Ariel Sharon said in an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post of September 3, 1993, entitled ?You Can't Dance With a Murderer?:
?...By recognizing this murderer?s organization, the PLO, the government has committed an act of madness. By reviving Israel?s greatest enemy on the eve of its disintegration and turning it into Israel?s shield against Hamas, the government has added crime to folly.... There can be no reconciliation, historic or otherwise, with the man who ordered the murders of schoolchildren in Avivim, Ma?alot and Antwerp, of 11 Jewish athletes in Munich....?
The archives of the Jerusalem Post have proven to be an incredible treasure trove. I?m going to give you some interesting examples of what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in the past, before he was the Prime Minister of Israel.
The following is an excerpt from an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post of August 18, 1995, entitled ?Amazing Role Reversal?:
?The State of Israel has always felt committed to the defense of Jews wherever they may be. Accordingly, Israel has acted to defend Jews in Europe, Latin America, North America, the CIS, everywhere.
?In my childhood, during the pre-state era, our parents volunteered to guard settlements whose security was more precarious than that of our moshav. Volunteers continued guarding vulnerable settlements even after the creation of the state.
?...True, the IDF hasn?t yet withdrawn. But this can change within a short time; and we must prepare for it, in case these communities are abandoned by the government.
?...And if not the government, the opposition should be helping to organize the volunteering. Surely the opposition must know that the Jewish towns and villages in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the last line of defense before the armistice lines of 1949.
?To help the Jewish residents across the Green Line doesn't mean forming an underground or an armed militia. It means defending and preserving life. Nothing could be more legal, moral, honorable or right.?
And, finally, these are excerpts from an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post of November 17, 1995, written about two weeks after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, entitled ?Pain Must not Obscure Judgment?:
?The Judean mountains and the Samarian hills haven't become any lower in the wake of Yitzhak Rabin?s tragic death. They retain a commanding position over most of the Jewish population, two thirds of it, living on the strip of land along the coast.
?Half of the Jewish population is still within a 30-40 km radius of Tel-Aviv, occupying an area the whole of which is overlooked by the Samarian hills.
?Airplanes loaded to overflowing with passengers which land at Ben Gurion Airport from the east, as often happens, fly low for miles over the Samarian hills. They would make an easy target for shoulder-carried land-to-air missiles of the kind possessed by the Arab terror organizations.
?The settlers aren?t ?a cancer in the body politic,? as the left has called them?. Their settlements were set up by every government of Israel. They are citizens and taxpayers; they all serve in the IDF; some serve in the most elite combat units defending the communities of the north and the Negev.
?The government is not doing anyone a favor by protecting Israeli citizens, wherever they live. That is their duty.?
?Pain Must not Obscure Judgment? is an interesting title for Sharon's Op-Ed article. What has happened in the eight years since he wrote these words, which has made him change his beliefs and his opinions so radically? What pain has obscured his judgment to the point of declaring on November 21st, 2003, that within six months, the government may move to uproot Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as part of a package of unilateral Israeli steps in the territories?
If this happens, Yasser Arafat would at last see his dream come true, as a government of the state of Israel does what Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad could not: force Jews out of their ancestral homeland. The forcible expulsion of Jews from their homes would constitute an unabashed assault on the fundamental principles of Zionism. It will be the betrayal of two millennia of Jewish hope and yearning, and a victory for our enemies.
The Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza purchased land, built houses, planted gardens and opened businesses with the full backing of successive Israeli governments, Labor and Likud alike. By what right does a government, any government, assert for itself the power to eject hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of citizens from their homes?
What does Sharon mean by unilateral Israeli steps? What Sharon means is that if he is unable to restart negotiations with the new Palestinian premier, Abu Ala (the third in a series of Abus), Israel would carry out a series of unilateral moves, essentially giving up territory and giving nothing in return.
Sharon is virtually telling the Palestinian Arabs: you had better talk with us to get what you want, or else we will just have to give it to you anyway. With regard to this diplomatic plan, Sharon told his cabinet, ?It is clear that in the end we will not be sitting in all the locations where we?re now situated.?
Quite a reversal from what Ariel Sharon used to say before he became prime minister!
Even though Mordechai Olmert was a fighter in the Jewish Underground before the establishment of the state, I am less surprised at his son Ehud Olmert turning his back on his Zionist upbringing than at Sharon's complete turnaround.
Firstly, Olmert owes his present position completely to Prime Minister Sharon. Olmert was not at all popular within the Likud party, where his position on the Knesset list was a low number 33 out of 40. Sharon invited him to be his campaign manager in the 2003 election. Olmert?s reward for a successful campaign was to be appointed Deputy Prime Minister and being given the ministries of Industry, Trade, Labor and Communication. Because of the many departments he now heads, some of Olmert?s detractors call him ?Ministers Olmert?.
Several days ago, there was an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post about Ehud Olmert entitled ?A History of Olmert?s Zigzagging?. The following is a quote from that article:
?Olmert has made countless controversial statements and taken many surprising steps that straddled the border between Right and Left. He has managed to meander back and forth in his political leanings and ideological orientation. In the 1970s, Olmert gained fame for joining then-Labor MK Yossi Sarid in a crusade against organized crime, implicating future minister Rehavam Ze?evi in the process. Olmert gained many enemies in the Likud when he joined efforts to try to unseat legendary leader Menachem Begin.?
The first recent Olmert bombshell: Ehud Olmert, on November 28, as Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, caved in to the European Union, and agreed to their request to label products made in Israel with their city of manufacture. The European Union can now refuse to grant custom benefits to Israeli products manufactured in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The effect on the producers in those areas will be the loss of their livelihood.
Then comes Olmert?s second bombshell. In an interview he gave to Nahum Barnea of Yediot Ahronot, on the 5th of December, he called for a unilateral withdrawal from most of the territories, including neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem. This is the man who always spoke of the importance of an undivided Jerusalem.
Olmert has positioned himself squarely on the Left of the Likud. He is not only a very close friend of Shinui chairman Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, but long time friends with Labor chairman Shimon Peres, whose 80th birthday mega-party he coordinated.
What prompted Olmert to make his radical proposal? According to Olmert, he feels that unilateral steps are necessary, because Israel is rapidly approaching the point where Arabs will outnumber Jews.
As always, the beloved bogeyman of the Left is the demographic scare. The Left tries to scare the rest of us with the threat that soon there will be more Arabs than Jews in Israel, and then we won't have a Jewish democratic state.
This is a deliberate campaign to frighten and mislead the public. In the ?good old days? when Sharon still held strongly Zionist opinions, he said the following in a September 29, 1995 Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post, entitled: ?Sick Joy of Retreat?:
?I felt pain after the agreement [Oslo 2] was signed this week; pain caused not merely by the government?s mistaken, irresponsible decisions, but chiefly by its ministers? devilish joy at the ?defeat? of their foes - the settlers. A very premature joy, I believe... Arafat?s Israeli advocates claim there is no other way. They don't want a binational state, they don't want to rule over another people, they say.
?What do they really mean? Are they planning a divided Jerusalem? After all, about 150,000 Arabs live in the city. Do they intend to ?transfer? 850,000 Israeli Arabs?
?We have never proposed granting Israeli citizenship to the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria: all have Jordanian passports. And there are other peaceful, acceptable solutions to the threat of binationalism.
?Neither the Israel of the Left nor that of the National Camp has the right to concede Hebron, Rachel?s Tomb, Shilo, Beit El and Joseph?s Tomb. Certainly no government has the right to give up the Temple Mount.
?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.?
The Sharon who made these stirring pronouncements is the Sharon we thought we voted for!
More than most, former General Ariel Sharon realizes that before going into battle, it is essential to know from where the troops will be fired upon. Olmert?s statements about unilateral concessions was a trial balloon par excellence.
If Sharon wants to know where the fire is going to come from and how intense it is going to be, let me quote Pinchas Wallerstein, Binyamin Regional Council head: ?The decision to dismantle populated settlements is unacceptable. We will end up with direct confrontation and, if need be, there will be a war,? he told army radio.
What about President George W. Bush, urged by Colin Powell and the US State Department, by the Saudis, and by the European Union, to pressure Ariel Sharon to make concessions?
I am sure there is such pressure; and continual and strong pressure at that. But in the years from Israel?s rebirth in 1948 until 1992, Israeli prime ministers often had to defy very heavy U.S. pressure. For example:
1948/9: U.S. pressure on Ben-Gurion, with threats of economic sanctions, to refrain from declaration of independence.
1967: The U.S., the U.S.S.R. and the UN pressured Levi Eshkol to refrain from a pre-emptive strike and from reuniting Jerusalem.
1981: The U.S., U.S.S.R., Europe and the UN threatened Begin with military and economic sanctions, lest he bomb Iraq?s nuclear reactor.
Previous prime ministers were able to successfully withstand incredibly strong pressure of the U.S. Go for it Arik, like in the old times. The world and the US are more likely to respect a ?non-punching-bag Israel?. As you said yourself way back in 1993: ?You Can?t Dance with a Murderer?.
Dear Friends: What could we do? It would be most effective if you forwarded this message to your friends, to President George W. Bush (president@whitehouse.gov), and to Vice President Cheney (vice.president@whitehouse.gov). To get the email addresses of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and your Senators and Congressman, call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at (202) 456-6212 or (202) 224-3121. They will even tell you who the Congressman of your District is, or transfer you to his office.
A strong, democratic, undivided Israel, as promised to the Jews according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, is not only in Israel?s interest, but in America?s interest as well.
?...By recognizing this murderer?s organization, the PLO, the government has committed an act of madness. By reviving Israel?s greatest enemy on the eve of its disintegration and turning it into Israel?s shield against Hamas, the government has added crime to folly.... There can be no reconciliation, historic or otherwise, with the man who ordered the murders of schoolchildren in Avivim, Ma?alot and Antwerp, of 11 Jewish athletes in Munich....?
The archives of the Jerusalem Post have proven to be an incredible treasure trove. I?m going to give you some interesting examples of what Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in the past, before he was the Prime Minister of Israel.
The following is an excerpt from an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post of August 18, 1995, entitled ?Amazing Role Reversal?:
?The State of Israel has always felt committed to the defense of Jews wherever they may be. Accordingly, Israel has acted to defend Jews in Europe, Latin America, North America, the CIS, everywhere.
?In my childhood, during the pre-state era, our parents volunteered to guard settlements whose security was more precarious than that of our moshav. Volunteers continued guarding vulnerable settlements even after the creation of the state.
?...True, the IDF hasn?t yet withdrawn. But this can change within a short time; and we must prepare for it, in case these communities are abandoned by the government.
?...And if not the government, the opposition should be helping to organize the volunteering. Surely the opposition must know that the Jewish towns and villages in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the last line of defense before the armistice lines of 1949.
?To help the Jewish residents across the Green Line doesn't mean forming an underground or an armed militia. It means defending and preserving life. Nothing could be more legal, moral, honorable or right.?
And, finally, these are excerpts from an Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post of November 17, 1995, written about two weeks after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, entitled ?Pain Must not Obscure Judgment?:
?The Judean mountains and the Samarian hills haven't become any lower in the wake of Yitzhak Rabin?s tragic death. They retain a commanding position over most of the Jewish population, two thirds of it, living on the strip of land along the coast.
?Half of the Jewish population is still within a 30-40 km radius of Tel-Aviv, occupying an area the whole of which is overlooked by the Samarian hills.
?Airplanes loaded to overflowing with passengers which land at Ben Gurion Airport from the east, as often happens, fly low for miles over the Samarian hills. They would make an easy target for shoulder-carried land-to-air missiles of the kind possessed by the Arab terror organizations.
?The settlers aren?t ?a cancer in the body politic,? as the left has called them?. Their settlements were set up by every government of Israel. They are citizens and taxpayers; they all serve in the IDF; some serve in the most elite combat units defending the communities of the north and the Negev.
?The government is not doing anyone a favor by protecting Israeli citizens, wherever they live. That is their duty.?
?Pain Must not Obscure Judgment? is an interesting title for Sharon's Op-Ed article. What has happened in the eight years since he wrote these words, which has made him change his beliefs and his opinions so radically? What pain has obscured his judgment to the point of declaring on November 21st, 2003, that within six months, the government may move to uproot Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as part of a package of unilateral Israeli steps in the territories?
If this happens, Yasser Arafat would at last see his dream come true, as a government of the state of Israel does what Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad could not: force Jews out of their ancestral homeland. The forcible expulsion of Jews from their homes would constitute an unabashed assault on the fundamental principles of Zionism. It will be the betrayal of two millennia of Jewish hope and yearning, and a victory for our enemies.
The Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza purchased land, built houses, planted gardens and opened businesses with the full backing of successive Israeli governments, Labor and Likud alike. By what right does a government, any government, assert for itself the power to eject hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of citizens from their homes?
What does Sharon mean by unilateral Israeli steps? What Sharon means is that if he is unable to restart negotiations with the new Palestinian premier, Abu Ala (the third in a series of Abus), Israel would carry out a series of unilateral moves, essentially giving up territory and giving nothing in return.
Sharon is virtually telling the Palestinian Arabs: you had better talk with us to get what you want, or else we will just have to give it to you anyway. With regard to this diplomatic plan, Sharon told his cabinet, ?It is clear that in the end we will not be sitting in all the locations where we?re now situated.?
Quite a reversal from what Ariel Sharon used to say before he became prime minister!
Even though Mordechai Olmert was a fighter in the Jewish Underground before the establishment of the state, I am less surprised at his son Ehud Olmert turning his back on his Zionist upbringing than at Sharon's complete turnaround.
Firstly, Olmert owes his present position completely to Prime Minister Sharon. Olmert was not at all popular within the Likud party, where his position on the Knesset list was a low number 33 out of 40. Sharon invited him to be his campaign manager in the 2003 election. Olmert?s reward for a successful campaign was to be appointed Deputy Prime Minister and being given the ministries of Industry, Trade, Labor and Communication. Because of the many departments he now heads, some of Olmert?s detractors call him ?Ministers Olmert?.
Several days ago, there was an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post about Ehud Olmert entitled ?A History of Olmert?s Zigzagging?. The following is a quote from that article:
?Olmert has made countless controversial statements and taken many surprising steps that straddled the border between Right and Left. He has managed to meander back and forth in his political leanings and ideological orientation. In the 1970s, Olmert gained fame for joining then-Labor MK Yossi Sarid in a crusade against organized crime, implicating future minister Rehavam Ze?evi in the process. Olmert gained many enemies in the Likud when he joined efforts to try to unseat legendary leader Menachem Begin.?
The first recent Olmert bombshell: Ehud Olmert, on November 28, as Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, caved in to the European Union, and agreed to their request to label products made in Israel with their city of manufacture. The European Union can now refuse to grant custom benefits to Israeli products manufactured in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The effect on the producers in those areas will be the loss of their livelihood.
Then comes Olmert?s second bombshell. In an interview he gave to Nahum Barnea of Yediot Ahronot, on the 5th of December, he called for a unilateral withdrawal from most of the territories, including neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem. This is the man who always spoke of the importance of an undivided Jerusalem.
Olmert has positioned himself squarely on the Left of the Likud. He is not only a very close friend of Shinui chairman Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, but long time friends with Labor chairman Shimon Peres, whose 80th birthday mega-party he coordinated.
What prompted Olmert to make his radical proposal? According to Olmert, he feels that unilateral steps are necessary, because Israel is rapidly approaching the point where Arabs will outnumber Jews.
As always, the beloved bogeyman of the Left is the demographic scare. The Left tries to scare the rest of us with the threat that soon there will be more Arabs than Jews in Israel, and then we won't have a Jewish democratic state.
This is a deliberate campaign to frighten and mislead the public. In the ?good old days? when Sharon still held strongly Zionist opinions, he said the following in a September 29, 1995 Op-Ed article in the Jerusalem Post, entitled: ?Sick Joy of Retreat?:
?I felt pain after the agreement [Oslo 2] was signed this week; pain caused not merely by the government?s mistaken, irresponsible decisions, but chiefly by its ministers? devilish joy at the ?defeat? of their foes - the settlers. A very premature joy, I believe... Arafat?s Israeli advocates claim there is no other way. They don't want a binational state, they don't want to rule over another people, they say.
?What do they really mean? Are they planning a divided Jerusalem? After all, about 150,000 Arabs live in the city. Do they intend to ?transfer? 850,000 Israeli Arabs?
?We have never proposed granting Israeli citizenship to the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria: all have Jordanian passports. And there are other peaceful, acceptable solutions to the threat of binationalism.
?Neither the Israel of the Left nor that of the National Camp has the right to concede Hebron, Rachel?s Tomb, Shilo, Beit El and Joseph?s Tomb. Certainly no government has the right to give up the Temple Mount.
?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.?
The Sharon who made these stirring pronouncements is the Sharon we thought we voted for!
More than most, former General Ariel Sharon realizes that before going into battle, it is essential to know from where the troops will be fired upon. Olmert?s statements about unilateral concessions was a trial balloon par excellence.
If Sharon wants to know where the fire is going to come from and how intense it is going to be, let me quote Pinchas Wallerstein, Binyamin Regional Council head: ?The decision to dismantle populated settlements is unacceptable. We will end up with direct confrontation and, if need be, there will be a war,? he told army radio.
What about President George W. Bush, urged by Colin Powell and the US State Department, by the Saudis, and by the European Union, to pressure Ariel Sharon to make concessions?
I am sure there is such pressure; and continual and strong pressure at that. But in the years from Israel?s rebirth in 1948 until 1992, Israeli prime ministers often had to defy very heavy U.S. pressure. For example:
1948/9: U.S. pressure on Ben-Gurion, with threats of economic sanctions, to refrain from declaration of independence.
1967: The U.S., the U.S.S.R. and the UN pressured Levi Eshkol to refrain from a pre-emptive strike and from reuniting Jerusalem.
1981: The U.S., U.S.S.R., Europe and the UN threatened Begin with military and economic sanctions, lest he bomb Iraq?s nuclear reactor.
Previous prime ministers were able to successfully withstand incredibly strong pressure of the U.S. Go for it Arik, like in the old times. The world and the US are more likely to respect a ?non-punching-bag Israel?. As you said yourself way back in 1993: ?You Can?t Dance with a Murderer?.
Dear Friends: What could we do? It would be most effective if you forwarded this message to your friends, to President George W. Bush (president@whitehouse.gov), and to Vice President Cheney (vice.president@whitehouse.gov). To get the email addresses of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and your Senators and Congressman, call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at (202) 456-6212 or (202) 224-3121. They will even tell you who the Congressman of your District is, or transfer you to his office.
A strong, democratic, undivided Israel, as promised to the Jews according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, is not only in Israel?s interest, but in America?s interest as well.