Throughout its history, the Jewish people has known sharp conflicts: between the Houses of Shammai and Hillel, between Hassidim and Mitnagdim, between Left and Right. But it was Israel’s King Yannai who, on his deathbed, warned his successor, the Queen-to-be Shlomzion: “Fear not the Pharisees, nor them that are not Pharisees. The people you need to fear are the hypocrites who resemble the Pharisees – who carry out the deeds of a Zimri, yet demand to be rewarded like Pinhas!” (Talmud, Tractate of Sota 22b)
A Betrayal of Trust
It is not Yossi Beilin that we need to fear – nor Baruch Marzel. But in that book of our nation’s collective memory there will be a special page dedicated to the names of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert and Shaul Mofaz and Benjamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom and Limor Livnat and Gideon Ezra and Tsippi Livni and Meir Sheetrit – who were elected to the Knesset and appointed to their positions in the Government in the name of the Likud movement, which had inscribed on its banner the territorial integrity of the Land of Israel, and opposition to a Palestinian state, and the nurturing of Jewish settlement, and they went ahead and deceived their voters and betrayed their trust, brazenly voting, in the Government, for “evacuation and compensation.”
Since that ignoble page is already full, we will have to open another one that will be devoted to those who pretend loyalty to the Land of Israel and its settlement, and who in the Government vote “against” the expulsion of Jews – and on the very next day proclaim, eyes turned piously heavenward, that in the Knesset they are going to vote for the expulsion and the uprooting.
The people the Jewish nation needs to fear are those in whose interpretation of democracy there is no room for any Zionist, national, Land-based or human value or ideal that could overcome their thirst for power or their adherence to the positions they hold in the Government. The Jewish people will rightly fear those hypocrites and, therefore, will hold in eternal shame and contempt those who once masqueraded as the zealous Pinhas (remember Yamit?) and now perpetrate the deed of Zimri by raising their hand in the Knesset for the destruction of Israeli communities in Samaria and in Katif.
Those of us who put them in power will never forget all those Likud Ministers who ostensibly “opposed” the expulsion, so that later they will be able to tell the members of the Likud Central Committee how they fought like lions against this plan that the Likud membership had rejected by a huge majority – but “for the sake of the unity of the party” they will vote, the very next day, in favor of the ethnic cleansing of Jews from parts of the Land of Israel.
More Attacks, More Pressure
All the reasons given by Sharon to justify his action have gone up in smoke. Israel’s international standing will not improve after the uprooting. The nations of the world will continue to hold Israel responsible for everything that happens in the Gaza Strip, even after we get out: this according to the legal experts of the National Security Council. The security situation will keep getting worse: witness the recent barrages of mortar and rocket fire. International pressure for more uprooting of settlements will grow: witness the statements of French leaders who have told the Speaker of the Knesset that they would not wait even 15 seconds from the conclusion of the uprooting action until the onset of renewed pressure on Israel.
All that will remain, ultimately, of the whole plan will be Israel’s declaration that we are occupiers in the Land of Israel – that and the rubble-heaps of family homes, synagogues and cemeteries.
The responsibility for this act of destruction and this national debacle will rest squarely – and personally – on those who supported the plan.
SUPPORTERS, OPPONENTS...AND HYPOCRITES, by MK Prof. Arieh Eldad
Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of article penned by MK Prof. Arieh Eldad. The articles are reproduced with the author's permission, for which I am most grateful. Another of Prof Eldad's articles will be posted tomorrow.
In the last elections, the Israeli electorate sent the Israeli Left packing, leaving it politically marginalized. Then along came Ariel Sharon and adopted the ideology and the operational pattern of “Peace Now,” turning himself, in effect, into the real leader of the leftist camp in Israel. Now he is planning, with the aid of its votes, to uproot the Jewish settlements in Gush Katif and in northern Samaria.
But it is not only Sharon’s doing, and that of the leftist camp, that is about to bring on this catastrophe – which, if it happens, will dwarf the catastrophe of Oslo. A special place will be reserved, in the collective memory of the Jewish people, for the names of those Government Ministers of the Likud and of the National Religious Party who could have prevented this catastrophe (and still can) – but failed to do so. Among these are such as were chosen for their posts solely because they do not have a will of their own, and all they were looking for was “a piece of the action.” Others do have a will and a view of their own, and they realize full well that Sharon is about to inflict a disaster upon the nation of Israel, but in their abject hypocrisy they hope that the disaster will be charged to Sharon alone, while they will be absolved.
Throughout its history, the Jewish people has known sharp conflicts: between the Houses of Shammai and Hillel, between Hassidim and Mitnagdim, between Left and Right. But it was Israel’s King Yannai who, on his deathbed, warned his successor, the Queen-to-be Shlomzion: “Fear not the Pharisees, nor them that are not Pharisees. The people you need to fear are the hypocrites who resemble the Pharisees – who carry out the deeds of a Zimri, yet demand to be rewarded like Pinhas!” (Talmud, Tractate of Sota 22b)
A Betrayal of Trust
It is not Yossi Beilin that we need to fear – nor Baruch Marzel. But in that book of our nation’s collective memory there will be a special page dedicated to the names of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert and Shaul Mofaz and Benjamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom and Limor Livnat and Gideon Ezra and Tsippi Livni and Meir Sheetrit – who were elected to the Knesset and appointed to their positions in the Government in the name of the Likud movement, which had inscribed on its banner the territorial integrity of the Land of Israel, and opposition to a Palestinian state, and the nurturing of Jewish settlement, and they went ahead and deceived their voters and betrayed their trust, brazenly voting, in the Government, for “evacuation and compensation.”
Since that ignoble page is already full, we will have to open another one that will be devoted to those who pretend loyalty to the Land of Israel and its settlement, and who in the Government vote “against” the expulsion of Jews – and on the very next day proclaim, eyes turned piously heavenward, that in the Knesset they are going to vote for the expulsion and the uprooting.
The people the Jewish nation needs to fear are those in whose interpretation of democracy there is no room for any Zionist, national, Land-based or human value or ideal that could overcome their thirst for power or their adherence to the positions they hold in the Government. The Jewish people will rightly fear those hypocrites and, therefore, will hold in eternal shame and contempt those who once masqueraded as the zealous Pinhas (remember Yamit?) and now perpetrate the deed of Zimri by raising their hand in the Knesset for the destruction of Israeli communities in Samaria and in Katif.
Those of us who put them in power will never forget all those Likud Ministers who ostensibly “opposed” the expulsion, so that later they will be able to tell the members of the Likud Central Committee how they fought like lions against this plan that the Likud membership had rejected by a huge majority – but “for the sake of the unity of the party” they will vote, the very next day, in favor of the ethnic cleansing of Jews from parts of the Land of Israel.
More Attacks, More Pressure
All the reasons given by Sharon to justify his action have gone up in smoke. Israel’s international standing will not improve after the uprooting. The nations of the world will continue to hold Israel responsible for everything that happens in the Gaza Strip, even after we get out: this according to the legal experts of the National Security Council. The security situation will keep getting worse: witness the recent barrages of mortar and rocket fire. International pressure for more uprooting of settlements will grow: witness the statements of French leaders who have told the Speaker of the Knesset that they would not wait even 15 seconds from the conclusion of the uprooting action until the onset of renewed pressure on Israel.
All that will remain, ultimately, of the whole plan will be Israel’s declaration that we are occupiers in the Land of Israel – that and the rubble-heaps of family homes, synagogues and cemeteries.
The responsibility for this act of destruction and this national debacle will rest squarely – and personally – on those who supported the plan.
Posted by Joseph Alexander Norland at May 27, 2005 08:01 AM