A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. V:9 (No. 57)
September 2005 - Av-Elul 5765
SOWING THE WIND
For they sow the wind and they reap the
whirlwind.
--
Hosea 8:7
The Retreat-Expulsion Plot [also known as Disengagement] has stained Israel
with the ignominy of producing the first generation in 4000 years to break its
covenants with the Promised Land. It has burdened it with being the first
nation in history to throw away its ancestral historic land to an enemy that is
murdering its people and bent on destroying it.
The obtusely materialistic Disengageniks were indifferent even to the
tangible and strategic damages they inflicted. With some blunders of policy it
may take time before the bad consequences are apparent, but on this occasion
they were both glaringly foreseeable and instantly obvious. Yet the
perpetrators of Retreat-Expulsion and their claque were and still are
unconcerned for the harm they have done.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
[1] The perils to Israel and its
people have been compounded.
The Osloids brought a terrorist entity into the heart of the Land of
Israel and gave it power there. The Disengageniks gave it full control of a
strategic strip of territory within the Land of Israel where they now rule and
operate without hindrance or even token restriction.
The leaders of Fatah and Hamas already in residence
in Gaza are now joined by colleagues coming from Syria, while Al-Qaeda is
establishing its own local presence. Virtually all of Israel is now under
threat from the those terrorists recently given control of Gaza and those
earlier given control of the border with Lebanon.
The Disengagenik government had appointed Egypt as gatekeeper of the
crossing point between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt left the gate wide
open for the flow of weaponry. The Israeli retreat was scarcely completed
before Gaza became a depot for tens of thousands of guns, automatic rifles and
Kalashnikovs, millions of rounds of ammunition, tons of explosives, hundreds of
anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles, Katyusha rockets and long-range
Qassam missiles.
Some of these imports were purchased by U.S. protégé
Abu Mazen, who could well afford them with the billions of dollars donated to
him by the United States and the European Union.
It remains to be seen whether this martial
environment attracts customers to the Gaza vacation resort and gambling casino
complex planned by Sharon's henchman Dov Weisglass and other greedy cronies.
[See Issues Nos. 51, 55]
For the help of Egypt shall be vain and
empty.
-- Isaiah 19:7
Every war against Israel since 1948 was led by Egypt. In the Israel-Egypt
peace treaty of 1978, Israel yielded the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt -- although
it had never been Egyptian sovereign territory -- on condition that Egypt would
not again station its military forces there.
Despite being officially at peace, Egypt always kept up its anti-Israel
campaign in propaganda, support for PLO terrorism, and political and diplomatic
mischief. The terrorists in Gaza have for years been supplied with weapons
smuggled from Egypt via tunnels -- tunnels that IDF soldiers have bled and died
to find and seal.
The incumbent regime in Israel derived from this record a confidence that
Egypt can and should be entrusted with supervising the frontiers of the new
terrorist Gaza entity, and to this end invited Egyptian military forces to
re-enter the Sinai and roll up to Israel's southern border.
Apologists for Retreat-Expulsion argued that it would shorten Israel's
lines of defense. Instead, it has stretched them to include not only the
borders of Gaza but the long border with the Sinai Peninsula.
Deputy Premier Shimon Peres,
arch-Osloid, arch-appeaser, compulsive conniver and devoted comrade of the PLO
[see Issue No. 49] has been put in charge of arrangements for security on the
Gaza-Sinai border.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
[2] Tzahal [IDF - Israel
Defense Force] has been tainted and compromised.
Tzahal has been the shield of Israel against its
hate-crazed foes. Its valor, its skills, and its honor was without parallel and
so was the pride and love that the people of Israel felt for the young men and
women who serve in it. [See Issue No. 43]
But it allowed itself to be misused as an
enforcement squad for a corrupt political trickster. The mischief Ariel Sharon
did to the IDF is illustrated in a pair of before-and-after snapshots
June
1967
Israeli
Soldiers Taking Part In The Liberation Of Jerusalem
Reach The Western Wall Of The Ancient
Jewish Temple
August
2005
Israeli Soldiers Taking Part In The
Expulsion-Retreat
Destroy Jewish Communities In The
Land Of Israel
Some of the soldiers misused now suffer emotional distress, depression,
nightmares, and fits of weeping. Some seek out the victims of their actions and
try to express regret for what they did.
Six have committed suicide.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
[3] Ten thousand of a nation's finest
citizens have been treated with calculated brutality by their own government.
Gaza -- part of the Mandate's Jewish National Home
-- was twice liberated from Egyptian occupation. After the second time, Israeli
pioneers went to uninhabited wastelands of sand dunes and there built
self-reliant communities, flourishing and productive, decent and dignified.
They withstood thousands of missile attacks and endured much lethal terrorism.
But they could not withstand the betrayal by a politician who once ardently
encouraged them and then made them the victims of a whim for which he has yet
to give a plausible rationale.
All of the communities, the homes, synagogues,
schools, farms, and businesses, were bulldozed, to cheers of approval coming
from secure newspaper offices, broadcasting studios, and suites of
secular-leftists politicos. The residents were herded into buses and their fate
entrusted to a government Disengagement Authority.
The government's management of that fate goes far
beyond normal incompetence, and suggests the malice of the mean-spirited toward
those they have wronged. The members of displaced communities have a desperate
need to stay together. Therefore, the Disengagement Authority breaks them up
them up and scatters them far apart.
Families who had made for themselves handsome
comfortable houses and beautiful gardens are now squeezed into one small hotel
room, or a trailer, or a tent. Many were rendered dependent on the kindness of
strangers for their most basic necessities. Some live under threat of eviction
even from the hotel room.
They were left with no way to earn a living and
virtually no income, but are required to make mortgage payments on the houses
the government turned to rubble, and even to reimburse the government for
shutting off the electricity. What personal possessions could be salvaged from
the wreck of their lives are shoved into containers that the government stores
where the owners had no access to their belongings. For this service they are
charged fees equivalent to thousands of dollars that, like the rent for the
hotel room, will be deducted from "compensation payments" -- when and
if the promised payments are ever made.
However, the government has not been entirely
unaware that there is a problem. It is using the taxpayers' money to hire
public relations experts to circulate the falsehood that each
"settler" family was given $500,000 in pocket and a nice new house.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
[4] Delusional expectations
Among the fortune-cookie predictions of the Disengageniks was that the
sacrifice would win sympathy for Israel and support for its remaining
positions, and forestall more demands for more concessions. [See Issues Nos.
51, 55] In fact it won only contempt, that the Disengageniks themselves deserve
but Israel does not.
Sharon was treated to a smattering of applause in
the United Nations, the European Union, and other venues where there is always
applause for injuries to Israel. His deed was taken as evidence that Israel had
cracked under pressure, and inspired the belief that under more pressure it
would shatter.
The foreign supervisors of Israel's fate so far from
giving fairer consideration to its rights and its needs, wag their tongues in
warning that the retreat was just a "first step" that must be
followed by more and more drastic retreats.
Thus, rather than forestalling demands for more
surrender he invited harsher demands for surrender from homeland, security, and
dignity.
As to the notion that Israel
would be permitted to resist attacks from an All-Terrorist Gaza, a spokesperson
for the European Union both rejected such leniency and assumed that Sharon
would not disobey its dictates.
From a
"senior Western diplomatic official" quoted in The Jerusalem Post,
8
September 2005:
"Israel is mistaken in
believing that, by withdrawing from Gaza, the international community will
tolerate all types of military retaliation against rocket fire originating from
Gaza, a senior western diplomatic official said [. . . .]
"The diplomat dismissed
an argument used by various government spokespeople that, by leaving the
Philadelphi Corridor and the border crossings, Israel would effectively end its
occupation of Gaza and thereby gain international legitimacy for harsh
reprisals against continued violence from the area.
"'The only people to
accept that argument are the Israelis,' the official said. He said that the
world viewed the West Bank and Gaza as a single Palestinian entity, and that
Israeli occupation would not end because the IDF had evacuated one part of this
area.
"In addition, the
official said, Israel could not claim to have ended its occupation of Gaza
while it still retained control over Gaza's airspace.
"The official said that
the international community did not accept Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's interpretation
that the first stage of the road map was sequential, with the Palestinians
obligated to dismantle terrorism before Israel had to freeze all settlement
construction and remove the unauthorized settlements. Rather, the official
said, the Europeans believed that the steps must be taken in parallel. This
position was also endorsed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a
recent press briefing.
"The official said that
although Europe realized that Sharon had said repeatedly there would be no
negotiations until the Palestinians dismantled the terrorist infrastructure,
they also believed that Sharon had shown a willingness to change his mind as
circumstances had changed."
So little did the Retreat-Expulsion win respect,
that it was quickly followed by an expression of open contempt rare even from
the U.S. Department of State.
In the immediate wake of
Hurricane Katrina, Israel was one of the first nations to offer to send to New
Orleans its highly trained and all-too-experienced rescue teams, as well as
emergency supplies. The U.S. Department of State "postponed"
accepting this succor for the victims of the disaster.
Then, the State Department
gave a list of the nations proffering assistance the unwelcome name
"Israel" was omitted, while exaggerated prominence was given to Arab
names.
The administration admitted
that it refused assistance from Israel lest it "deter Arab and Islamic
countries from offering assistance".
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
"They
must have worked long and hard to make themselves what they are,
for such stupidity does
not come naturally." --
Samuel Johnson
Salient elements in the
Retreat-Expulsion Plan and its aftermath are the fecklessness of the
enterprise, the shabbiness of the motives, and the inanity of the excuses.
[a] Much
of the impetus and support came from the anti-Judaic post-Zionist elements in
Israel who have achieved control of most of the news media, judicial system and
academia. A chief beneficiary of their solipsistic whims has now rendered them
the appreciation they earned:
Reported by IsraelNationalNews, 14 September 2005:
In an address in Gaza on Tuesday marking the Palestinian Authority (PA)
victory over the “occupying force,” PA leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazen) made a point of thanking the Israeli left-wing for their efforts towards
ousting the Jewish residents and IDF from Gaza.
It is not clear how these
kudos will protect them from the hazards they have helped to inflict on the
normal Israelis that so scorn.
[b] Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
to the U.S. leftist-Jewish Israel Policy Forum: "We all desperately
need it [the Expulsion-Retreat]. We are tired of fighting, we are tired of
being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our
enemies, . . . ."
Olmert after this
pronouncement on imaginary collapse of Israel's morale went on to a
dhimmi-witted prediction that it would inspire the enemy respond with peace and
friendship.
[c] Hillel Halkin, an American-Israeli
maven-for-all-seasons, professed himself unable to understand how any
reasonable person could oppose the Retreat- Expulsion plan. After that plan was
carried out, he explained in Commentary Magazine that: "It was
necessary, it would seem, for the Disengagement from Gaza to take place for the
strategy behind it to be revealed as unworkable".
The opponents he so scorned
detected in advance that it was unworkable, and did not need the massive damage
done and deadly dangers incurred before the reality was "revealed".
[d] Mortimer Zuckerman, a big man in
American Jewish affairs and publisher of U.S. News and World Report was
inspired to collect $14 million dollars from some affluent buddies to buy the
very valuable and highly productive agricultural greenhouses of the Jewish
communities of Gaza and donate them to the PLO.
The moment the greenhouses
became PLO property, mobs of its subjects attacked, looted, ransacked, and
shattered them.
Mr. Zuckerman found this
response to his generosity "inexplicable".
[e] The IDF flight from Gaza was
immediately followed by an across-the-border rain of terrorist missiles. An
Israeli government spokesperson opined that the terrorists had deliberately
aimed not to hit anything.
[f] After a barrage of missiles fired from
Gaza into Israel, the Israel Air Force launched strikes targeting open
spaces to deter Palestinian militants from firing Qassam rockets at Israeli
communities.
END