Begin?s Minister of Defense. ?In the absence of such a [national unity] government,? he writes, ?there was no chance of achieving all the goals of the Peace for Galilee campaign, since at a certain stage Labor and Peace Now (according to PLO documents recorded in the Knesset minutes of the session of September 12, 1982) became ?the last hope? of the terrorist organization besieged in Beirut.?
This statement clearly indicates that the Labor Party, then headed by Shimon Peres ? the eminence grise of Peace Now ? was not a loyal opposition, to put it gently. To put it bluntly ? and its Geneva Initiative demands candor ? the Labor Party, headed by Shimon Peres, saved the PLO in the Lebanese war and thereby betrayed the Jewish State.
Sharon writes that ?the Israeli Left tried to bring down the democratically-elected government with mass demonstrations.? Those demonstrations had to have had the green light of Shimon Peres. As my colleague Professor Wolf Pearlman and I have written:
?On Saturday night, 15 June 1982, Shimon Peres hastily convened a meeting of his inner circle of colleagues, among whom was Yossi Sarid (then a member of the Labor Party). According to Sarid, in an article published five years after the war (Ha?aretz, 21 August 1987), Peres, upon returning from a visit to the front on 15 June 1982, told his party?s inner circle: ?Comrades, we have to admit they [the Likud Government] have got a trump card going for them. The Americans are supporting and collaborating? Many of our chilling forecasts have proved to be hollow. Contrary to our earlier fears, the war is one big success. The war is near to attaining all of its principal goals. In a few days ? it is impossible to deny the facts ? a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel will be signed. This will be their [the Likud?s] second treaty [the first being with Egypt]. They will also succeed in expelling Arafat and all his terrorists and disperse them to the winds. In short, they will break up the PLO.??
Labor had to prevent this success, lest Peres and his party be consigned to the political wilderness. Hence, it organized anti-war demonstrations with Peace Now as its proxy.
Sharon then turns to the 1995 Rabin government, which he describes as a ?government of dismantlers.? He writes: ?Day by day, the Jewish grip on the land is weakening. Uniformed Palestinian policemen from Jericho have suddenly begun to appear in Jenin, where the Palestinians have secret services?. IDF strongholds are being abandoned? even looted by Palestinian mobs. Above all, the prime minister?s pronouncements [those of Yitzhak Rabin] are intended to question their legitimacy, defame them, and break their spirit.?
Sharon continues to excoriate the 1995 Rabin government: ?Evacuating the IDF from Palestinian-populated areas will primarily affect the Jewish population in Jerusalem and the center of the country.? These areas, he says, ?aren?t geared to defend themselves against terrorism.?; ?Those who leave Jenin will find they have intensified terror? And those who dare to evacuate the IDF from Ramallah and Bethlehem shouldn?t expect a day of tranquility in Jerusalem.? (Clearly this prophecy was fulfilled by Sharon, beginning in February 2001, when he was elected Prime Minister and appointed Shimon Peres as his Foreign Minister.)
Finally, his March 1995 article warns against any ?government? agreement with its murderous PLO allies headed by Yasser Arafat [that would] order the IDF to evacuate Hebron?? (emphasis added) This is precisely what the Netanyahu government did while Sharon was its foreign minister. But to call the PLO the allies of the Rabin government is a charge that one could safely level against Mr. Sharon ? given parliamentary immunity.
It should be obvious from the preceding that Prime Minister Sharon, who called Judea and Samaria ?occupied territory,? is not a man of principle ? to put it kindly. What a price Israel has paid and will continue to pay for his being a mere politician.
Knesset member Sharon revealed himself in a Jerusalem Post article published on March 31, 1995, entitled ?The Enemy Within.? Anyone mentioned in that article, or clearly alluded to, was deemed by Mr. Sharon an enemy of the Jewish state. The only person explicitly named in the article is Yossi Sarid. But, as we shall see, it?s quite clear that Mr. Sharon also had Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in mind - indeed, the entire Left.
The article laments the fact that the Labor Party was not part of the government during the 1982 war in Lebanon, when Mr. Sharon served as Prime Minister Begin?s Minister of Defense. ?In the absence of such a [national unity] government,? he writes, ?there was no chance of achieving all the goals of the Peace for Galilee campaign, since at a certain stage Labor and Peace Now (according to PLO documents recorded in the Knesset minutes of the session of September 12, 1982) became ?the last hope? of the terrorist organization besieged in Beirut.?
This statement clearly indicates that the Labor Party, then headed by Shimon Peres ? the eminence grise of Peace Now ? was not a loyal opposition, to put it gently. To put it bluntly ? and its Geneva Initiative demands candor ? the Labor Party, headed by Shimon Peres, saved the PLO in the Lebanese war and thereby betrayed the Jewish State.
Sharon writes that ?the Israeli Left tried to bring down the democratically-elected government with mass demonstrations.? Those demonstrations had to have had the green light of Shimon Peres. As my colleague Professor Wolf Pearlman and I have written:
?On Saturday night, 15 June 1982, Shimon Peres hastily convened a meeting of his inner circle of colleagues, among whom was Yossi Sarid (then a member of the Labor Party). According to Sarid, in an article published five years after the war (Ha?aretz, 21 August 1987), Peres, upon returning from a visit to the front on 15 June 1982, told his party?s inner circle: ?Comrades, we have to admit they [the Likud Government] have got a trump card going for them. The Americans are supporting and collaborating? Many of our chilling forecasts have proved to be hollow. Contrary to our earlier fears, the war is one big success. The war is near to attaining all of its principal goals. In a few days ? it is impossible to deny the facts ? a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel will be signed. This will be their [the Likud?s] second treaty [the first being with Egypt]. They will also succeed in expelling Arafat and all his terrorists and disperse them to the winds. In short, they will break up the PLO.??
Labor had to prevent this success, lest Peres and his party be consigned to the political wilderness. Hence, it organized anti-war demonstrations with Peace Now as its proxy.
Sharon then turns to the 1995 Rabin government, which he describes as a ?government of dismantlers.? He writes: ?Day by day, the Jewish grip on the land is weakening. Uniformed Palestinian policemen from Jericho have suddenly begun to appear in Jenin, where the Palestinians have secret services?. IDF strongholds are being abandoned? even looted by Palestinian mobs. Above all, the prime minister?s pronouncements [those of Yitzhak Rabin] are intended to question their legitimacy, defame them, and break their spirit.?
Sharon continues to excoriate the 1995 Rabin government: ?Evacuating the IDF from Palestinian-populated areas will primarily affect the Jewish population in Jerusalem and the center of the country.? These areas, he says, ?aren?t geared to defend themselves against terrorism.?; ?Those who leave Jenin will find they have intensified terror? And those who dare to evacuate the IDF from Ramallah and Bethlehem shouldn?t expect a day of tranquility in Jerusalem.? (Clearly this prophecy was fulfilled by Sharon, beginning in February 2001, when he was elected Prime Minister and appointed Shimon Peres as his Foreign Minister.)
Finally, his March 1995 article warns against any ?government? agreement with its murderous PLO allies headed by Yasser Arafat [that would] order the IDF to evacuate Hebron?? (emphasis added) This is precisely what the Netanyahu government did while Sharon was its foreign minister. But to call the PLO the allies of the Rabin government is a charge that one could safely level against Mr. Sharon ? given parliamentary immunity.
It should be obvious from the preceding that Prime Minister Sharon, who called Judea and Samaria ?occupied territory,? is not a man of principle ? to put it kindly. What a price Israel has paid and will continue to pay for his being a mere politician.