 |
Alan Perlman is a resident of the community of Carmel in the Hebron Hills region and a technical writer. Perlman has a master's degree in social work.
|
|
|
|
By Alan Perlman
January 30, 2005
The ironies in last week's events give one pause.
In a statement to the Knesset commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bemoaned the fact that the WW2 Allies knew about the murder of Jews in the death camps and did nothing, and he proclaimed that Jews have no one to count on but themselves for their security. At the same time, the Israeli government has signaled to the Holocaust-denying president of the Palestinian terror authority its readiness to turn over security control of Gaza, Ramallah and other areas to the Palestinian terrorist forces that have been waging war against Israel for over four years -- killing over one thousand Israelis and injuring many thousands more.
As if this is not irony enough, Israel has also signaled to the Palestinian terrorist authority its willingness to release more terrorists from Israeli prisons to satisfy the Arab public that hero worships these terrorists. Yet, during this same week, Israel arrested, or more exactly, rearrested, a core of key Hamas terrorists who were preparing to perpetrate imminent large-scale bomb attacks, as well as to manufacture rockets and weapons. Rearrested, because these terrorists had been previously arrested and then released. One was jailed between 1993 and 1994 for Hamas terror-related activities. Another was jailed between 1998 and 1999. Still another in 1994, and another in the early '90's. Another was under administrative detention during 2003, and another arrested in 2002.
The first major release of terrorists took place back in 1985, when Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin released 1100 terrorists in exchange for three Israeli soldiers. Israel was then surprised when, immediately following the release, these terrorists led an ongoing, organized series of terror attacks which came to be called the intifada.
Though that terror onslaught consisted mostly of axe and knife attacks, the Israeli will to defend itself crumbled. Led by the pack of schemers and liars known as the Labor party, Israel imported the granddaddy of all terrorists, rescuing him from the dung heap of history, and signed a peace accord with him. They gave him autonomous areas in the Israeli heartland, and an army and weapons. But the Arabs wanted more. They wanted remaining terrorists released from prison. They argued that that in the days before Oslo, these terrorists were soldiers at war, and should be released as part of the peace we would now all enjoy. With the terrorists committing themselves to non-violence, and with the Oslo accords eliminating the possibility that the "soldiers at war" argument could be used for post-Oslo terror, Israel released these murderers.
Once again, Israel was surprised when, the promise of peace notwithstanding, Arafat continued to call for Jihad and these terrorists continued to murder Israelis. Israel made concession after concession, including repeated prisoner releases, and the murder of Israelis increased. Because Yitzhak Rabin's assassination elevated him to near sainthood and gave him a certain immunity to criticism (lest one commit the crime of besmirching his legacy), it is easy to forget that Rabin's pre-assassination popularity had plummeted to an all time low because Israelis simply tired of hearing Rabin's oft repeated mantra of "another korban (sacrifice) for peace."
In time, these terrorists introduced suicide bombings in buses and restaurants. Devastated and demoralized by the attacks, Ehud Barak offered the terrorist authority a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and with Arab sovereignty over the Temple Mount. To show their gratitude, the terrorist authority launched the Oslo war, now in its fifth year, and Israelis can only look back nostalgically at those halcyon days of the first intifada.
Since Oslo, more than thirteen hundred Israelis have been murdered, and many thousands more injured, far more than were killed and injured by terror in the full 45 years preceding Oslo. Yet once again, the murderous Arab public is demanding the release of their holy fighters. And once again, Israel is agreeing.
Santayana was mostly correct when he said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But he would have been completely correct had he said, "Those who ignore history doom others to die by it."
Israel's leadership is not threatened by the murderers they release, but the rest of us are. The Knesset is fully protected by armed guards. Members of the government have armed protection at home. And they have cars and drivers -- no public buses for them.
It is time for the Israeli public to demand an end to this insanity. It may not be criminal for Israeli leaders to lack memory and intelligence, but it is criminal for them to keep releasing unrepentant murderers to repeatedly murder Israeli citizens. Beginning with Oslo, successive Israeli governments have become accessories to the shedding of Jewish blood.
We must demand that the Knesset pass a law barring the Prime Minister and President from releasing mass murderers and their accomplices from captivity without a two-thirds Knesset approval. And we must demand a full accounting of all Israelis murdered as a result of earlier prisoner releases.
Our lives depend on it.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
