A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. IV:9 (No. 45)
September 2004 - Elul 5764/Tishri 5765
AT JEOPARDY -- Part
I
In modern usage "at jeopardy" means to be exposed
to or in imminence of death, loss or injury. It derives from the French
"jeu parti [divided game]", for a point where success
or failure hangs in the balance. In this sense, Israel has been put at
jeopardy by its own authorities, leaders, and molders of opinion. The outcome
is not yet decided and can go right or wrong.
* * * * * * * * * *
* *
Listen you rulers of Jacob,
You leaders of the House of Israel,
For you ought to know what is right.
-- Micah
3:1
Prime Minister Menahem Begin once observed that
if Ariel Sharon acquired the power to do so, then "The first time he doesn't
get his way he'll put tanks around the Knesset [parliament]." After a long
political career of hopping among convictions and parties Sharon did acquire
the power, and seems bent on proving how well Begin understood him.
The people of Israel from their most ancient
days did not tolerate autocratic rule. From the moment of its modern rebirth
it has been a democracy -- and indeed the only democracy in a region of
dictatorship and tyranny. That democracy has survived more than a half-century
of military attacks, terrorism, almost worldwide hostility, and more than
a few domestic misjudgments, but it is now threatened by its own Prime Minister
and his henchmen.
Israeli voters cast their ballots not for individual
candidates but for party lists, taking their choice among the variant platforms
of numerous parties. Usually, the party that wins the most seats in the
Knesset forms a government, with its party leader as Prime Minister. This
means that when the present incumbent blusters "The people elected me" that
is in fact not true. The public elected a platform, that he has no right
to subvert as strikes his fancy.
Sharon is not now merely lapsing into the common
political failure of neglecting the points and pledges of an election campaign.
He is trashing the points and pledges and dredging up in their place those
of a defeated opposition party massively rejected by the voters. This is
a betrayal so gross that it puts at jeopardy the principles of democracy
and the political compact between electors and elected that is indispensable
to a free and self-governing society.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
This betrayal is perpetrated on behalf of a
scheme he calls "hitnatkut [disengagement or separation]". A wag has suggested
that those who find the Hebrew word hard to remember can just as well say
"it-not-good". The elements of the scheme are:
1] Israel will abandon all hold on, control
of, or claim to the entire Gaza Strip and parts of biblical Judea-Samaria.
It is more than hinted that this will be followed by similar abandonment
of much more of the historic Land of Israel.
2] The Jews who reside in these parts will be
uprooted, by force if necessary. The flourishing communities they have built,
with the support and encouragement of the government, will be razed or turned
over to the triumphant PLO/Hamas.
3] Unlike the proponents of the Oslo Accords,
the champions of hitnatkut do not parrot the specious slogan "land for
peace". They surrender to the enemy is totally unilateral, without seeking
any empty words or promises in exchange.
The abandoned land will be taken over by the
enemy, who will have complete and unfettered control to turn it into bases
for its jihad for the destruction of Israel.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
Sharon cannot boast that this bizarre enterprise
is his own inspiration. Amram Mitzna, when he was briefly head of the Osloid
Labor Party, touted the virtue of unconditional flight, and Sharon ridiculed
it. So did enough voters to send Mitzna into quick retirement. Now Sharon
strives to foist a similar notion it on the nation, with all the gentlemanly
finesse that earned him his old nickname of Bulldozer.
As evidence of his assertion of wisdom beyond
question, he could cite some accumulated credits of his tenure in office:
1] He mimics the rhetoric of the enemy by referring
to Judea-Samaria-Gaza-Golan as "occupied territory"; a silly blunder that
the former Attorney General hastened to correct. [See Issues 6 & 8]
2] The terrorist regime that Oslo planted in
the Land of Israel slaughters or gravely injures thousands of Israeli men,
women, children and babies. The incumbent Prime Minister wreaks vengeance
on empty buildings. Occasionally, a few terror-chiefs are picked off, leaving
their places open for new incumbents. Occasionally, bases and weapons of
attack are removed, and their places left available for the installation
of replacements.
3] As a defense against jihad-murder, there
is to be a fence that turns Israel into a ghetto cut off from the heart
of its historic homeland. Beyond the fence, jihad may reign. This is comparable
to draping Israel with a mosquito net full of holes, instead of draining
the swamps where jihad breeds. Within Israel, there is endless dither over
the routing, re-routing, and re-re-routing of the net, while abroad it inspires
a frenzy of denunciation for friend and foe.
(A statistical drop in the number of terror
attacks actually perpetrated is cited as evidence that the fence works,
but in fact it does not inhibit attempts at terrorism. The drop in achieved
terror is due to the vigilance, valor and skill -- and all too often self-sacrifice
-- of the IDF and Border Police.)
The terrorists in that Oslo planted in the Gaza
Strip to not need to scale a fence to bring damage, injury
and murder to Sederot, a town in the adjacent western Negev. They just fire
missiles. While it mourns its dead children, Sederot is offered equipment
to detect incoming missiles.
4] Sharon accepts, endorses and professes loyalty
to a Roadmap drawn by a foreign Quartet, based on principles dictated by
Saudi Arabia. This pernicious design violates all past pledges that no imposed
solution would be inflicted on Israel, and there would be no invention of
a PLO state. [See Issues 19, 23, 28, 29 & Twelve Bad Arguments for a
State of Palestine]
If enforced, it will reduce Israel to an unviable
remnant of itself, a virtual vassal of overlords comprising the European
Union, Russia, the United Nations, and the US Department of State.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
One
of Sharon's closest advisers and his favored emissary to both the United
States and the PLO is his personal attorney Dov Weisglass. Counselor Weisglass
simultaneously continues his legal and business career, with a clientele
that includes Arafat's treasurer and other PLO luminaries.
Israel
Resource News Agency now reports that Weisglass stands to profit from a
prospective PLO-run gambling casino for tourists in southern Gaza -- once
the Jews now residing there have been dragged away.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
BULLDOZER
DEMOCRACY
"But if you chance to be placed in some superior situation,
will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?"
-- Epictetus (Rome, 1st century)
Do not keep talking so proudly or let
your mouth speak such arrogance.
--
I Samuel 2:3
Whoso is hating reproof is brutish.
-- Proverbs 12:1
From these accomplishments, Sharon now proceeds
to his hitnatkut, on behalf of which he breaks faith with the
public, splits the country when it desperately needs unity, wrecks his own
party, and hacks at the integrity of society and government. He places Israel
at greater jeopardy from without by strengthening and encouraging its enemies,
and at new jeopardy from within by violating the basic tenets of democracy,
and misuses his office to suppress freedom of speech and dissent, and punish
lawful opposition.
1] To show that the registered members of his
party support his hitnatkut, Sharon ordered a referendum in which they
could vote "Approve" or "Against". He promised that he would abide by the
outcome. When the outcome was 60-to-40 for "Against", he threw it out.
There are now demands from many quarters for
a nationwide referendum on so fateful a decision, but this Sharon refuses.
His own staff admits that there will be no referendum because he might lose
again. It is not clear why a second rejection would pose any problem for
him, since the expressed will of the public is null and void when it does
not coincide with his own will.
2] When he had to present hitnatkut to his own cabinet it seemed likely to be rejected.
So he picked two of the ministers who were certain to vote against it and
kicked them out of the cabinet before the vote was held. By this means he
eked out his "majority approval".
3] Uzi Landau, a Likud cabinet member who stands
firm against It-Not-Good, is invited by the ZOA (Zionist Organization of
America) to speak at a dinner in New York in December. Sharon forbids him
leave the country, because he "opposes the most important policy decision
and acts against it in the Knesset and public."
4] Sharon, backed up by Attorney-General Menahem
Mazuz, tried but failed to stop Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger from taking part
in the traditional High Holy Day prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in
biblical Hebron, lest the worshippers pray for something politically incorrect.
5] The Prime Minister and his henchmen spread
dark charges of criminal plots by the opposition, though thus far the Security
Services can find no substance to the charges. Criticism is redefined as
"incitement", so anyone who expresses the wrong opinion is at jeopardy of
"investigation" and even of "administrative detention", which is indefinite
incarceration without charge or trial. Freedom of expression can be squelched
under an odd law against "insulting a public official". It is questionable
whether a public official will be prosecuted for insulting the citizens.
6] The Israel Prisons Authority is considering
"creative alternatives" for mass detention of persons who oppose the hitnatkut -- regardless that opposition to a Prime Minister
is not yet against the law. One suggestion is to turn hotels into temporary
prisons
As to residents of the communities that Sharon
once encouraged and patronized and now dooms to destruction, they must abandon
their homes before the deadline he sets. Even passive non-violent resistance
is to be punished by prison terms of three-to-five
years and forfeiture of all personal belongings.
A
long-time enthusiast for the Oslo Accords finds the Bulldozer's tactics
offensively anti-democratic, as reported by IsraelNationalNews, 8 September
2004:
"Former senior Labor figure Uzi Baram, known
to be towards the left end of the spectrum within his party, provided some
surprise support today for the position that Prime Minister Sharon is promoting
his policies in an undemocratic manner. Speaking on his Knesset channel
television program today, Baram said, 'Sharon's behavior is scandalous; there
is no other word. He went to the Likud referendum and promised the nation
that he would abide by its results; then he went to the Likud Central Committee
and was defeated there as well; and yet he continues along his merry way.
I may be personally in favor of his position, but my democratic sense totally
opposes it.'
"Baram also attacked the Israel Institute for
Democracy for its silence on this issue, and thus weakening the concept
of party government. 'If the majority in the Likud would be in favor of disengagement
and the Prime Minister would oppose it, the Israel Institute for Democracy
would crucify him . . . Is this the way it should be?'"
* * * * * * *
The beginning of the words of his mouth is folly.
And the latter end of his mouth is mischievous
madness.
--
Ecclesiastes 10:13
Why does Sharon deem hitnatkut so imperative for Israel that he must ram it
through at the cost of perverting a lively democracy into an oppressive and
coercive dictatorship?
1] In his own words:
a] When a Knesset member of his own party asked
a question about his policy, he explained to her, "You wouldn't understand."
b]When confronted with his own published exhortations
against yielding land and uprooting communities, he attributes his flip-flop
to "changed data". [See Issues 39 & 40]
c] He avers that he cannot keep his campaign
promise of "painful concessions for peace" because the other side does not
want peace. Therefore, he can only ahieve the painful concessions.
2] Is hitnatkut forced on him by outside pressure?
Sharon announced it as policy and only afterwards
maneuvered for the President of the United States to approve it with no
noticeable enthusiasm. Then Sharon used this maneuver to warn that We Must
Do It Because Our Best Friend Wants It.
3] Will it appease the enemy and temper its
lust for destruction?
It is seen as a victory for terrorism and therefore
an encouragement to continue it. Whenever Israel makes concessions or withdrawals,
they are interpreted as signs of weakness and capitulation to violence,
and that inspires more violence to get ;more concessions and withdrawals.
Hamas makes this appraisal: "The disengagement
from Gaza is proof of our victory. The fact that Sharon is willing to withdraw
unconditionally is basically equivalent to raising a white flag and retreating.
Only by force are we able to teach the other side what to do.”
Among the residents of PLO-land, 74 percent
consider the Sharon plan a victory for the PLO, and 77 percent endorse more
jihad-slaughter of Israelis.
4] Will it make Israel more secure and its
residents more safe?
Land and cities given over to the control of
the PLO are always turned into bases for terrorism. Israel cannot take any
action against those bases without terrible cost in lives and the hysterical
rage of the outside world.
Israel's earlier flight out of its security
zone at the border of Lebanon did much to inspire the subsequent Oslo War.
It also left Hezbollah free to put in place a wall of 12,000 missiles within
range of northern and central Israel. This inhibits Israel from taking any
real action against Hezbollah, no matter how many murders it commits.
The flight out of Gaza leaves PLO-Hamas free
to put in place a similar wall of missiles, aimed at southern and central
Israel. This will inhibit any real action against it, no matter how many
murders it commits.
5] Will it reduce foreign pressure for more
concessions to the Arabs?
On one day, Sharon says that hitnatkut replaces the Roadmap. On another day, he says
that there will be no more uprooting of Jewish communities until the Roadmap
is implemented. There is no such ambivalence on the part of the Quartet,
that is relentless in its insistence upon full compliance by Israel to all
its demands.
The U.S. Administration calls hitnatkut "jump-starting the Roadmap" and demands more
and wider withdrawals. The President reiterates his dedication to "the good
cause of the Palestinian people" and stands before the United Nations castigating
Israel for "humiliating" them. Secretary of State Colin Powell faults the
Intifada on the grounds that is delays the creation of a Palestinian State.
Sharon boasted that in the context of hitnatkut
he had won U.S. Executive Clemency to spare the lives of some of the Jewish
towns in Judea-Samaria. This, so he said, might be Israel's greatest achievement
since 1948. His boast was false. His insult to Israel's dignity was real.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair refreshes
his popularity with his own party with promises of some harder kicks to
force Israel along the Road.
Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin asked French
government officials what they thought of Sharon's premise that after hitnatkut Europe would give Israel a respite from pressure
for 15 years. They laughed. Maybe 15 months? Laughter. Maybe 15 days? Laughter.
He could not get a commitment even for 15 minutes.
6] Will Egypt monitor security in Gaza once
it is judenrein?
Whenever Egypt controls Gaza, it uses it as
a base for military attacks and terrorism against Israel. The Egyptians
were driven out in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, but returned by grace of the
Eisenhower-Dulles Administration. It was driven out again in the Six Day
War of 1967. It signed a formal peace treaty with Israel in 1978 to regain
control of the Sinai, but it still connives and conspires and rants against
Israel. It is absurd to argue or imagine that it will deter rather than
abet attacks on Israelis.
Egypt smuggles weapons and munitions and explosives
to the PLO-Hamas in Gaza by way of tunnels from the Sinai. The IDF is repeatedly
sent in to find and close those tunnels, and soldiers have died in those
actions. If hitnatkut goes through, Egypt will no longer need the
tunnels. It can openly roll in the weapons of destruction.
Avi Dichter, director of Israel's Security Service,
at a meeting with Sharon and high-level military officers warned: If Israel
pulls out of the Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza Strip-Egyptian border,
it will open the door to an avalanche of advanced weapons the like of which
was prevented from reaching the Palestinians in all four years of their warfare
against Israel.
7] Can it be reversed if it is tried and
does not work?
The Oslo Accords were presented as provisional
and experimental. If the other side did not honor its commitments, all could
be reversed. No commitment was ever honored, and nothing was ever reversed.
The difference with hitnatkut is that the other side is free of even sham
commitments.
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
The
upper-echelon of the military officers, who are responsible for the lives
and safety of their men and the citizens they protect, have failed to dent
Sharon's obstinacy. From "Saron Prepares for Evacuation Under Fire," DEBKAfile,
19 September 2004:
"[. . . .] Sharon . . . finally admitted that
which the military, security and police chiefs . . . as well as DEBKAfile
-- have been saying for months: the unilateral evacuation of some 9,000
Israelis living in the Gaza Strip cannot be accomplished, if at all, without
a substantial cost in military and civilian lives. Conditions on the ground,
say these authorities, make disengagement unfeasible.
"But the conclusion they elicited from the Prime
Minister was unexpected. I am sticking to my disengagement guns and not budging
one whit from my timetable, he told the ministers and army chiefs: it is
up to the military to make it possible, they had better start preparing for
evacuation under enemy fire.
"As reported previously by DEBKAfile, the Palestinians
are in the midst of massive preparations, including training special operations
units and procuring fresh supplies of upgraded weapons, for hammering the
evacuating forces and Gush Katif evacuues and making the operation a bloodbath.
[. . . .]
"Until now, Sharon and defense minister Shaul
Mofaz said that if the evacuation cannot be accomplished without an unacceptable
level of bloodshed, then it will not be implemented at all. But now, Sharon
appears determined to go forward regardless.
"With the onus of a predictable disaster on
their heads, Israel's military and security chiefs explain: If this plan
goes ahead, it will not be disengagement but total war, a tornado of terrorist
attacks, gunfire and missiles blasting the Gaza Strip, the western and southern
Negev and Gush Katif. Instead of pulling back, the army will be forced
to drive back into the large sections of the Gaza Strip controlled by Palestinians
in order to subdue their war offensive.
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
There is a cruel dilemma for those who respect the rule of law, but find it unendurable that the IDF that has so valiantly secured the life of Israel and their fellow Jews should be misused to render any part of the Land of Israel judenrein.
One
view is summed up in a statement, as reported by IsraelNationalNews, DATE:
"A statement signed by over 150 public figures
calls upon IDF soldiers and police officers to refuse to carry out orders
to expel Jews from their homes. The statement, published in the weekly B'Sheva
newspaper issued today, stresses that such orders are patently illegal
and effectively negate the right of Jews to live anywhere in Israel.
"Among the signatures are those of Finance Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu's father, Professor Ben-Tzion Netanyahu; the minister's
brother Ido Netanyahu; Education Minister Limor Livnat's brother Noam Livnat;
and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's legendary comrade-in-arms from the 1950s-era
Commando Unit 101, Meir Har-Tzion.
"Others on what is called the 'preliminary'
list of signatories are two former directors of the Prime Minister's Office,
Uri Elitzur and Yossi Ben-Aharon, as well as a long list of public figures,
scientists and former mayors and members of the Knesset.
"The statement reads, in part, as follows:
'We declare that expulsion and uprooting are
national crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as manifestations of
despotism and capricious evil aimed at negating the right of Jews - just
because they are Jews - to live in their land.
'We call upon the officials that were commanded
to prepare the infrastructure for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their
homeland, and to all the officers, soldiers and police as well, to listen
to the voice of their national and personal conscience and not participate
in actions which will sully it and for which they will feel sorry for the
rest of their lives.
'We appeal to the intended targets of the expulsion
orders not to cooperate with the expulsion apparatus, not to accept compensation,
and to actively oppose the destruction - though without attacking fellow
Jews, even as they come to destroy [your] homes.
'We call upon the government of Israel not to
give the police and IDF these flagrantly illegal orders, which are forbidden
to give and forbidden to fulfill, and to thus prevent an irreparable split
within the nation and the IDF.'"
An
alternate view is expressed by Carolyn Glick of the Jerusalem
Post, herself one of the most cogent and forceful opponents of
Sharon's plan and his tactics:
"The misplacement of responsibility for acts
by the government onto loyal officers, young soldiers and policemen, and
the derogation of the authority of the state over its citizens and office
holders, is troubling. One cannot place on the back of a soldier the responsibilities
that are held by the prime minister and the defense minister and maintain
that one is acting morally, for acting thus is an abdication of moral responsibility
of citizens in a democracy to petition their government to change policies
they oppose.
"Our soldiers and officers in the IDF are the
only guarantors of our survival and we must never view them as part of the
political debate. This demands that they also remain outside of the political
debate."
* * * * * * *
* * * * *
The Disengagement Authority has sent 1,700 letters
to residents of Jewish communities slated for obliteration. The letters assure
the recipients that the DA understands the "ramifications" of eviction from
their homes, and promises: "We will do all we can to help you in the most
sensitive, fair and professional manner that we can."
Some of those letters were addressed and sent
to people who have been murdered by the terrorists who are slated to inherit
their communities.
END