I'm writing this article with a heavy heart, to tell you that the Ariel Sharon of today is not the leader we voted for. His actions are virtually those of a dictator, who has lost all Zionist convictions.



Already in November of 2003, Sharon made it clear that he, and he alone, will direct diplomatic negotiations about the "unilateral steps" he is planning with regard to dismantling settlements. Now, he says in a dictatorial way, "Outposts will be dismantled, Period! ...The negotiations now and in the future will be concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office. I will direct the negotiations. This is the way it needs to be, and this is the way it will be."



Some years back (February 10, 1995), Ariel Sharon, then a Likud MK and a former Defense Minister, wrote an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post entitled: "An Emasculated Giant Called Israel". The following are excerpts from this article:



"Signs of our internal disintegration are increasing. And the Arabs are aware of them too.



"This week, Nabil Shaath told the London Independent: 'Israel will be forced to agree to the return of 100,000 of the 1948 refugees to Galilee.' Asked if the Israelis would really agree to this, Shaath, a Minister in Yasser Arafat's Government replied: 'It seems to me they will be forced to agree.'



"And Israel? It has no response. It remains mute.



"...The PLO is laughing up its sleeve, and the European foreign ministers don't give a hoot.



"And Israel, with all the power and justice on its side, looks like an emasculated giant.



"There was no surprise in what Nabil Shaath said. For some years now, similar statements - mainly Egyptian - on how to destroy Israel in stages have appeared in articles by leading figures in the Arab world, in senior academic circles, among the intelligentsia. One of the minds active in this context - indeed, the leader of this unofficial trend - is Osama el-Baz, President Mubarak's adviser.



"What are these circles thinking, and what are the different stages of their 'program'?



"The first stage: Portraying Israel as 'rejecting peace', while the Arab world, including the PLO, desires it. This will deepen Israel's isolation and increase pressure on it. This has already taken place.



"In the second stage, Israel will be forced to embark upon difficult and painstaking negotiations in a process which, ultimately, will take it back to the 1967 lines. As a result, Israel will again be weakened, losing its defensive capability. That too, is happening.



"The third stage will see the intifada moving from the '1967 model' to the '1947 model' and focusing mainly on Galilee, where most Israeli Arabs live. After a long and wearying struggle, Israel will also give up central Galilee and the northern and southern 'triangles' (from Megiddo, through Wadi Ara, to Kfar Kassem, an area in which 250,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel live, most of them supporters of the Islamic Movement.)



"The fourth and final stage: After the retreat to borders approximating the 1947 Partition Plan, these Arab circles think Israel's continued existence is strictly a question of time.



"Shaath's declaration fits in well with this plan; it will, indeed, hasten its implementation.



"Does all this seem like a fantasy? When I spoke and wrote about this some years ago, it appeared, even to me, to be no more than a nightmarish vision. But it is all actually happening before our eyes ? chiefly thanks to the unstinting help of our government."



Now, Ariel Sharon as prime minister is head of the current Israeli government. He, himself, is giving the "unstinting help of the government" to make his own nightmarish vision come true. In truth, Ariel Sharon, our erstwhile hero, is now himself "an emasculated giant".



Half a year after the February 10 article, on August 11, 1995, Ariel Sharon wrote an Op-Ed article entitled "The Dangers of Cooperation" for the Jewish Press, the Jewish American paper with the largest circulation:



"The government's propaganda machine works full blast to break the spirit of these people, to isolate and weaken the stirrings of national life still present in the hearts of so many. The premier and foreign minister incite against the settlers, accusing them of diverting the IDF and police from the battle against terrorism, implying that they are a small minority tearing the nation apart.



"But in fact it is the government which is diverting the IDF, police, and other security services from seriously dealing with terrorism..."



And on September 29, 1995, Sharon, in an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post entitled "Sick Joy of Retreat", wrote as follows:



"Governments come and go, and so do generations. It is our great privilege to hold these sacred possessions in trust for future generations. We have no right to transfer them to alien hands.



"For decades now, I have repeatedly declared that Israel is not just an Israeli project but the responsibility of all the world's Jews. What happens to Israel will affect the situation, even the destiny, of Jews everywhere. It is not only their right but their duty to make their voices heard."



And this is what Prime Minister Sharon said only a couple of months ago about the small community of Netzarim, probably the most exposed settlement in Israel, but of tremendous strategic importance in preventing the transfer of weapons between various Arab terrorist groups:



"Netzarim is the same as Negba and Tel Aviv. Evacuating Netzarim will only encourage terrorism and increase the pressure upon us." (Negba is a secular Kibbutz in the Negev, the same area where Prime Minister Sharon has his farm. Negba has approximately the same number of people as Netzarim.) Nonetheless, the Left continually agitates for the evacuation of Netzarim.



Again, the "new" Sharon has changed his opinions completely. In a meeting with his ministers on December 15, 2003, he asks rhetorically, "Does anyone believe that also in the future there will be Jews in Netzarim and Morag?"



What has happened to Ariel Sharon? Did Sharon mean what he said in his many Op-Ed articles (I have only quoted from a few of them) before he became prime minister? Or did he at the time express such ideas only for political expediency?



Does Sharon now sing a completely different tune because holding on to his new coalition partners, the 15 member anti-religious Shinui party (with four ministers and two deputy ministers holding important portfolios), means placating them by getting rid of the very settlements he himself helped to establish?



Did Sharon completely change his outlook, because he now believes that he has more to gain by supporting a different agenda? Is his "warm" relationship with President George W. Bush more important than his erstwhile principles, even as far as establishing a Palestinian State on Jewish land and evacuating or transferring Jews from their homes?



The nightmarish vision that Sharon talks about in his article "An Emasculated Giant Called Israel" is now upon us. In that article Sharon said that the plan to dismantle the State of Israel is no secret. And prophetically, Ariel Sharon said "It will actually happen with the unstinting help of our Government." Sharon, by agreeing to the "Road Map", which means the establishment of another Arab State carved out of what was originally land promised to the Jews by the League of Nations and the Balfour Declaration, has fulfilled his own prophecy. (Note that Britain violated its Mandate of the League of Nations and the Mandate of its own Balfour Declaration by carving out 70% of what was supposed to be the Jewish homeland and giving it to Abdullah, one of the Hashemite tribal rulers, thereby "inventing" Jordan, which was at first called Transjordan - meaning "across the Jordan." Even in their generosity, the British did not give Abdullah the Biblical Judea and Samaria.)



We hear much about the Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, the areas liberated from Jordanian occupation in 1967. We hear much about how destabilizing these Jewish settlements are. How provocative they are. But the Arabs have built 261 settlements in the so-called "West Bank"; whereas, the Jews have only built 144 settlements since 1967, in their own Biblical heartland.



Most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some Arab country at some time in their familial life. Yasser Arafat himself was born in Egypt. Just since the beginning of the Oslo Accords, more than 400,000 Arabs have come from Jordan, Egypt and, indirectly, from any other Arab country you can name.



What makes the 261 Arab settlements in the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria) legal, and 144 Jewish settlements illegal and obstacles to peace? Who felt empowered to nullify G-d's promise in the Bible to the Jewish people?



Important Jewish religious leaders, amongst them two former Chief Rabbis of Israel, have now ruled that according to Jewish Law, it is forbidden to give away Jewish land. As Sharon said in his article of September 29, 1995: "Governments come and go, and so do generations. It is our great privilege to hold these sacred possessions in trust for future generations. We have no right to transfer them to alien hands."



We, the People of Israel, are not obligated to follow the lead of the "new" Sharon.



We, the Jewish People, who have come home after a 2,000 year exile, pray that Hashem will show us the way as to how we can prevent this attempt to stop the promised Redemption.



What can you do? Forward this article to Prime Minister Sharon at [email protected], to remind him of what he he himself said. Ariel Sharon needs this reminder from people all over the world who want to prevent his dismantling the Jewish State.