By Reuven Koret
December 13, 2004
All yesterday we saw the smug, self-congratulatory smiles from Arik Sharon and his bootlickers. Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and the rest of the Labor party wrapped themselves in loving embraces, arms around each other, hugging and kissing. All is forgiven. The losers in the last election were returning to power, with the government committed to implementing their soundly rejected policy.
The haredi religious parties -- Sephardi Torah Guardians ("Shas") and United Torah Judaism -- lick their lips at the prospect of milking the new "national unity" coalition, dependent on their purchased votes, eager like the Biblical Esau to trade their birthright for a pot of lentils -- a few hundred million dollars of lentils, just for appetizers.
Yes, now -- our leaders think -- nothing can get in the way of the glorious unilateral disengagement from Gaza -- oh, sorry, "the plan to leave Gaza" as it is now officially called by our Prime Minister, since it is no longer unilateral nor disengaging. The wordsmith and spinmeisters should replace "leave" with "part from," or perhaps, in tribute to our friends the French: "The plan to bid Gaza adieu."
Anything to hide the grim, morally debased reality: "the plan to flee Gaza, destroy Jewish communities, expel Jewish families and, in the process, imprison, injure or kill Jews who dare to resist." Coming soon to a closed military zone, settler detention center or Zionist refugee transit camp near you. They can turn it into a TV reality show, to be set next to Dov Weissglas' Gaza casino or Omri Sharon's money laundry.
The government yesterday announced plans to free hundreds of terrorists who tried, but failed, to kill Israelis, so they can try, try, try again. The government decided to entrust border security to the wonderfully efficient Egyptians, who have done such a swell job stopping terror and preventing the import of weapons and explosives along Gaza's southern border. Yes, that is a cause for celebration.
They weren't alone in their festivities. Last night the Palestinians -- Fatah and Hamas working together, just as President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah is working together with the Hamas leadership -- dug a tunnel a half mile long under an Israeli army checkpoint, packed it with a ton and a half of TNT, blew it up, then opened fire in a coordinated attack of snipers and suicide bombers that killed five soldiers, seriously wounded another, prevented the IDF from rescuing its wounded for four hours. Palestinians everywhere celebrated, all night long.
The IDF responded overnight by firing 5 missiles, which caused no significant damage or casualties. Sharon this morning called for an all-out assault on tunnels. The chances of his new project succeeding are about the same as his entering and leaving one of those tunnels.
The Palestinians are teaching us a bitter lesson in unilateral disengagement. They are successfully driving us out by force and international diplomatic pressure. And Arik Sharon, the great bulbous bulldozer has allowed it to happen under his watch, scurrying out of Gush Katif with his tail between his ample legs, lumbering like Barak his predecessor lurched from Lebanon, retreating in panic under fire.
The national unity government now in panting panic formation is a grand opportunity to showcase the bankruptcy of the "conventional wisdom" of Israeli politics. Who says you don't get a chance to repeat history? Shimon Peres, the five-time loser, has one last chance to become Prime Minister. Of course, he has not always lost: he inherited when Yitzhak Rabin obeyed his advice, reportedly, not to bother with the bulletproof vest, not to show he is afraid.
The fearless Sharon has already admitted that no vest will fit him, so his would-be deputy can just sit back and warn about the "right wing extremist" or the "law student from Herzliya," as one of his "internal security" stooges so presciently prophecied in 1995. The tragic question is only whether the next attempt will fail or, heaven forfend, succeed. Sharon, now more than ever, should watch his weight, and his back.
Only love will not win this time, but neither will violence. The forces of non-violent civil resistance, righteousness and compassion need to gird their collective loins for the fight for their nation's soul and its survival at a Jewish State. If we allow ourselves to be chased from Gaza, and northern Samaria, we will be forced to flee from everywhere else, sooner than we think.
But if we are steadfast, and oppose with our bodies and brains the steamroller that aims to flatten Jewish homes, uproot Jewish families, and unearth the Jewish dead -- then, only then, will we change the world and reveal the current leadership for the clueless farce that it is. Sadly, we will be "helped" in no small way by the viciousness of the enemy, who will show us the price of being cruel to the merciful, and merciful to the cruel.
I am disgusted by the whorishness of this government, its corruption, and pandering.
I long for a government in the spirit of Menachem Begin, or Yitzhak Shamir, diminutive but upright, who stood up in pride and righteousness for the truth in spite of the world's condemnation. Shimon Peres joined the world in condemning the bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor. Begin knew that the condemnation would come, but he ordered it because it had to be done, the price be damned. And Ilan Ramon and the other Israeli heroes got it done. The heroes are still out there in the field, but Peres is still undermining from within, joined by an once-proud old warrior gone soft, corrupt, grotesque.
The Bedouin scouts who died tonight, like the children killed by Kassam rockets, like the Jews murdered on their roads, on our buses, and in our cafes -- are these the sacrifices to be thrown into the garbage as our government retreats under fire and tramples the most fundamental principles on which the State of Israel was created? When will this unending shame be ended? When will the real Israeli army, and its fighting spirit, be allowed to return?
My only solace is that most of the jokers are now gathering themselves in a government of national self-ridicule that is bound for ignnominious self-defeat. They will fail miserably, abjectly. They will see their "plan to leave Gaza" end in a rout, and shame. Their folly and their pride will yet cause more needless deaths. But when they fail, sooner rather than later, they will clear the way for a new leadership that has not abandoned Jewish self-respect and common sense. A Jewish leadership which will restore sanity and bring to trial those who led us to ruin and disgrace.
It does not take a prophet to see that Israel is riding for a terrible fall, trusting those who will betray her, believing in those who will deceive her. We, the regular citizens, the grass roots of the nation, can only observe, say our piece, gather our forces, and be ready to act, constructively, when things fall apart.
We are a nation in which the enemy within and the enemy without are tunneling, silently, underneath our base, undermining our ideological foundations, stripping our defense one by one, preparing their charges, sowing their seeds of destruction. Now and then we hear tremors, distant thunder, occasional blasts here and there. But, alas, the "big bang" awaits.
Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres and their collaborators are transforming Gaza into a terror base, an arms depot, a launch pad for ever more lethal rocket and terror attacks. They are turning it into a scene of shame, where Israeli soldiers will be compelled to drag Israeli families -- men, women and children -- from their homes and into detention camps. They will destroy the building of two generations, uproot the living spirit of our nation's finest pioneers. Worse, they are setting a precedent for galloping surrender which threatens to end with the loss of Jerusalem and the endangerment of all Israel.
Wake up, friends of Israel! Support those forces of resistance which recognize the danger you see and feel in your heart. Powerful forces will try to squelch free expression and non-violent resistance. Witness the months to come. Speak the truth to power. Help bring back the real Israel.
Athough the democratic will of the Israeli people has been temporarily subverted by the manipulators who have seized power like thieves in the night and now run our government, the forces of reality and the evil of our enemies will yet reveal that -- revolting image! -- our emperor has no clothes.
Only then, after the the post-Zionists fail miserably, and self-destruct, may the silent majority of patriots have the opportunity to pick up the pieces and remake the Jewish Nation. May the day come soon.
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