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Ariel Natan Pasko is an independent analyst & consultant. He has a Master's Degree in International Relations & Policy Analysis. He also has degrees in Economics, Politics, and Jewish History & Thought.
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By Ariel Natan Pasko
August 24, 2005
Thank you, Ariel Sharon. Due to your threatened expulsion of the Gazan Jewish community, hundreds of thousandsa of Israelis visited Gush Katif in the last year, it even became a tourist destination for Diaspora Jews and non-Jewish supporters of Israel's right to settle its homeland. It brought the largest Jewish presence to Gaza in modern times. More Israelis become interested in Gaza, and connected to the communities there, than ever before.
Thank you, too, ministers Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Silvan Shalom and others from the Likud; thank you ministers, Shimon Peres, Dalia Itzik, Matan Vilnai, etc. from the Labor Party.
And so as not to "discriminate" against the opposition politicians in Israel; thank you Shinui Party members, Yosef Lapid and Avraham Poraz. Lets not forget MKs Zahava Gal-On, Yossi Sarid and those from Yahad-Meretz, who just as graciously gave Sharon a "safety net" and helped expel the Gazan Jewish community.
I'd also like to thank all those in the Israeli electronic and print media who jumped on the "disengagement bandwagon" to promote an ethnic cleansing campaign in Israel. In particular, I'd like to thank the trinity of Larry Derfner from The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz's Akiva Eldar and Amira Hass, for their constant prattle against "settlers," and their support for Prime Minister Sharon's expulsion plan.
Finally, I'd like to thank Chief Justice Aharon Barak and the Israeli Supreme Court, who upheld the legality of the Sharon government's Gaza Expulsion Plan to expropriate the property -- with or without compensation -- of Israeli citizens and expel them from their homes. Ten out of eleven Justices ruled that the Disengagement Plan violates the human rights of "property, freedom of occupation and proper respect for the evacuees," but is acceptable in order to achieve political and security aims, therefore setting an important legal precedent for the future.
All these supporters of Sharon's Disengagement Plan believe it is for the best interests of the State of Israel and its national security.
Why, might you ask, do I thank all these people?
Plain and simple, because it has dawned on me, and many others, that just as good democratically-minded citizens of the State of Israel who supported the "ethnic cleansing" of Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria today, tomorrow their support can be counted on, if a future Israeli government comes to power that wants to remove Israeli Arabs and the so-called Palestinians, from the historic Land of Israel, for the best interests of the State of Israel and its national security.
Since none of these fair-minded people, I am sure, would contemplate discriminating against their fellow human beings on the basis of religion or ethnicity, I assume none of these fine citizens who supported the expulsion of their fellow citizens from Gaza and Northern Samaria would hold a different standard for non-Jews.
Anyone who would so discriminate could be justly called racist, Nazi, or anti-Semite.
No, these fine citizens, from Sharon and Olmert of Likud, Peres and his Labor colleagues, to the current members of the Supreme Court on down, have opened the Pandora's Box of "ethnic cleansing," never to be shut again.
In the future -- I believe not so distant -- a Jewish leader can rest assured of broad political support to carry out a "transfer" policy against "enemies" that threaten the lives and welfare of Israel's Jewish population. Based on the legal precedent of the present government, the implementers of such a policy will demand the support of those who earlier worked to expel Jews from Gaza. If they won't want to be accused of being racists, Nazis, Judeo-paths, or anti-Semites, they will have to support such a policy.
Then again, they can oppose this precedent-based policy -- and be prosecuted, as the Sharon regime does to its political opponents -- by that future Israeli government.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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