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Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of , Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
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By Dr. Aaron Lerner
October 15, 2004
In 1954-55 a freshman U.S. Senator from Massachusetts wrote a book profiling eight of his historical Senatorial colleagues, such men as John Quincy Adams, Sam Houston, and Robert A. Taft. Instead of focusing on their storied careers, John F. Kennedy chose to illustrate their acts of integrity, when they stood alone against tremendous political and social pressure for what they felt was right.
During the course of this second Sharon administration, a number of leading Likud figures were given the opportunity to be recorded in Israel's own "Profiles in Courage."
Binyamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom all knew that the Road Map was a disastrous plan for Israel. We know that because they said as much in remarks in the period leading up to the cabinet vote.
But instead of rallying support to defeat the plan, they folded, hiding behind the fig leaf of the "14 Israeli remarks" -- Israeli terms and interpretations that were never accepted by the other parties -- including the United States.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom all knew that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan was a disastrous plan for Israel. We know that because they said as much in remarks in the period leading up to the cabinet vote.
But again, instead of rallying support to defeat the plan, they folded, hiding behind the fig leaf of the "staggered withdrawals" that would first serve up some of the more isolated communities to the retreat Moloch with the idea that somehow circumstances would develop so that the remaining communities would never be uprooted.
Sharon has now even denied Netanyahu, Livnat and Shalom this fig leaf, making it clear that the uprooting will take place rapidly and in a continuous, rather than staggered, program.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Limor Livnat and Silvan Shalom. All leading Likud politicians on track to be prime minister one day. And they are not about to let anything get in their way.
Guilt? Hardly. Thanks to their considerable self esteem, they are all convinced that once they do finally become prime minister they will be able to control the damage caused by the various plans and programs that they declined to defeat when they were "only" ministers.
Under other circumstances, the decision by Netanyahu, Livnat and Shalom to turn their backs on the wishes of the Likud rank and file as well as Likud Central Committee in order to keep on what they see as the track to the prime minister's chair would be political suicide. And it would be if a serious contender for the chair had voted according to his conscience rather than his immediate political needs.
But, unfortunately, this is not the case (or at least not perceived as the case) today.
Minister Uzi Landau and his group of Likud loyalists are short only a few votes from defeating Sharon's retreat plan in the Knesset. (They are called "rebels" when in point of fact it is the prime minister who has rebelled against the clear rejection of disengagement by the Likud party referendum vote as well as the votes of the Central Committee.)
It is not too late for this trio -- and their fellow "rebels" -- to set aside narrow personal agendas and take their place among Israel's "Profiles in Courage."
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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