A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. IV:4 (No. 40)
April 2004 - Nissan-Iyar 5764
TRUSTING IN PRINCES
Trust not in princes . . . Psalm 146:3
See, you are relying on illusions that are of no avail -- Jeremiah 7:8
Prince -- from Latin princeps: a principal person, a foremost one, a chief
or leader
In colloquial usage: an eminent personage who
exercises power, a status by extrapolation applied collectively to governments
and conglomerates of national entities.
Today, Israel must evaluate the trustworthiness
of the "princes" in its own government and in other governments.
* * * * * * *
My princes shall no more defraud My people . . . . Enough Princes of Israel
. . . do judgment and righteousness . . stop your evictions of My people
--Ezekiel 45:8-9
In the Israeli electoral system, citizens vote
not for individual candidates but for party-lists. The number of votes a
party wins decides how many seats it will hold in the 120-member Knesset
(Parliament). A member of the Knesset who can then win the approval of at
least 61 members becomes Prime Minister [in Hebrew, Head of Government].
No single party has ever won 61 seats, so the
leader of the largest party has to form a coalition with other parties to
form a cabinet, with posts distributed among the member parties. (The nation
would well benefit from reform of this cumbersome system, but that is another
topic.)
Cabinet ministers carry the title of sar or sara, words that in biblical usage can be rendered
"prince" and "princess". For more than a decade now, Israel has been ill-served
by its prime ministers and more than a few of its princes and princesses.
Some of them at least present their real views
and intentions openly to the voting public. Others profess one program of
principles and actions and when in power switch to opposite ones, thereby
deceiving the public and betraying whatever trust was placed in them.
1] In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin, campaigning as titular
head of his party, promised that if he became Prime Minister he would never
deal with the PLO. Yet at the same time, his prospective Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres was already holding secret dealings with the PLO that were
still illegal under Israeli law.
Those secret dealings culminated in the lethal
Oslo Accords, foisted on the nation in September 1993. Yossi Beilin, Peres's
protégé and associate, explained the need for the secrecy: If a government
wants to do something that it knows the public will reject, it must act
in secret and then present the public with a fait accompli that it has to swallow willy-nilly.
The required Knesset approval for Oslo was
attained with exactly the minimal requirement of 61 votes, a tally that included
five Arab members who were openly hostile to the very existence of the nation
in whose parliament they sat. Thus was the future of Israel and the Israeli
people to be decided.
The Osloids felt some need to justify giving
up parts of the Land of Israel into the power of the terrorist PLO whose
charter defined its purpose as achieving the total destruction of Israel.
To get around this annoying detail, a PLO convention was staged in Gaza,
with US President Bill Clinton as Guest of Honor. There some words were said
about the Charter ingeniously designed to have no real meaning.
Shimon Peres then announced that Destroy Israel
had been excised from the PLO charter. In fact, it was still there uncut
and unchanged. In April 2004, Farouk Khaddoumi, who calls himself foreign
minister of the PLO, proclaimed very explicitly that the charter was never
changed and Destroy Israel is still its working clause.
The PLO never even pretended that it would
carry out a single one of the commitments it made in the Oslo Accords. In
fact, within days of signing them on the White House lawn, Arafat made a
speech assuring his admirers that the Accords were first step toward the
destruction of Israel [see Issue 5].
Oslo did not interrupt the terrorist attacks
and the mass murders. The terrosim and the mass murders did not interrupt
the Rabin-Peres surrender the historic heartland of Israel to the PLO, along
with large sums of money and vital services. Peres explained the reason
for this indulgence of treachery: If Israel required the PLO to act according
to its pledged obligations, then the Oslo Peace Process could not have gone
forward. Meaning: If Israel demanded anything in return for unilateral capitulation,
it might not have been able to go on capitulating.
2] The voters replaced
Shimon Peres with Binyamin Netanyahu, who had been the leader of the opposition
against the Oslo Accords, and was elected for his anti-Oslo convictions.
But as Prime Minister he did not annul or even suspend the Accords. He often
said that Israel's part in them was dependent on Arab "reciprocity", but
there was never any reciprocity and he lead Israel on to more concessions
and withdrawals.
3] In the next election, Netanyahu lost to
Ehud Barak, whose brief tenure was aptly described by American columnist
George Will as "the most disastrous in the history of any democracy". An
electorate reluctant to follow this lemming-prince over the cliff, turned
to the only available alternative candidate, Ariel Sharon.
4] Up to the time of his elevation to office,
Sharon had expressed very strong views
-- against the Oslo
Accords
….-- against Israeli officials collaborating
with the PLO
-- in favor of the
right of the Children of Israel to dwell in the Land of Israel
. -- against the very
thought of the Israel Defense Forces being ordered to
drag Israeli
families out of the homes and communities they created
Once he was installed as Prime Minister, he
acted or proposed to act in contradiction to every one of those proclaimed
views. He went beyond any previous breakdown of national resolve by accepting
and approving a Road Map concocted by a foreign Quartet that includes the
viciously inimical United Nations, European Union and Russia.
This pernicious document demands
--
expulsion of Jews from the historic heartland of Israel
--
the invention of a PLO state there
--
transfer of Israel's sovereign right of self-defense to the Quartet
Sharon, having rammed approval through a reluctant
cabinet, now endlessly re-pledges loyalty to it. If ever carried out, a
fragment of a demoralized Israel will be reduced to impotent vassal of the
Quartet, literally surrounded by barbed-wire. A Prime Minister of Israel
will have created the ultimate ghetto.
In advance of that happy day, Sharon is now
splitting his party, his government and the country to enforce a Unilateral
Disengagement". Meaning: Run away from disputed parts of the Land of Israel,
leave PLO-Hamas terrorists to operate there unhindered, and not even ask
anything in return. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who had built homes
and flourishing communities in abandoned wasteland, with the encouragement
of previous governments and of Sharon himself, would be dragged from them
by force. The parts of the Land of Israel that they had toiled and sometimes
died to redeem, and the Ancient Promise at last fulfilled would be thrown
away
.
The blatant refusal of the PLO to honor any
of its commitments, and its eventual unleashing of the Oslo War of Terror,
inflicting casualties in the thousands, are more than enough grounds to abrogate
the Oslo Accords. Indeed, Israel's commitments under those Accords were always
conditional and not absolute. The promoters of the experiment promised that
if it failed, it could be undone.
It is too late to undo the deaths, injuries
and bereavements the Osloids have inflicted, but it is not too late to turn
back from this disastrous and self-destructive blunder. The terror-chiefs
can be removed from power, their terrorist forces disbanded, their fiefdoms
dismantled. Then, perhaps, when the Palestinian-Arabs are no longer under
the rule of fanatics who indoctrinate them in death-lust and the cult of
suicide-murder, there may be a change for co-existence.
No government of Israel has yet had the resolve
to take this course. One government created the monster. Each successive
government has tried in one way or another to tame it or appease it. Each
tries to persuade it to accept more concessions and surrenders from Israel,
and fails even in that.
*
* * * * * *
A very small country, under attack and siege,
is more affected than most by the stance of other nations, and the princes
who rule them.
1] It was another nation that created the present
plight of Israel. The nation that invented parliamentary democracy, and
preens itself on its Doctrine of Fair Play, ignored the words of its own
greatest genius: It was not onto its own self true.
From "A Time To Speak" Issue
7 (July 2001)
1917 – The Balfour Declaration, issued by the government
of Great Britain, pronounced that: His Majesty's Government looks with favor
on the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, to be open
to close Jewish Settlement.
1922 – The League of Nations approves the terms of
the Balfour Declaration and bestows on Great Britain a Mandate for temporary
administration of Palestine, in which it is to carry out the terms of the
Declaration and the Mandate.
In
1922, the Emir Abdullah, a protege of the British Government, is driven
out of the Hejaz in Arabia. To provide for him, Great Britain takes all
of Mandate Palestine east of the Jordan River and gives it to him as the
Emirate of Trans-Jordan – later to be the Kingdom of Jordan. It thereby cuts
away a full 76 percent of the land of the promised Jewish National Home,
and Jews are banned there.
Thereafter,
the British Mandatory Government progressively bans Jews from more and more
of the remaining territory of Mandate Palestine. Jews are forbidden to live
in areas that were designated for close Jewish settlement. Immigration of
Jews into the Jewish National Home is progressively cut down, and after
1939 it is virtually halted. The Jews are abandoned to the Nazi Europe,
while Arabs from other countries are permitted to enter Palestine illegally
and settle the lands first promised to and then forbidden to the Jews.
[Comment: The Declaration protected the personal
and property rights of the Arabs of Palestine, then few in number. It bestowed
no national rights, for they had never been a nation.]
The demographic proportions west of the Jordan
River were created by the British policy: Keeping Jews out by force -- and
thereby condemn them to the hellfires of Europe -- and import masses of
foreign Arabs with no historical roots there.
After Israel proclaimed statehood in a remnant
of the remnant of Mandate Palestine, the British encouraged the Arab states
to attack it and actually commanded the Jordan Legion in the war to destroy
Israel.
This betrayal of its bounden duty under the
Mandate created the "Palestine Problem" and all the trouble and bloodshed
that it engenders. The betrayal was not required for any national need or
purpose, but was inspired by "princes" with an avowed personal taste for
Arabs over Jews. It is still a personal taste rather than a national interest
that prevails in the British Foreign Office whose ministers still proclaim
it is "illegal" for those Jews not to bind themselves to the genuinely illegal
constrictions of a long defunct Mandate.
2] There is one nation with which Israel has
a unique bond, for it is a nation itself rooted in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian
tradition and its own affinity for liberty. Fortunately, it is also a nation
with unique strength and unique inclination to do good with it.
Nevertheless, the foreign policy of the United
States is tilted by the special interests, personal preferences, and financial
prospects of a policymaking establishment. This is a clique in the State
Department, entangled with corporate executives and university academics,
largely cut off from if not disdainful of the views of the most of the US
population and its elected representatives in Congress.
For example: The harsh treatment of a struggling Israel
in 1956-57 was dictated by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who came
to his office after a long and lucrative career as U.S. lawyer for Nazi-German
interests.
Whether through the pressures of this clique,
or through absent-mindedness, promises once made may fade away:
a] In 1957, President
Eisenhower acquiesced in the Dulles demands against Israel, but at the same
time publicly guaranteed that the United States would not permit Egypt to
re-impose its illegal anti-Israel blockades of international waterways. But
Egypt immediately re-blockaded the Suez Canal, and Eisenhower's reaction
was to say "I cannot think of anything we can do about it".
The United States had also guaranteed that
Egypt would not be allowed to re-blockade the Straits of Tiran, When Egypt
imposed the blockade in 1967, the U.S. government literally could not remember
where its written pledge was filed.
b] In the early 1970s,
the Soviet Union installed missile bases for Egypt along the Suez Canal.
These were so lethal a threat, that each time they were installed Israel destroyed
them. The U.S. Department of State simultaneously promised Israel that no
more missiles would be installed and ordered Israel not to touch them if
they were.
The installation of the missiles continued
without a pause of a single day, but the State Department would not lift
its ban on Israel acting against them. Without those Soviet missiles, protected
from Foggy Bottom, Egypt could not have launched the Yom Kippur War that
cost thousands of lives.
c] During the 1980s,
the US administration was determined to sell the very dangerous AWACs warplanes
to Saudi Arabia -- even though that kingdom was still loudly committed to
the destruction of Israel. The US Congress was very reluctant to approve
this risky deal, and was persuaded to permit it only on the promise that
the United States would supervise their use in Saudi Arabia.
The AWACs planes, now upgraded with new and
advanced components, are now under exclusive Saudi control, with no supervision
or restriction.
d] During Gulf War
I, Saddam Hussein fired scores of Scud Missiles at Israel. Then President
George H.W. Bush used a combination of blackmail and promises to prevent
then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir from taking action. For a country in Israel's
situation, this was an extraordinary sacrifice to make to oblige a friendly
state. It was also a pernicious sacrifice that encouraged the Arab world
to see this passive Israel as easy future prey.
The thanks for Israel's sacrifice came in a
public complaint by President Bush that Israel was not grateful enough for
the protection he gave it.
e] The fiction of
an Arab-Palestine Nation was invented in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.
The notion that the United States would support the invention of a 23rd Arab
State in the heartland of Israel was rejected by one president after another
-- including Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Nevertheless the incumbent George W. Bush calls
just such an invention a "long-standing vision" of US policy, when it is
actually a reversal of long-standing commitment. This newly-invented long-standing
vision became the cornerstone and touchstone of a Middle East policy that
evaluates every event by whether or not it facilitates the establishment
of a PLO State in the Land of Israel.
To this end, the United States keeps bad company
in a Quartet in which the other three members are driven by hatred of Israel
and Jews. To this end, the standard response to Arab terrorist atrocities
against Israelis is to complain that such nasty doings do not advance the
cause of PLO Statehood. To this end an Assistant Secretary of State promises
the Palestinian-Arabs that when Israel retreats, Arabs can "just walk in"
to Jewish communities and take over Jewish homes.
In
any instance where Israel's vital interests are concerned, it cannot be predicted
how the balance will tilt between a friendly Congress and public on one
side, and an unfriendly policy establishment on the other.
This
makes it foolish as well as demeaning for a Prime Minister of Israel to run
to a President of the United States like a vassal to his overlord, begging
for approval of this or that. It is dishonest of a Prime Minister to misrepresent
carefully non-committal remarks of a US President as a magnificent achievement
in diplomacy. It is base for him to try to whip Israeli opinion in line
with false threats of incurring presidential wrath.
For all of its modern lifetime, Israel has been staunchly independent, maintaining a democratic and humane society even while having to fight for its life. Tiny in size and population, it is distinguished in character, courage, tenacity and intellect.
Its achievements have inspired hate and envy in some quarters, respect in others. It must not now surrender to the hate and thereby forfeit the respect.
For 56 years, Israel stood alone against fanatical
terrorism. Now, when at last some other nations are ready to stand up to
it, Israel must not lapse into appeasement. It must stand firm on its own
rights, and prove itself a worthy friend and dependable associate.
* * * * * * *
The most common meaning of "prince" is a male
member of a royal dynasty. Of that variety, Saudi Arabia is blessed with
some 7000-8000 of them. Pre-eminent among them is Crown Prince Abdullah,
heir to the throne and virtual regent for his ailing brother King Fahd.
Recent deadly terror attacks in Saudi Arabia
have been attributed by the uninformed to Al-Qaeda. But Abdullah, a Real
Prince of a Fellow, knows better: "It became clear to us now that Zionism
is behind terrorist actions in the Kingdom [Saudi Arabia]. I can say that
I am 95 percent sure of that."
END