Historic Sharon/Bush Deceptions
Tragic Israeli realities as preparations for upcoming wars proceed
under mask of false and deceptive 'roadmap' 'peace process'.
"Of the 100,000 people who showed up for the demonstration
of the Left parties a year ago, that demanded a pullout from Gaza,
90,000 stayed home in this week’s demonstration. Could it be
that many of them feel in their heart of hearts that they are being
deceived? The Israeli Left chose to commit suicide. It is no longer
beholden to its voters. It is beholden only to Sharon."
"There is no doubt that when the 'peace camp' calls for a
demonstration against the tying of Ma'aleh Adumim and
Jerusalem and the strangulation of the Palestinian state,
even fewer demonstrators will show up than showed up
for last Saturday night's rally. Sharon has already tamed them."
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 25 March: At the recent New York 'peace' conference sponsored by an Israeli front-group masquerading as an American Jewish 'peace' organization (Brit Tzedek V'shalom) many were stunned that the conference organizers were loudly sending the message to stand with Ariel Sharon because he has now become 'the only hope for peace'.
Much more on this Israeli and other front-groups to come; but for now it should be said clearly that concerned Americans should definitely totally shun Brit Tzedek V'shalom, an organization by the way founded by a former Israeli Knesset member and to which the deputy speaker of the current Knesset rushed from Jerusalem to speak to last month.
That said about the on-the-take and on-the-make Israeli crowd and how dangerous they are as they still further spread their tentacles to American Jews and the American media, there are other Israelis who have earned the right to be admired and to be listened to closely.
Indeed, once again some of the best analysis of what is really happening in the disingenuous 'Peace Process' comes from Israeli writers in Hebrew newspapers, especially Ha'aretz. It is but another sign of course of the bankruptcy of so much of the American media when discussing these subjects that one has to turn to the Israelis themselves to point out the bitter truths. Of course the official Palestinian media, controlled by the U.S. and Israeli-created and funded 'Palestinian Authority', is little help in these matters; long ago having lost most of its credibility as have the co-opted and corrupted officials collectively known as Palestinian VIPs.
Professor Tanya Reinhart and former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti have very different backgrounds and approaches. But taken together these two articles published this week in the Hebrew press help provide the backdrop not only to what is currently happening in Israel but also to the joint U.S.-Israeli preparations for further war to enforce the New World Order Crusade (NWOC) of which we spoke yesterday when highlighting the upcoming Bush-Sharon 'War Summit'.
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THE ISRAELI LEFT IS OPTING FOR SUICIDE
Tanya Reinhart*
To judge by the political discourse, being a leftist today means supporting Sharon. Even when his government decides yet again to postpone the evacuation of the illegal outposts to an unknown future date, the pundits explain that the mere fact that he even raised the matter for discussion in the government is indicative of the seriousness of his intentions. Sharon will evacuate Gaza first, they say, and afterwards the outposts, and in the end maybe even the West Bank. And those who most believe that Sharon will dismantle settlements are the parties of the Left. On what basis?
Sharon is known as a man who has not always told the truth. At the time of the Lebanon war, he succeeded in concealing his plan even from the then-Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. He has no problem making promises and then not fulfilling. For three years now he has been promising the US that he will immediately evacuate at least the outposts that were created during his current term as Prime Minister. So what? - He can always propose a new commitment that would postpone the realization of the previous one. Why should the Gaza “Disengagement” be any different? The answer that the Right and the Left agree on is that this time Sharon has changed. That is an interesting answer in the realm of psychology. But what confirmation does it have in the realm of facts? It is much easier at the present to imagine many scenarios in which there will not be any evacuation of settlements in July, than the one in which there will be an evacuation.
Let’s take for example the problem of the evacuees. That is a real problem. The Gaza Strip settlers went there at the behest of the Israeli government. They must be compensated for this dreadful idiocy, to allow them to rebuild their lives. A government that really wanted to evacuate them would have already given them the compensation, so they could leave before the evacuation. In the evacuation of Yamit, in 1982, the overwhelming majority of the residents were compensated and left before the evacuation. Those who were present in the confrontation on the scene were settler activists from the outside, with whom it is easier to deal than with families actually living there. According to Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Administration, over half of the present Gaza Strip settlers have already expressed their willingness to leave (1). So why doesn’t Sharon facilitate their immediate departure? Could it be that he wants the photographs of the first attempt to evacuate them to show us entire families with their children, whose world has been destroyed, so that we will understand through empathy that it is simply impossible to evacuate?
And why this foot-dragging over the Budget? What the right-wing opponents of the Budget are demanding is a referendum. The mainstream of the settlers camp is not interested in a complete break with Israeli society. Their leaders are saying that they will be ready to accept the decision, but only if it is proven clearly that it is the will of the majority. The Likud rebels of course have their own agenda, which they hitch to this demand. But precisely on this issue, it is a simple matter to call their bluff by giving them what they demand. According to all the polls, there is a decisive and stable majority of 60%-70% in favour of the evacuation of Gaza. Even in the poll taken a couple of days after the terror attack at the Stage Club in Tel Aviv, 66% said they would have voted “yes” for the plan, had a referendum taken place that day (2). The disengagement will pass in a referendum. That is clear even to the Right. Why then does Sharon oppose it? Perhaps he does not really want the settlers to compromise and accept the will of the majority? Maybe he is afraid that if the evacuation decision passes in the referendum it will have to be actually carried out sooner or later?
All there is, then, is the faith that Sharon has changed. In its name, all the parties of the Left are obediently lined up behind him. Not only the Labour, which would be probably willing to sit in any government, even one headed by “Gandhi”*; but also Yahad and Hadash**. Sharon is submitting for approval a budget of plunder and robbery, that cuts further the surviving remnants of public services, and all the left-wing parties have to say is that we have to help him to pass it, because he said that he will evacuate settlements.
Of the 100,000 people who showed up for the demonstration of the Left parties a year ago, that demanded a pullout from Gaza, 90,000 stayed home in this week’s demonstration. Could it be that many of them feel in their heart of hearts that they are being deceived? The Israeli Left chose to commit suicide. It is no longer beholden to its voters. It is beholden only to Sharon.
* “Gandhi” is the peculiar nickname in Israel of Rehavam Ze’evi, a former general and politician who was assassinated in 2001 while serving as Israel’s Minister of Tourism. He had a reputation as an extreme nationalist and anti-Arab chauvinist who openly supported transfer. The present Sharon- Labour government decided lately to establish a national memorial day for him, similar to that of Rabin. [M.M] ]
** Yahad is a moderate Zionist party headed by Yossi Beilin. It supports a two-state solution. Hadash is the Israeli Communist Party, headed by Muhammad Barakeh. It is a non-Zionist Jewish/Arab party. [M.M]
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(1) “Some 800 of the 1,700 families living in Gush Katif and northern Samaria have already expressed willingness in principle to leave their homes under the disengagement plan and negotiate over financial compensation, according to Yonatan Bassi, who heads the disengagement administration. Of the remaining 900 families, he believed …[only] 300 families, the hard core of settlers opposed to the evacuation, would refuse to leave of their own accord” (Gideon Alon, Ha’aretz, March 2, 2005).
There is ample information in the Israeli media regarding the frustration of the Gaza Strip settlers, who feel that the government is leaving them in the dark. Alex Fishman interviewed Itzick Ilia, deputy Mayor of the regional council of the Gaza Strip settlements, who says he represents between 70 and 80 percents of the settlers who are willing to leave. He reports a meeting where “people poured out their problems… People cried and shouted. No one talks to them. There is some new law that appeared in the internet, but people don’t even know what exactly are their compensation rights” (Yediot Aharonot, Weekend Supplement, March 18, 2003).
(2) Sima Kadmon, Yidiot Aharonot, Weekend Supplement, March 4, 2005, (Mina Zemach’s “Dahaf”’ poll).
* Professor Tanya Reinhart teaches linquistics at Tel Aviv University and Ultrect University in The Netherlands.
Yediot Aharonot, March 23, 2005. Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall
Even fewer at the next demonstration
By Meron Benvenisti
Ha'aretz - 24 March: The small number of leftist demonstrators who gathered on Saturday night to show support for the disengagement forced the organizers to come up with excuses. One of those was that it is easier to find demonstrators against something than for something, especially public support for Ariel Sharon. So why was it necessary to organize a demonstration that was doomed to fail? So that they could beat their breasts and take pride in the fact that Sharon of all people is implementing the left's ideology, and that the "evacuation of settlements" was invented by the peace camp.
True, there were warnings issued at the edges of the camp that the entire matter is just wool over the eyes, pure deception, that Sharon is actually consolidating Israel's control over the territories and not planning to release its grip, and it is impossible to stand up to the peace euphoria. Only the deliberately pessimistic refuse to become addicted to the recycled Oslo atmosphere - uniformed Palestinian police carrying weapons, and Israeli flags coming down festively from a God-forsaken checkpoint. News items about the continuing construction of the fence, the construction expansion in the settlements, and argument by Palestinians that nothing has really changed are all played down.
It will take some really dramatic event to break through the curtain of illusions, but such an eventuality is not expected: The fifth round of the Israeli-Palestinian war ended once again with a Palestinian defeat, and, until the next round, the Israelis can do what they want in the territories. Sharon and Mofaz know how to exploit the optimistic atmosphere and continue advancing their strategic plans to draw the permanent map of the West Bank.
The final authorization for the construction of thousands of housing units and industrial and commercial zones between Ma'aleh Adumim and the northern neighborhoods of Jerusalem is a decisive step in determining the future of the Palestinian state.
Connecting Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem creates one urban space, which covers a huge area inside the West Bank, from the watershed area to the plains of Jericho. It finally cuts off the northern West Bank from the southern part, and turns the Arab neighborhoods and villages of Jerusalem into isolated islands.
Sharon and Mofaz know exactly what the plan they authorized means, and understand that there is no way to make it fit into the road map or any other political process. But they are counting on the American administration, for whom the illusion of the "political process" is much more important than the facts on the ground.
The minute the administration in Washington accepts the Israeli claim that the construction freeze does not cover "planning procedures," it will accept the argument when the planning is over that the construction in Ma'aleh Adumim is only meant "to strengthen the Jewish settlement blocs," as President Bush has already affirmed.
The Labor Party will not be able to raise any appeals because the plan was originally approved in principle by Yitzhak Rabin's government, though never implemented, and, in general, "Ma'aleh Adumim is in the consensus." Nobody will pay any attention to the protests from the Palestinians. What do they want? Didn't they get Gaza and the Palestinian cities? And maybe, just maybe, "if the terror is eradicated," they'll get half the West Bank, patched together with bridges and tunnels "that create contiguity, but that's not a matter for right away," as Sharon has said.
Since no serious Palestinian will accept a plan for a state without territorial contiguity, it is clear that the plan to link Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem will torpedo any chance for the establishment of a Palestinian state as laid out by the road map.
But Sharon and Mofaz aren't worried. The inventors of the "unilateral" strategy don't need the agreement of the other side, just a wink from the Americans. And in general, who cares about Plan E-1 when in front of our eyes the vision of peace is once again unfolding? And most of all: Why wake up suddenly, "when the plan is not new and was approved by Rabin?"
There is no doubt that when the "peace camp" calls for a demonstration against the tying of Ma'aleh Adumim and Jerusalem and the strangulation of the Palestinian state, even fewer demonstrators will show up than showed up for last Saturday night's rally. Sharon has already tamed them.
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