$3.50
Christopher Barder, Yossi Ben -Aharon, Louis Rene Beres, Gary Cooperberg, Uri Dan, Moshe Feiglin, Elaykim Ha'etzni, Morton Klein, Dr. Aaron Lerner, Dr. Steven Plaut, Yehuda Poch, Jonathan Rosenblum, Boris Shusteff, David Wilder, Emanuel A. Winston, Moshe Zak
PAGE
WHY I WON'T WEEP FOR KING HUSSEIN....An Editorial....Bernard J. Shapiro 3
THE RETURN TO ZIONISM....Guest Editorial....Boris Shusteff 4
POLLARD MUST BE SET FREE
TWO SHORT POLLARD ARTICLES....Morton Klein and Jewish Press editorial 5
BRING JONATHAN HOME....Jonathan Rosenblum 6
CONSPIRACY AGAINST POLLARD & ISRAEL.....Emanuel A. Winston 8
ISRAELI ELECTION
THE COMING ISRAELI ELECTION: AN ANALYSIS....Yehuda Poch 12
ET TU, BEGIN....Moshe Feiglin 18
CLUCKING AWAY....David Wilder 19
A LACK OF CLARITY....Moshe Zak 21
BEYOND THE FRONT-RUNNERS....Dr. Aaron Lerner 22
BURST BALLOON.....Uri Dan 24
A CHOICE, NOT AN ECHO....Yossi Ben-Aharon 25
DIRTY POLITICAL TRICKS....Emanuel A. Winston 26
THE ELECTIONS AND SECURITY.....Christopher Barder 27
ELYAKIM HA'ETZNI ON GENERAL SHAHAK 28
IMRA'S WEEKLY COMMENTARY ON ARUTZ 7.....Dr. Aaron Lerner 30
ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST
HUSSEIN'S DEATH: A PRELUDE TO GREATER PALESTINE?.... Elyakim Haetzni 32
HYPOCRISY....Boris Shusteff 36
CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT....Boris Shusteff 38
PRAYING WITH ARAFAT....Louis Rene Beres 40
BETRAYAL OF THE LAND....Rachel 7 42
WHEN ONE SLEEPS WITH DOGS, He Should Not Be Surprised To Wake Up With Fleas....Gary Cooperberg 43
MEASURES OF STRENGTH....David Wilder 45
TO SHARE OUR SOVEREIGNTY IS TO SURRENDER IT....Gary Cooperberg 46
HOW MANY JEWS MUST BE KILLED BEFORE
WE TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY..Gary Cooperberg 48
SYRIA TO GO ARMS SHOPPING...Daniel Sobelman 50
ISRAELI FASCISM....Dr. Steven Plaut 50
ISLAM - THE ARAB IMPERIALISM....Anwar Shaikh....Book Review...Ibn al Rawandi 51
O LAND OF ZION....Poetry....Bernard J. Shapiro 54
WE ARE ALL SETTLERS....Poetry.....Evelyn Hayes 55
An Editorial
The passing of King Hussein of Jordan has unleashed a huge torrent
of praise and adulation. One could imagine that the King was gd
like, a man of few flaws and much good deeds. A man who sought
peace above all else. I have a contrarian view. One where his
vile and despicable deeds are interred with his bones and his
good is magnified beyond all recognition.
Hussein ruled east Jerusalem between 195267. During that period
he oversaw the destruction of 56 synagogues and much of the Jewish
Quarter of the city. He failed to honor the 1949 Armistice and
allow Jews pray at the Wall, their Holy Site. He desecrated the
graves of pious Jews buried on the Mount of Olives, making latrines
of their tombstones for his army.
In later years he hosted terrorists dedicated to destroying Israel.
When they threatened his rule, he simply massacred 20,000 of them.
He had common interests with Israel and there was frequent cooperation.
It all served his interest and was not done out of grace and love
for the Jews.
Hussein was a great survivor, which he managed by playing off
various conflicting interests. During the Gulf War he sided with
Iraq despite its obvious intention to destroy Israel. He forbade
Israel from overflying his territory to retaliate against Saddam's
Scud attack.
When he finally made peace with Israel it was only with massive
bribes: money from the US and 100 million cubic meters of scarce
water from Israel. In addition he demanded and got Israeli territory
in the Arava Valley. He generally supported Oslo for the same
reasons that Arafat supported it: It would diminish and weaken
Israel. this had been an Arab goal for 45 years. He did fear a
rising Palestinian State and hoped Olso would entangle Israel
and the Palestinians for many years, diverting the threat from
Jordan.
When two Mossad agents were caught trying to kill a leading Islamic
terrorist in Amman, he deliberately embarrassed Israel and insisted
on the release the head of the Hamas terrorist organization, Sheik
Yassin. We must remember that the Mossad had worked for decades
protecting the King from assassination and plots against the throne.
The media has focused on his "quest for peace" in the
Middle East. In all of his negotiations and discussions on the
subject, he never found the need to support the Israeli position.
He never asked Mubarak of Egypt to warm up the peace with Israel.
He never asked Arafat to stop terrorism and comply with his Oslo
obligations. When Clinton brought him to Wye, the purpose was
clear. It was to apply pressure on Israel to sign on the dotted
line. To accept another flawed agreement.
And so, I won't mourn for King Hussein. I find the media extravagance disgusting. And most of all I find the outpouring of praise from Israeli leaders to be opportunistic. Surely they must know the facts above. I can not offer redemption to King Hussein for any good he did during his latter life. He will be judged like all men by HaShem who will weigh the good that he did on a scale of justice with the bad.
Guest Editorial
Some students, after solving a mathematical problem given as homework, peek into the solution section and correct their answer if it is different from the one in the textbook. It does not occur to them that there could be a mistake or a typo in the book and that their answer may have been correct. Many Israeli leaders today resemble these students in their dependency on public opinion surveys. Instead of following a certain political line they constantly adjust their policy according to the latest poll results. Nothing can prove this better than the creation of the socalled "centrist" party, which should really be called the "instant poll" party.
This illness has not spared the nationalist camp either. As soon as some polls showed that voters are moving away from Benny Begin to Yitzhak Mordekhai, voices began to sound, calling for Begin to withdraw his candidacy from the Prime Ministerial race in order not to hurt Netanyahu's chances for reelection. Somehow principles and ideology do not count anymore. The Yesha council is in disarray, and its leaders are threatening to resign if the council does not support Netanyahu. All of Netanyahu's "sins" are forgotten and he is again envisioned as the future "savior" of the country.
It is very much possible that Netanyahu is the best choice for the nationalist camp, but this is only true if he can be steered in the right direction. And the driver's seat must be taken by the minor "rightist" parties. They must define their positions clearly and forcefully. Only by adopting an unbending nationalistic stand will the minor Israeli parties Herut, Moledet, Tzomet, Tekumah and Yisrael Beytenu be able to force Likud to return to its former position of the unacceptability of relinquishing any part of Eretz Yisrael.
On January 22, leader of the new Yisrael Beytenu Party Avigdor
Lieberman in an interview with Tel Aviv "Novosti Nedeli "called
for an "ideological renovation" when he said, What is
particularly bitter and painful for me is lack of principles,
cynicism and the loss of ideals... A state, particularly a state
such as ours, cannot exist without a clearly defined purpose.
The general devilmaycare attitude is spreading wider and wider,
like an oil spot on the water surface. Today, the very notion
of the "Zionist idea" which was the foundation on which
Israel was built sounds as something obsolete, an anachronism.
The return to Zionism is the only solution that will allow Israel to have a future. Only by going back to Zionist principles the first and foremost of which is settlement will it be possible to change the situation. It is not a coincidence that, according to the Tel Aviv newspaper "Vesti" from February 5, fifty two percent of Moledet members constitute immigrants from the former USSR. Separated for generations from their homeland they instinctively cling to a nationalist party. They, better than many "sabras," understand what it means to regain a homeland. Their dormant nationalist feelings are finally awakened, and they cherish every inch of the Jewish land and are ready to fight for it.
However, it would be unfair to say that it is only the Russian Jews who are "nationalistic." The favorite Israeli resource of information polls can serve as an eye opener for those who claim that the land is not important. A survey conducted among the Jewish population on January 27 by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University showed that 66.3% said "No" to "the establishment of a Palestinian state with eastern Jerusalem as its capital [even] if this would remove the last stumbling block on the way to true peace between Israel and the Palestinians." What is extremely interesting is that 77.9% of the survey participants are "greatly or somewhat supportive of the peace process between Israel and the Arabs" and 11.4% are "in the middle."
This survey clearly indicates that the Jewish people still long for the Jewish land. It is the task of the nationalist parties to touch the most sensitive strings of the Jewish soul. By accentuating the true Jewish and Zionist values the nationalist parties and Likud could guarantee a victory in upcoming elections. In order to attract the voters they need to convince them that they really mean what they preach.
While a strong nationalist stand is a must for the "rightist" parties, unity is a must too. When Benny Begin says that he is not going to join forces with Rehavam Ze'evi because the latter's "transfer" idea (relocating the Arabs of Judea and Samaria to other Arab countries) is "antieducational," he simply misses the point that Moledet's main idea an undivided Eretz Yisrael is very much proeducational. There are and there always will be differences between the nationalist Israeli parties, but much more important is the common link that unites them. This common link the allabsorbing love for Eretz Yisrael and the unshakable belief in the necessity to settle every corner of Judea, Samaria and Gaza should become the foundation of unity.
The Zionist ideology must be reborn. What can be more sacred then the love of one's homeland? The twothousandyear yearnings for Zion and Jerusalem that were suppressed by postZionism need to be released from their incarceration. Like a mighty river they should sweep away the ghetto mentality and selfhatred that ruins the Jewish state. The Israeli Jews should proudly raise their head and declare to the whole world that they love their Land. It is so natural to love it. It deserves to be loved. Every inch of it is soaked with Jewish blood, sweat and tears. It is the love of Eretz Yisrael that allowed the Jewish people to withstand the inferno of the Holocaust. It is Eretz Yisrael where the Jewish people found shelter after being abandoned by the whole world.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in his Commentary on the Weekly Torah reading
for 20 Shvat, 5759 (February 6, 1999) wrote, "It is no mere
coincidence that both the Torah of Israel as well as the Land
of Israel are called 'morasha,' which our Sages connect to 'me'orasa,'
or 'beloved fiancee.' One must love the Torah as well as the land
if one is to acquire each of them." This love creates miracles.
It turned the desolate and withered land into an oasis. It returned
the People to the Land. It can preserve the Land for the People.
This love can be expressed in words. Since it is fashionable for
Israeli political parties to have a campaign slogan the united
Nationalist Front should adopt one too. It can simply state, "To
Love and to Settle the Homeland." 02/05/98
==========
Boris Shusteff is an engineer in upstate New York. He is
also a research associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic
Studies. Unless indicated otherwise, the translations of the Jewish
press are from I & G News.
EHUD BARAK, JONATHAN POLLARD - JAMES CARVILLE
JEWISH PRESS (New York) EDITORIAL -- January 29, 1999.
Several weeks ago THE JEWISH PRESS reported that
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his chief rival, Ehud Barak, had
agreed to send a joint letter to President Clinton urging the
release of Jonathan Pollard. A draft of a letter was prepared
and the matter reportedly only awaited Mr. Barak's signature.
To our dismay, we learned the other day that Mr. Barak had informed
the Prime Minister, publicly, that he would not be signing the
letter, giving as his reason that he believed that a public declaration
of support at this time, not only would not help, but would be
counterproductive.
We are not aware of any change in the political atmosphere that
ordinarily would have prompted this remarkable aboutface regarding
an issue that has come to symbolize to most Israelis a demand
for fair play. And we are thunderstruck that a public declaration
is the problem. Nothing about Mr. Pollard could happen out of
the public eye for the next 50 years!
It seems to us then that what is up is the stealthy hand of Mr.
Barak's head of campaign, the Clintondispatched James Carville.
We can well understand that the President may not want to risk
antagonizing those members of the Senate who are opposed to clemency
for Pollard and must vote at his impeachment trial. So we can
also understand why Mr. Carville would importune Mr.Barak to forbear.
What eludes us, however is why Mr. Barak would go along.
In truth the fortunes of neither the American nor the Israeli
republics depend upon what happens to Mr. Pollard. But it is clear
to anyone who has taken the time to think about the treatment
meted out to him that the whole matter reeks. From the reneging
of the Justice Department on a plea bargain to Caspar Weinberger's
"Trustmehedidsomethingterrible" last minute secret
memorandum to the court at sentencing, to the extraordinary life
sentence, to the continuing leaks cryptically hinting at continuing
threats to America's security, the Pollard case is unique and
has been recognized as such by Jews around the world.
At all events, Ehud Barak, the man who would be prime minister,
owes an explanation to the Israeli electorate and indeed to world
Jewry, as to why he is a willing pawn in a Clinton scenario at
the expense of an important Jewish issue.
SEYMOUR HERSH'S DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
By Morton Klein National President, Zionist Organization of America
THE JEWISH PRESS -- January 29, 1999.
In a widely publicized article in a recent issue of THE
NEW YORKER, journalist Seymour Hersh claimed Jonathan
Pollard should stay behind bars because according to Hersh
some of the data Pollard gave Israel was then forwarded by the
Israelis to the Soviet Union.
But Hersh neglected to inform his reading public of a crucial
point he made the same allegations back in 1991, and they were
based on a source that turned out to be, in the words of THE
JERUSALEM POST, "a notorious, chronic liar."
In other words, Hersh is just recycling information from a discredited
source in order to harm Pollard. Perhaps that is not surprising,
considering Hersh's long record of extreme antiIsrael bias. In
1982, for example, he gave a speech at Hiram College in which
he "compared Israeli attitudes toward the Palestinians to
American views toward the Vietnamese and the Nazis' policy toward
Jews. (according to NEAR EAST REPORT)
The fact that Hersh has stooped to recycling allegations that
were discredited eight years ago is an indication of the weakness
of the case made by Pollard's enemies. No reasonable case can
be made to keep Pollard in jail any longer. Pollard is the victim
of an outrageous double standard, in which he has been punished
far more severely for spying for an ally of America than the punishments
given out to those who have spied for nations that are not friendly
to the United States. The time has come for President Clinton
to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard.
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post of January 8, 1999
President Bill Clinton is scheduled to conclude another review of the Jonathan Pollard case next week. The latest clemency review is the sop offered by Clinton after reneging on his unequivocal promise at Wye to release Pollard. No defender of Pollard has been heard on his behalf. His fate will again be decided on the basis of information supplied solely by those determined to see him die in jail.
Unlike Alfred Dreyfus, Pollard is not innocent. He committed a serious crime for which he has already served a longer sentence than anyone ever convicted of the same offense. The average prison term for spying for allies is two to four years. But just as the Dreyfus case was an indictment of French justice, so is the Pollard case a stark indictment of American justice.
Pollard was charged and pleaded guilty to one count of delivering defense information with intent to aid a foreign nation i.e., Israel, a staunch American ally. As in any espionage case, the US government was eager to avoid a trial and the inevitable exposure of intelligence secrets such a trial entails. And it was doubly eager in Pollard's case, because a trial would have revealed how the US had failed to fulfill its treaty obligations to supply intelligence data to Israel and the full extent of its tilt toward Iraq in the early '80s, which included countenancing Iraq's missile buildup and development of weapons of mass destruction.
Lest there be any doubt of the strength of Pollard's bargaining position, consider the case of Aldrich Ames. For large payments to support a lavish lifestyle, Ames exposed over 30 American agents to the Soviets, leading directly to their executions. He nevertheless secured in return for his plea bargain, assignment to a minimum security prison, where he has his own private room and TV, no work requirement, and access to an18hole golf course.
Meanwhile, Pollard shares a cell with four other inmates, works eight hours or more a day, and is denied kosher food. And that's a picnic after seven years in a hospital for the criminally insane and subsequently in isolation in America's toughest federal prison. In return for his plea bargain, Pollard received the maximum sentence under the statute in short, a "bargain" in which one side received absolutely nothing.
Government prosecutors made three promises to Pollard: that they would not ask for a life sentence, that they would inform the court of the great importance of his cooperation in the assessment of damage from his activities, and that they would limit their presentation to the court to the "facts and circumstances of the case." The prosecutors broke, in the words of Washington DC Circuit Court Judge Stephen Williams, every one of these promises in spirit and the third in letter as well.
MENTION OF Pollard's cooperation including nine months of interrogation and 52 polygraphs was tucked away in the middle of a section of the government's submission detailing why he should receive a substantial sentence. Far from limiting themselves to the "facts," the government prosecutors loaded their submission with the most conclusory allegations of Pollard's venality, addiction to a high lifestyle, arrogance, and deceitfulness allegations belied by the fact that Pollard initially volunteered his information to Israel and it was his handlers who insisted on relatively small payments.
Though he did not explicitly ask for a life sentence, the chief prosecutor later told reporters that he hoped Pollard "never sees the light of day again." And he acted accordingly. Most damaging, of course, was the last minute in camera submission of then defense secretary Caspar Weinberger. Pollard and his attorneys were never given a copy of the allegations presented to the sentencing judge by Weinberger, and were thus unable to rebut them. It is harder to imagine a greater affront to the due process right to confront one's accusers.
In the public part of Weinberger's submission, he labeled Pollard
a "traitor," a crime of with which he was not charged
and was not guilty. Weinberger told the judge that he could not
imagine a crime "more deserving of a severe punishment"
or which had done "greater harm to national security,"
all but demanding the maximum sentence. Jonathan Pollard was thus
sentenced for the crime of damaging the United States a crime
with which the government had explicitly refrained from charging
him. By implication, Israel was transformed into an enemy.
Compare the case of US Navy Cmdr. Michael Schwartz (not Jewish), who sold secrets to the Saudis. Schwartz's only punishment was a less than honorable discharge, and nary a word of criticism of the Saudis was heard.
Weinberger had good reason to be piqued with Pollard. He favored keeping Israel vulnerable, and Pollard reduced that vulnerability. But the claim that Pollard damaged US security interests will not bear scrutiny. Professor Angelo Codevilla, who as chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1985 had access to the full Pollard file, recently stated flatly that while Pollard subverted Washington's then proIraq and proArab policy, he barely affected intelligence operations: "No US communication intercept system was taken out of service or had its budget affected...; nor was any US agent 'forced out of the cold.'"
Clinton is fond of lecturing Israel on the importance of confidencebuilding measures. Israel herself could use some confidencebuilding measures now, especially when Pollard's chief persecutors seem to be the same CIA charged with policing the Wye Accords. In seeking those measures, let us recall as Jews and Israelis, the words of the Shulhan Aruch: "There is no greater mitzva than the redemption of captives."
(c) 1999 The Jerusalem Post
==========
Jonathan Rosenblum is a biographer and contributing editor
to the 'Jewish Observer'.
Never in our recorded history have so many Intelligence Agencies,
the Military and the Politicians conspired to keep one man in
jail. Their zeal verges on mass hysteria which is so blatant it
makes one wonder if they are anxious to protect the United States
or themselves.
Jonathan Pollard betrayed a trust or did he? He gave Israel
information about Soviet supplied weapons to Iraq, Syria, Libya
and other Arab countries, including NBC (Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical) materials and missile technology to deliver it. According
to several prior MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) including
1983 by a long line of American Presidents and Congress, this
vital information was to be shared with Israel as part of American
policy to insure Israel's defensive viability against a host of
surrounding hostile Arab countries. And yet powerful men like
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Admiral Bobby Ray Inman,
Deputy CIA Director embargoed this life and death information
from Israel. Inman was enraged by Israel's bombing of the Iraqi
nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1991 and from that point on, deliberately
withheld this information from Israel. Weinberger tried to insure
a "Level Playing Field" for the combined Arab confrontation
States arrayed against Israel. (What exactly was the Weinberger
Inman relationship with Saddam which enraged them.)
Caspar Weinberger revealed his knowledge of Saddam Hussein's intentions
to use gas capability against Israel during a radio interview
which we heard during the first SCUD attack on Israel, January
18,1991. Weinberger said: "It's a shame that Saddam is using
poison gas against Israel." In 1983 when Pollard protested
the embargo of this information from Israel, he was told by his
superiors: "Don't tell the Jews. They're too sensitive about
gas." Weinberger's secret memorandum to Judge Aubrey Robinson
before his sentencing of Pollard to "Life with No Parole"
has never been shown to any of Pollard's lawyers, violating American
justice of the defendant's rights to confront his accusers. We
know from Justice Arthur Goldberg's admission that Weinberger
falsely accused Pollard of spying for South Africa to enrage Judge
Robinson (who is black).
After the US government abrogated its plea agreement with Pollard,
they locked him down in solitary first in a prison for criminally
insane and then at Marion Illinois' maximum security prison for
over 7 years. He is now in his 14th year of prison 4 times what
others who spied for allies received. Clearly, the conditions
of lockdown were more than to keep him isolated and more like
an effort to break him, possibly ending in a staged suicide.
Whenever the American and Israeli people, the Congress and the
Knesset have moved in unity to urge commutation of Pollard's sentence
to time served or for any kind of leniency against his sentence
of "Life with No Parole", the Intelligence community
has arisen in a vast coordinated movement to stop it. By now the
punishment has gone beyond any imprisonment of any spy, particularly
one who warned an ally that Saddam Hussein was building up his
NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) arsenals with Israel
as his first target. Several spies for enemies like the Soviet
Union have been released after 4, 6, 9 and 19 years (of a 40 year
sentence) respectively. The maximum sentence for spying for an
ally is 10 years, the median sentence is 24 years or nothing.
Was the release of Jonathan Pollard after 14 years a risk to the
nation years after the secrets were stale? Or were these same
Intelligence Agencies, Presidents, Vice Presidents, Defense Secretaries
acting so maliciously because of their own risk of exposure as
coconspirators in a nefarious plan to eliminate an ally, Israel,
whose presence disturbed their Arab oil market clients? Angelo
Codevilla, professor of International Studies at Boston University
and former Naval Intelligence officer served on the staff of the
US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the Pollard
arrest and conviction. He has written that: "Some US intelligence
experts say the Intelligence community in Washington no longer
opposes Pollard's release. The group that wants to keep Pollard
in jail consists mostly of those who dealt with the case in the
mid 1980s: Weinberger, Bobby Ray Inman and the US prosecutors
[possibly one desperate former President]. It is a straightforward
political matter. "In briefings to the Senate Committee,
US officials never claimed that Pollard gave intelligence methods
and sources to Israel. Instead, he relayed data, analysis and
photographs the sort of material that Israel had received from
the US. Pollard angered US government leaders by his effort to
undermine what he regarded as a proIraqi policy by Washington.
The US policy of aiding Iraq was a disastrous policy which led
to the Gulf War. The authors of that policy were Shultz, Weinberger
and Inman." "Inman said they [the Israelis] had used
US satellite pictures to plan the bombing [of Osirak]..and had
harmed sophisticated US efforts to build an important relationship
with Saddam. Therefore, he [Inman] personally cut Israel off from
satellite information about Iraq and later began to send satellite
pictures to Saddam." (1)
George Bush, then VP (former Director of the CIA) and Jim Baker
(Reagan's Treasury Secretary) were deeply involved in manipulating
the Reagan administration's buildup of Iraq, a policy they continued
as President and Secretary of State until the day Saddam invaded
Kuwait. And, since Bush ended his Desert Storm after only 4 days
on the ground, allowing Saddam and his top Revolutionary Army
to survive, facilitating his transfer of 100 jets to Iran (later
shipped to Syria), one wonders about their complicity in building
Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction and responsibility for its
eventual victims. This includes victims of the Gulf War as well
as those casualties of Saddam's poison gas attacks against Iran
and his own Kurdish citizens.
Another question begging for an answer: Was Saddam given President
Bush and Sec. of State Baker's approval to invade Kuwait, to take
its $80 billion in assets so Saddam could continue his massive
purchases of weapons and continue fulfilling our aberrant foreign
policy? According to reports, US Amb. April Glaspie under orders
from Baker, told Saddam "the US wasn't interested in his
border disputes." This was the "green light" for
Saddam to invade Kuwait.
Saddam still claims Kuwait Iraq's sovereign territory. So it's
not over yet. Thanks to Bush/Baker's premature halt to the first
Gulf War and to Clinton's wimpy occasional bombing, Saddam is
still the power and threat to the Middle East. Denials notwithstanding,
Col. Scott Ritter disclosed that Secretary of State Albright had
interfered with UNSCOM's surprise inspections to avoid a political
confrontation with Saddam in order to continue our foreign policy
to protect him. (2) Is it OK for the CIA to spy in Iraq today
in order to expose Saddam's NBC arsenal, but in 1984 it wasn't
OK for Pollard to blow the whistle on Saddam's intention to eliminate
Israel? Saddam declared that he would "burn half of Israel"
and he had the weapons from the West to do it.
For years Pollard's accusers hinted mysteriously that he had done
terrible things such as betraying the intelligence methods and
identities of American spies in the Soviet Union. But, lo and
behold, the spy who did this turned out to be a deep and powerful
CIA mole who himself created the disinformation against Pollard
because he was in charge of that brief. Aldridge (Rick) Ames,
chief of the CIA's Soviet/Eastern Europe counterintelligence,
was convicted of the very crimes for which he accused Pollard
and which precipitated the deaths by execution of at least 34
of these American and allied agents in the Soviet Union. Ames
identified 55 clandestine US and allied operations in the Soviet
Union, thus causing the deaths of many others.
However, even after Ames was revealed as the spy and mole who
caused these deaths by his leaks to the USSR, Pollard was then
and is still being falsely accused by the Intelligence Agencies
of Ames' crimes. Pollard has been wrongfully blamed for the deeds
of a CIA Director (Ames) who had for years transferred every secret
he could lay his hands on. One can understand why the present
CIA Director, George Tenet tasked to improve the image of the
CIA, would threaten to resign if Pollard were released. The coverup
of the CIA failure was to be erased from the American mind by
keeping Pollard as their permanently jailed scapegoat.
According to former Justice Department attorney John Loftus, "In
order to hide his own espionage for the Russians, Rick Ames successfully
point the finger of suspicion at Pollard for the spate of serious
leaks that crippled US networks inside the Soviet Union."
How does Loftus know? He cites: "recent disclosures in the
'intelligence community'. Several investigations from the CIA
and NIS (Naval Investigative Service) have made sheepish admission
that Pollard was the victim of hysterical overreaction."
The first key to this turnaround, says Loftus, is "the recent
confession of CIA agent Ames that he (not Pollard) was responsible
for leaking top level secrets to the Kremlin." Loftus quotes
Naval Intelligence sources as admitting that "90 percent
of the things we accused [Pollard] of stealing, he didn't even
have access to." (3)
John Loftus wrote in "Secret War Against the Jews: How
Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People 192092" that
"Pollard had little access either to communications intercepts
or satellite data , let alone secret NSA codes. His primary access
US Navy data banks on ocean shipping. His private focus was on
arms shipments to terrorists." Which, according to Loftus,
"is where the ugly truth lies. Pollard noticed a pattern
of vessels back and forth from Greece to Yemen, where the PLO
had a major base. Summer of 1984 the Israelis tipped off the Greek
authorities to seize an entire shipload of arms destined for the
PLO. Neither Pollard nor Israel was aware that they had smashed
George Bush's first shipment of arms to Iran. The British Secret
Service had arranged the Greek shipment to ransom American hostages
held in Lebanon. Pollard never realized that he had busted the
most secret White House operation of modern times. The summer
1984 Greek shipment was a dagger over George Bush's head. The
Greek shipment in 1984 exposes the entire White House coverup."
(4)
Jerry Agee, Pollard's superior in Naval Intelligence told Wolf
Blitzer, he and another colleague were suspicious of the number
of classified documents Pollard was taking home with him. They
concluded that the information was almost certainly going to Israel.
As the materials dealt with Soviet weapons systems and Arab military
capabilities, it was not something the Soviets would be interested
in. As Agee said to Blitzer: "It didn't take a fool to find
out that the Soviets were not buying back all their own information."
(5)
Now, with President Clinton about to commute Pollard's sentence,
the Intelligence, Military and Justice Department communities
have become frantic. As a desperate measure they released, through
a journalist who was fed the "correct" information,
the great secrets that Pollard was to have transferred.
On January 11, the deadline day of Clinton's promised clemency
decision, an article was printed in the NEW YORKER
by Seymour Hersh. Of course, the article was cooked and planted
by the same Intelligence Agencies, and "leaked" it to
a journalist known for his susceptibility for sensational stories.
Of course, Seymour Hersh is known for gullibly accepting the disinformation,
including rumors, he propagates in the Pollard chapter of his
book "The Samson Option." Hersh gains much profit
by the credibility the NEW YORKER article lends
to his reputation and his book. But, Hersh is thought to be an
'empty vessel' into which the disinformation entities pour their
vitriol.
What is so outrageous about the NEW YORKER article
is that Hersh drowns his listener in what even he calls "Tom
Clancy" stuff details and extrapolations of technical espionage
that the US carries on against friends and allies alike. He fails
to footnote, uses numerous "unnamed" sources: and quotes
all the defamatory false accusations we've seen piled up against
Pollard since 1985. One man he does quote by name is a former
convict, now journalist. However, in alia, Hersh reveals that
the US does indeed spy on its friends and allies, including especially
Israel. Nothing is mentioned regarding US transfer of this information
to such nations as Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iraq consistent with
an aberrant foreign policy pushed by special oil interests.
And, of course, in this day of the Internet and instant communications, it simultaneously appears in the NEW YORK TIMES: "US Now Tells of Must Deeper Damage by Pollard Than Thought" by Tim Weiner and repeated in the JERUSALEM POST: "Pollard Stole 10volume Intelligence 'Bible'", etc. They threw in every false accusation printed before and made up now for "effect" to scare off those members of Congress, Knesset, American and Israeli publics who smell a collective rat. Most have appeared before and been refuted:
Volume of material: an absurdity. He would have needed a moving
van on several occasions. Inveterate liar: (9 months of polygraphs
proved Pollard told the truth.) Cocaine abuser: Accuser a convicted
felon. Disproved along with spurious and salacious charges of
alcoholism and homosexuality. A test for drug use by a private
physician was negative. Strangely, that medical file disappeared.
These nowtobe released "secrets" of what Pollard was
to have stolen include a "10 Volume Directory of electronic
frequencies and signals intercepted by the NSA (National Security
Agency the US primary electronic eavesdropping service and its
biggest espionage entity) which listens to every nation in the
world. Hersh admits there is no documented proof for the accusations
leaked to him.
But, if this was that important, why hadn't the Soviets tasked
Aldridge Ames to secure these volumes. Clearly, Ames had the highest
level of security rating and access to this information years
earlier. It would seem that our Intelligence Agencies, in an effort
to keep hidden some of their ugly work against Israel, huddled
and thought up a number of chilling scenarios which they could
feed to the President (distracted by his own personal trials)
and the American citizens via the media to justify their unjust
continued imprisonment of Pollard. But, mostly they acted to assure
their own personal safety and continued employment.
Have our President, Military Intelligence, CIA, NIA, NSA or politicians
every lied to us? You bet. Do Politicians lie? Examine the Iran/Contra
and Iraqgate lies. Yes, indeed, these people are following the
psychology explained by Carl Jung, wherein you blame your victim
for what you are about to do to him. "They" are telling
us Pollard committed "Treason" (which he was never accused
of nor indicted for). But, it was "They" who aided Saddam
to build up his NBC arsenal, that, according to VP Al Gore, could
kill off all the people on Earth. The "They" who should
be questioned includes, among others: George Bush, Caspar Weinberger,
Bobby Ray Inman, prosecutor Joseph Di Genova, George Shultz, James
Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and various heads of the Intelligence
Agencies and Justice Departments during the 1980s and 1990s. They
have been aided and abetted by willing journalists, always eager
for the scoop and sensation that gets them and their papers or
TV/radio stations profits and good ratings.
The great American nation and its wonderful people have been an
example to the world in its humanity for others. True, we have
our crooks, our dirty politicians, our murderers and rapists
like all other nations. The problem is that as a superpower,
we attract the power brokers who believe they know best. We find
them often at the highest levels of government and in our Intelligence
Agencies. They all believe they are doing right for the country
and themselves by using any means illegal or unethical to
a achieve their goals. They know the American people would not
approve of their methods and so they go underground.
"They" tell us Pollard is guilty of crimes not originally
spoken about during his "in camera" hearing. Pollard
never had a trial. He gave up his right to a trial because they
promised his ill wife Anne better treatment with no prison term
and a light sentence for Pollard. The government broke its plea
agreement and Pollard received a life sentence. Let us then have
an open, fair trial where his accusers can openly charge Pollard
and then have their accusations tested by lawyers who know to
dig out the facts from this reluctant cabal bent on keeping themselves
out of the docket and possibly jail. Let the liars lie under oath
and we'll see where it leads.
Some may recall the hearing at an Appeals Court where three judges
heard some of the evidence. Two concluded on a technicality that
it was too late for such a trial. One was Ruth Bader Ginsberg
who shortly thereafter was appointed to the Supreme Court. But
the third Judge Stephen Williams said that "This was a gross
miscarriage of justice." No, he did not receive an appointment
to higher position.
So, we have an amoral President, a twisty State Department, Intelligence
Agencies who will do anything to achieve their goals and cover
their backsides, certain industrialists connected to Arab oil
and their markets all seemingly coalesced to assure that this
one man stays in prison til he dies. You have to wonder why.
The true story of the Wye fiasco was exposed by Kenneth Timmerman."Apparently,
at 4 am on Friday at the Wye Plantation President Clinton agreed
to a request not from Mr. Netanyahu but from PLO Chairman Yassir
Arafat to release Pollard as part of a prisoner exchange to
get Israel to drop its demand that Israel extradite the 36 Palestinians
wanted on terrorism charges. The key terrorist of the 36 was the
commander of the Palestinian Police, Ghazi Jabali. Arafat wanted
to exchange Pollard for Jabali. President Clinton agreed. Several
hours later, after the CIA jawboned him, he back out. And when
Mr. Netanyahu balked at Clinton's reversal, Clinton threatened
the US would recognize a unilateral declaration of Palestinian
statehood in May the equivalent of dropping a nuclear weapon
on Netanyahu and his supporters." (6) Of course, the head
of the CIA, George Tenet had to threaten to resign to achieve
this full score effect.
This sounds like the Dreyfus Affair, except that Pollard readily
admits his guilt for transferring vital intelligence to Israel
and has often expressed deep remorse. However, his accusers
seem to have adopted a plan to elevate Arab military power to
a level that could wipe out Israel.
Pollard was not charged with nor convicted for treason but
it is highly probable that his accusers may have committed treason
and are now desperately trying to cover up their black deeds.
NOTES
1. "Israel's Spy Was Right About Saddam" by Prof. Angelo M. Codevilla, WALL STREET JOURNAL, August 6, 1998
2. "Richard Perle Suggest Albright May Need to Resign Over Iraq: "DayLong AEI (American Enterprise Institute) Symposium (Oct. 14, 1998) Demonstrates Flaws of Clinton ME Policy as Wye Summit Threaten to Compound Them" by Frank Gaffney Center for Security Policy #98D 174
3. "Whose Crimes? Pollards or Ames's?" by Hershel Shanks, Editor MOMENT
MAGAZINE 12/95
4. "Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People 19201992" by John Loftus & Mark Aarons, St. Martin's Press 1994 p. 402
5. "CIA Aims at Pollard for Scapegoating" by Arnold Forster & David Kirschenbaum HERITAGE SOUTHWEST 11/25/94
6. "Peace Process or Spin Politics?" by Kenneth
Timmerman WASHINGTON TIMES 10/27/98
============
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East Commentator and Analyst.
He is also a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic
Studies.
A Freeman Center Special Release
The current election situation in Israel is still very fluid,
and will remain so for at least another 46 weeks. What follows
is a brief picture of the legalities and political maneuvering
that are taking place in the Israeli political scene.
Any party can run for the Knesset (the Israeli parliament). In
order to receive official standing, and a portion of election
budgets, any party wishing to run for the Knesset must be registered
with the Central Elections Commission. In order to register, a
party must have the signatures of 50,000 citizens on its application,
or of 10 Members of Knesset.
Elections in Israel are by party list and not by district representation.
Each party must submit to the Central Elections Committee a list
of 120 names. When seats are apportioned after the election, the
top names on the list get seats. If one member of Knesset resigns
or dies in office, the next name on the list of that party takes
the seat, with no byelection.
In order to receive seats in the Knesset, a party must gain 1.5%
of the national vote. There is a bill pending before the Knesset
to raise this to a 5% minimum. Seats are apportioned according
to the percentage of the vote. Each seat is worth 50,000 votes.
If the number of votes does not equal a multiple of 50,000, all
votes over the nearest multiple are wasted. Thus, if a party gets
463, 297 votes, it will get 9 seats, and 13,297 votes will be
wasted. Thus, in the last election, in an effort to avoid vote
wasting, the Likud, Tsomet and Gesher united and ran as one list
for the Knesset. The same will likely happen with other parties
in this election, as described below.
There are 120 seats in the Knesset.
Registration of parties can take place up until a defined time
prior to the elections.
In Israel, the Prime Minister is elected on a separate ballot
from the party, and need not lead the largest party in the Knesset.
Thus, in the current Knesset, the leader of the largest party,
Ehud Barak of Labor, is not the Prime Minister. Not every party
leader must run for Prime Minister, but in order to run for PM,
a person must lead a party. There are currently 6 declared candidates
for Prime Minister. In the likely event that none receive 50%
on the first ballot on May 17, a second round will be held between
the top two candidates on June 1. The elections for Knesset will
be held on May 17.
The normal term of the Knesset is 4 years, though the government
can fall earlier.
New parties are announcing their formation or official registration
daily. What follows is a listing of the parties officially registered
as of January 17, 1999, or expected to officially register this
week. This list is not complete due to the constant fluidity of
the situation.
Current declared candidates for Prime Minister:
Ž Binaymin Netanyahu,
current Prime Minister. Leads the Likud party. Has served as Israel's
Ambassador to the United Nations, and as Deputy Foreign Minister.
Was part of Israel's delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference.
Ž Ehud Barak, leader
of the opposition. Leads the Labor party. Former Chief of Staff,
Israel Defense Forces. Served in previous government as Minister
of Interior and as Foreign Minister.
Ž Yitzchak Mordechai, leads the asyetunnamed "Centrist" party. Former Defense Minister in the current government, and former BrigGen in IDF. Former Commander of the Northern Front and of the Southern Front.
Ž Rafael Eitan, Minister
of Environment and Agriculture. Leads Tsomet party. Former Chief
of Staff, Israel Defense Forces.
Ž Benny Begin,
former minister of Science. Leads Herut party. Son of former Prime
Minister Menachem Begin. Professor of Geology, founding Director
of the College of Judea and Samaria, in Ariel.
Parties running for seats in Knesset:
Ž Likud: Party leader,
Binyamin Netanyahu. Current seats in Knesset: 23 (three members
have resigned from the party and now sit as independents) This
party was born through the efforts of Menachem Begin and Ariel
Sharon in 1973, as the union of the older Herut and Liberal parties
in Israel. Likud has traditionally held the following policies:
antiPalestinian state, supports settlement of Judea and Samaria.
Against negotiation with Palestinians, whom the Likud viewed as
terrorists. The Likud has traditionally enjoyed the support of
immigrants from north Africa and the Middle East, who were impeded
from joining the European elite in Israel. Likud support has also
traditionally come from economically disadvantaged communities.
During the current term, the Likud has suffered from inept management
and internal strife. Several large political scandals have rocked
the party and many members are unhappy with the current situation.
Netanyahu maintained a strong, nononsense posture with the Palestinians,
refusing to negotiate while terrorist acts were still being carried
out against Israelis. In January 1997, Netanyahu gave control
over 80% of the city of Hevron to the Palestinians. Israelis on
the right felt betrayed over this, viewing Hevron as the cradle
of Jewish civilization. Benny Begin resigned from the government
and the party over this agreement. In Octber 1998, at the Wye
Plantation, Netanyahu agreed to a further withdrawal from Judea
and Samaria, despite continuing terrorism. This agreement lead
to the early fall of his government and new elections. Likud's
economic policies have been tightfisted in an effort to soften
the blow of economic recession. Interest rates have remained high
and government spending has been held down. This has provided
little extra money to solve the problems of unemployment, but
it has succeeded in keeping prices down. privatization has added
to the efficiency of the economy, which is now leading to lower
unemployment. But many people are unhappy with the economic situation
in Israel.
Other leaders in the party: Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon, former
Commanding Officer Northern Command and Southern Command; Justice
Minister Tzachi Hanegbi; Chairman of Knesset Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, Uzi Landau; Moshe Arens, former Foreign and
Defense Minister (also newly appointed Defense Minister to replace
Mordechai); Communications Minister Limor Livnat.
Ž Labor: party leader,
Ehud Barak. Current Knesset seats, 32. Labor was founded as the
amalgamation of several parties who have traditionally held power
in Israel. David BenGurion, Golda Meir, Yitzchak Rabin, and Shimon
Peres are some of the people who have lead the party in the past.
Labor represents the European male elite in Israel. Most of its
members of Knesset have attained high rank in the army. Labor
traditionally represents unions in Israel, which have been extremely
strong. Over the years, as Israel modernized, Labor has come to
represent the wealthy elite in Israel, including big business
and the Israeli jet set. Labor's economic policies are in need
of modernization, eschewing privatization, and preferring to maintain
control over the economy while doing little to spur economic growth.
Labor supports the collective kibbutzim, and has in the past spent
billions of dollars to bail out these financially nonviable ventures.
Other leaders in the party: Former Health Minister Haim Ramon,
Former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Ophir
Paz, Shlomo BenAmi, Yossi Beilin (former Deputy Foreign Minister).
New members of the party include Matan Vilna'i, former deputy
Chief of Staff of the IDF and former commander of the Northern
Front.
Ž Shas: Party
leader Aryeh Deri. Current Knesset seats: 10. This party is made
up of religious members of North African and Middle Eastern ("Sfardic")
descent. The party represents chiefly these communities. Policies
of the party include economic improvement for the disadvantaged
communities in Israel, many of which are Sfardic communities,
more classroom hours in schools, and fighting unemployment. The
party also maintains a strong voice in religious issues. The party
follows the leadership advice of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Sfardic
Chief Rabbi of Israel.
Other leaders of the party: Interior Minister Eli Suissa, Religious
Affairs Minister Eli Yishai, Knesset House Committee Chairman
Raphael Pinchasi.
Ž National Religious
Party: Party leader Education Minister Yitzchak Levy. Current
Knesset Seats: 9.The NRP represents the interest of the modern
religious population. The party is actively involved in settling
Judea and Samaria and other areas of low population, and enjoys
wide support in these areas. The party is ideologically allied
with a network of yeshivot, Hesder, which combine army service
and Torah study, and which contribute many of the combat leaders
in the army's elite units. The NRP is against the Oslo process,
but historically prefers to fight for its policies within the
government framework rather than from the opposition. They did
not vote to bring down the government after the Wye agreement.
Other leaders of the party: Transportation Minister Shaul Yahalom,
Knesset Law Committee Chairman Hanan Porat, Tzvi Hendel, Nisan
Slomiansky, Rabbi Avraham Shapira (former Ashkenazic (European
descent) Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu (former sfardic
Chief Rabbi), former MK Rabbi Chaim Druckman.
Ž Meretz:
party leader Yossi Sarid (former Environment Minister). Number
of Knesset seats: 9 Meretz was created before the 1992 elections
through the unification of three parties, two of which were on
the extreme left, and one of which was relatively centrist but
was opposed to all religion in Israel. Meretz is situated at the
left extreme of the Knesset. They support a Palestinian State
and a shrinking of Jewish boundaries. They are against settlement
activity in, and any retention of, Judea and Samaria. They support
dividing Jerusalem and creating a Palestinian capital in that
city. They support transfering all Jewish residents of Judea and
Samaria out of these areas and into what is left of Israel. They
are against any manifestation of religion in Israel.
Other party leaders: Dedi Zucker, Haim Oron, Amnon Rubinstein
(former Education Minister).
Ž Yisrael Ba'aliya:
party leader Industry and Trade Minister Natan Sharansky. Number
of Knesset seats: 7. (two members have resigned from the party
and now sit as independents.) Natan Sharansky was previously known
as Anatoly Shcharansky, the leading Prisoner of Zion in Communist
Russia. The party was set up to represent the 750,000 Russian
Immigrants who have come to Israel since 1990. Their platform
consists of economic programs for immigrants and other disadvantaged
communities, and protecting the rights and benefits accorded to
immigrants in Israel. They are also striving to protect the Russian
culture that has come with these immigrants. They have no specific
policy regarding the peace process.
Other party leaders: Immigration Minister Yuli Edelshtein, Roman
Bronfman, Tzvi Weinberg.
Ž Gesher:
party leader David Levy, number of Knesset seats: 5. (one member
has resigned from the party and now sits independently.) Gesher
ran for the current Knesset on a joint list under the umbrella
of the Likud. David Levy was originally the Foreign Minister in
this government, but resigned on January 4, 1998 due to his dissatisfaction
with the budget. Levy is now leading Gesher independently in the
current election campaign. Gesher's policy supports economic packages
for the disadvantaged, particularly among the sfardic community.
But the party is run more as a vehicle for satisfying Levy's ego
than for any real benefit.
Ž Tsomet:
party leader Environment Minister Raphael Eitan, number of Knesset
seats 4. Tsomet also ran under the Likud umbrella. The party was
founded in 1988 as a breakaway from the Likud. The party is made
up largely of people who do not live in Judea and Samaria but
support Israel's retention of those areas. The party supports
liberal economic policies and does not support religion. The anachronistic
nature of their policy platform has lead to a consistent decline
in their public support.
Other party leaders: deputy minister of education Moshe Peled.
Ž Third Way: Party leader Internal Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani, number of Knesset Seats: 4.
The party was founded in 1996 as a single issue party supporting
Israeli retention of the Golan Heights. Kahalani, a former General,
was a decorated war hero in the Yom Kippur war as he lead the
valiant fight to defend the Golan from Syrian invasion. He left
Labor when they began negotiations with Syria over the Golan.
Since the 1996 election, the party's policy platform has grown
to include national unity and reconciliation between left and
right, and between secular and religious.
Other party leaders: Emmanuel Zissman, Alex Lubotsky, Yisrael
Harel.
Ž United Torah Judaism: party leader Rabbi Meir Porush. Number of Knesset Seats: 4 This party represents the "Haredi" or ultraOrthodox communities in Israel. It is answerable to the Council of Torah sages, which is made up of representatives of the major Haredi communities in Israel. Their platform centers around defending the rights of the religious communities in Israel, and of the network of yeshivas in the haredi communities.
Other party leaders: Knesset Finance Committee Chairman Avraham
Ravitz, businessman Chaim Sheinfeld, Shmuel Laizerson, Rabbi Uri
Lupoliansky.
Ž Moledet:
party leader Rehavam Ze'evi, Number of Knesset seats: 2 This party
represents the right extreme in the Knesset. They support retention
of all of Judea and Samaria and the transfer by agreement of all
Arab communities out of these areas and into Jordan or Syria.
They support integrating the IsraeliArab communities into national
life in Israel, including service in the army. The party supports
increased Jewish construction in the eastern portion of Jerusalem,
specifically in the Old City's Arab quarter, the City of David
neighbourhood, and the Mt. of Olives.
Other party leaders: Rabbi Benny Elon
Ž Shinui:
Party leader, MK Avraham Poraz. Shinui is the centrist party that
joined with Meretz in 1992, and has now decided to run independently.
They oppose religion in Israel, and are in favour of territorial
withdrawal from areas of Judea and Samaria. They are against futher
Jewish settlement in these areas, and favour a Palestinian State.
Their major emphasis appears to be on national unity, emphasizing
secular values, and improving education.
Ž Arab Democratic
Party: leader AbdulWahab Darawshe Communist Party / Hadash:
AbdulMalik Dehamshe Total Knesset Seats: 9
These parties represent Israeli Arabs in the Knesset. They support
a Palestinian State, and Arab land claims in the Galilee. They
oppose further Jewish development in Israel.
Other parties that will compete for elections:
Ž Centrist Party
(no official name yet): Party Leader: Former Defense Minister
Yitzchak Mordechai. Policy is not clear yet, but they support
the creation of Palestinian State, and greater economic relaxation.
They oppose religion in Israel, and support territorial compromise
on the Golan Heights. They are jockeying for position in the center
of the political spectrum with Labor and Likud, and several smaller
parties (Third Way, Yisrael Ba'aliya).
Other senior party members include former Chief of Staff Amnon
LipkinShahak, former Likud finance and justice minister Dan Meridor,
former Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo, former Labor MK Haggai Merom,
and former Labor Party Secretary General Nissim Zvilli.
Ž Yisrael Beiteinu:
party leader Avigdor Leiberman, former Director General of the
Prime Minister's office. This party is formed as an alternative
to Yisrael Ba'aliya for the Russian immigrant vote. They support
changing the electoral system in Israel to allow for a Republicstyled
government including district elections of all members. They will
support Binyamin Netanyahu for Prime Minister.
Ž Herut: New
party formed by Benny Begin. He is using the old name used by
his father, Menachem, in the 1950's and 60's for his party. This
party supports retention of Judea and Samaria, and is opposed
to a Palestinian State. They support greater settlement in these
areas. They have no stated economic or social policies yet. Other
leading supporters include MK Michael Kleiner.
Ž Meimad:
The left wing of the National Religious Party which has broken
away to run independently. The party is made up of religious members
who support the peace process and compromise on religious issues.
The party has attracted former Labor MK and current Jewish Agency
Head Avraham Burg, and Third Way MK Alex Lubotsky. NRP MK Eli
Gabbai and Transportation Minister Shaul Yahalom may also join.
Ž Tekumah: This
party supports settlement activity in Judea and Samaria and the
Hesder Yeshivot. The main difference between Tekumah and Herut
is that Tekumah is largely religious, while Herut is largely secular.
Party leaders include Yaakov Katz (Katzele), director general
of Arutz7 radio, Bet El Mayor Uri Ariel, Kiryat Arba Mayor Benny
Katzover. Rabbi Avraham Shapira and Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu will
likely support this party in the election. This will end up being
the right wing of the National Religious Party, and attempts will
be made to attract NRP MK's Hanan Porat, Tzvi Hendel and Nisan
Slomiansky.
Ž Worker's Party:
Formed by Labor MK and Histadrut National Labor Union leader Amir
Peretz. The party is founded on the basis that the Labor party
has abandoned the blue collar workers and the disadvantaged communities
of Israel in favour of the old ruling elites. Chief issues are
labour relations, higher wages, better working conditions, and
more jobs to solve unemployment.
Ž Voice of the
Environment: Nechama Ronen, Director General of the Ministry
of the Environment, has formed this party whose platform is environmental
protection.
Ž YESH: This
party has no named leader yet, but represents women's rights,
and is in favour of a Palestinian State. The party name is made
up of the initials of the Hebrew words Yitzug Shaveh, meaning
equal representation.
Ž Penina Rosenblum
Party: founded by Israeli cosmetics magnate Penina Rosenblum
(Israel's Mary Kay) and with no apparent policy platform.
Political Fluidity:
There will likely be far too many parties competing for limited
votes. Most of the smaller ones will not place in the Knesset.
But some new ones will. The greatest political activity in the
next few weeks will come from these areas:
The new centrist party will decide upon its policy and its name.
It will also continue to attempt to attract leading names in public
life.
Tekumah and Herut will likely join forces in an attempt to unify
the right wing and avoid wasting votes. They may be joined by
the Moledet Party, and by a collection of Members of Knesset,
belonging to different parties, who all support increased settlement
in Judea and Samaria and strengthening of Jewish presence in Jerusalem.
These MK's, called the Land of Israel Front, numbered 17 in the
current Knesset, and formed a strong lobby group for the Israeli
right. The Land of Israel Front is coordinated by MK Michael Kleiner,
who has joined Herut.
Labor and the new centrist party have both made overtures to Meimad
to join them. Meimad is negotiating with Labor and is asking to
be guaranteed the Education ministry in any Laborled government.
==========
Yehuda Poch is a political analyst and writer living in
Israel. He holds a degree in Political Science and International
Relations from the University of Toronto, and has served as political
analyst for the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies since 1993.
He has also done research on Zionist history. Currently, Poch
is a leading member of the Israel Action Alliance, a grassroots
group in Israel working for rightwing unity and a greater understanding
of religion and religioussecular issues. He comments widely on
Israeli political issues, and has been featured on Arutz7 National
Radio, and in print media in North America. Poch and his wife,
Rebecca, have two children, and live in Rehovot, Israel.
Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio -- Jan. 11, 1999 / Tevet 23, 5759
THE ELECTION PUT US ON HOLD
I am very happy about the upcoming elections. True, they messed
up our registration drive for a "Candidate of Faith,"
because instead of singing a solo, we find ourselves suddenly
joined on the electoral stage by a plethora of singers, such that
our delicate voice singing the truth can barely be heard. In fact,
it looks like we will have to let the coming elections pass us
by, and continue our driveoffaith afterwards. But, still and
all, I'm happy that Kleiner and friends toppled the government,
such that we are now facing new elections.
The reason for my happiness is very simple. Bibi was smack in
the middle of giving over the Land of Israel into the hands of
Arafat. He had already given over the northern section of Shomron
(Samaria), and was just about to surround
Beit El with the Palestinian Liberation Army making it something
along the lines of Netzarim in Gush Katif when all of a sudden
these new elections fell upon him, stopping this insanity, at
least for a few months. So the elections did accomplish something
positive.
WHERE HAS ALL THE PRESSURE GONE?
By the way, we can learn something very interesting from this.
Suddenly, all the pressure on Israel to give away territory has
stopped. The Americans aren't pressuring Bibi, neither is the
European Union, and even Arafat has adapted his various declarations
to Israel's election schedule. Strange, no? Why should the world
care about our elections? What happened all of a sudden there's
no one in Israel for them to tell, "Come on, let's go, out
of those occupied territories already"?
The answer is simple. No one really takes Oslo or Wye very seriously,
and no one really particularly cares for the fate of the Arabs
in Gaza, or for the 'legitimate rights' of the terrorists. The
world only cares about one thing: the Jews. The world wants to
see what we think, and then it will act accordingly. If, for instance,
we elect someone who says "Zo Artzeinu This is our land,
because this is the decision of the Master of the Universe; no
agreement that says otherwise is relevant, because it contradicts
what is clearly stated in the Bible, and we will fight anyone
who attempts to does not accept this," then, this
temporary respite from world pressure that we are enjoying during
this election campaign hiatus will become our permanent lot all
year round.
But if, on the other hand, we elect someone who admits that the
Arab claim to Eretz Yisrael is not totally unfounded someone
like Benny Begin, for example, who is proud of the Camp David
agreements, the 'original sin,' which created a Palestinian nation
out of nothing and recognized its "legitimate rights"
or, of course, Bibi Netanyahu, or Ehud Barak, or their clones
then the international community will realize that its pressure
upon us to make concessions is indicated. The world will say,
"Arafat's demands are just even you admit it."
In short, the static situation that we now face can teach us that
everything begins and ends with *us.* The world exerts pressure
on us only when we agree or maybe even want to be pressured.
We should then not have complaints against anyone except ourselves
even not to Arafat.
NEXT QUESTION
OK. So who should we vote for? This is a very difficult question.
We have to make two choices: one candidate for Prime Minister,
and one party list for the Knesset. For the Knesset, it's best
to vote for the party which will most effectively fight if it
can be called that for the Land, the People, and Jewish identity.
But for Prime Minister, as of now, there is simply no one for
whom to vote.
For all intents and purposes, the process started by the Jewish
Leadership movement has been pulled to a grinding halt by the
advancing of the elections. Everyone is now involved in much more
important issues: the infighting of the Likud, the infighting
in Labor, what will Limor [Livnat] do, on which horse will Yitzik
[Mordechai] bet, and similar crucial questions. Our voice is therefore
not heard amidst the cacophony. We'll apparently have to wait
until the storm blows over. Then, when the dust of this election
settles, and we return to the sad reality, we'll officially register
the Jewish Leadership movement, field a worthy candidate, and
continue from where we left off. This is how the situation appears
now, although there could always be developments that would change
things. In Israel, things change so fast that it's really impossible
to know for sure, but at this point, this appears to be the way
for us to go.
ET TU, BEGIN
All of the candidates that are presently running for Prime Minister
are committed, in the final analysis, to the Oslo process. Let
me say clearly: This includes even Benny Begin. On the day that
he announces that we must tear up the Oslo, Hevron, and Wye agreements,
and that they do not obligate him I will retract these words
of mine. But he will not say this, because all he knows how to
say today is the same things that Bibi said three years ago before
the last elections. Begin says, "We must keep our agreements,
but Arafat did not fulfill his part, and this is how we'll be
able to get out of it." Begin, the sworn legalist, can't
seem to say that this agreement is invalid because our contract
with Gd takes precedence. That's the way it is.
Unfortunately, we can predict fairly accurately what will happen
in the near future: Whichever candidate is elected will continue
with the withdrawals from Eretz Yisrael, and the security situation
in Tel Aviv will deteriorate in direct proportion. The other side's
appetite and brazenness will only increase, as will the despair
on our side. At some point, not far off, elections will again
be held, and the nation will have given up on the recycled, wornout
"solutions" of the usual candidates, and will be willing
to listen to something totally new. The members of the Jewish
Leadership movement, together with the thousands of registrants
who have signed up for our Candidate of Faith campaign, will,
at that time, be an excellent nucleus for the soughtfor alternative
at that difficult time.
Shalom, and Skolnick must be freed.
=============
Moshe Feiglin, a resident of Karnei Shomron, is one of
the founders of Zo Arzeinu and the Jewish Leadership movement.
HebronPast, Present and Forever - January 8, 1999
This morning, on my way into a Kiryat Arba supermarket, I was
greeted in a most unusual manner. Two men, speaking outside, saw
me and started yelling at me: "You really fY..
this one up good, didn't you Wilder!? Now, instead of Netanyahu,
we are going to get Ehud Barak and Yossi Beilin." I looked
at them, somewhat surprised, and asked, "Me, I brought Netanyahu
down?" "Yeah, you and those others in Hebron and the
leadership of the right you always said, Bibi must fall. Now
see what you've gotten us into."
So, what's the answer? A friend told me the following story: A king's son once decided that he was a chicken. He took off his clothes, got down on his hands and knees under a table, and starting eating crumbs off the floor. The king brought all his doctors to try and convince his son to stop being a chicken. To no avail. Finally a famous doctor arrived from a far away country. He promised the king that he could cure his son. The king promised him rewards of gold and silver should he perform such a miracle. With that, the doctor removed his clothing, stooped down on his hands and knees under the table, with the king's son, and too, began eating crumbs. The king's son looked at his companion and asked him, "who are you?" "I too am a chicken," said the doctor, and for several days they ate together crumbs from the floor.
After some time the doctor suddenly put on his pants. "And
what is this?" asked the king's son. "Oh, don't you
know. There are chickens who wear pants." The king's son
mimicked the doctor's actions. After a few more days the doctor
put on his shirt, as did the king's son, and so it went until
one day the doctor sat in a chair, saying that there are chickens
who sit in chairs, and a few days later began eating with a fork
and knife. So, in the end, the king's son remained a chicken,
but he acted like a human being.
What is the moral of the story? A few years ago a man named Binyamin
Netanyahu proclaimed, "I represent the Israeli right."
A little while after being elected Prime Minister he shook hands
with Arafat, saying, "the right too can shake hands with
Arafat." Then he abandoned 80% of Hebron, saying, "the
right can give away Eretz Yisrael too." Then he went to Wye
continuing to say, "the right can be like the left, but still
be the right." And there is no doubt that given the opportunity,
under the circumstances, he would have continued implementing
Wye right down to the last comma and period.
How can we be so sure where this government would go? A few nights
ago on Israeli television's Channel 1 news, it was reported that
secret negotiations are underway between Israel and Arafat concerning
reopening of the Arab market outside the Avraham Avinu neighborhood
and the total reopening of "Shuhada" King David Street,
leading from the Avraham Avinu neighborhood to Beit Hadassah.
This, in order to receive assurances from Arafat that our Arab
neighbors will not 'cause disturbances' as a result of the new
construction at Beit Hadassah and Tel Rumeida.
In any other language, this is called a bribe. The Arabs say,
"we won't break the law, riot, shoot, throw firebombs, or
knife anyone because you are building. Just give us the marketplace
and the street." This, coming after another terrorist attack
in Hebron earlier this week, which left two women injured, one
critically. And Netanyahu and his Defense Minster are willing
to pay the bribe?! This is the Netanyahu administration. This
is the reason Binyamin Netanyahu had to fall.
No, Bibi Netanyahu we will not follow your act you do not
really represent us. You are not a true lover of Eretz Yisrael
you have proven that you are not a genuine representative of
the Israeli right. We will not follow you wherever you go. So,
where do we go now. There is an ideal, and then there is practicality.
Ideally, the Prime Minister should not be Netanyahu. Practically,
we may get him back. We may even have to vote for him, if not
the first time around, then during the runoff election. We may
hold our noses and try to keep from being sick when we cast our
ballots, but there won't be any choice.
What will be the secret ingredient that may bring us victory?
One word: unity. Whichever of the two major blocks, left or right,
succeeds in unifying, they will win. If the Israeli right, today
led by Benny Begin forms a block, including Moledet, the NRP and
other rightwing factions, thereby receiving a large number of
mandates in the next Knesset, they may very well determine the
policy platform of the next government, regardless of who is elected
Prime Minister.
So far it is a freeforall. The left is divided. So is the right.
Meridor, Shahak, Barak, all represent the same political ideology.
But the right has yet to make an intelligent move to pull the
forces together. Next week Dr. Irving Moskowitz, leading a large
delegation including Dr. Joseph Frager, is arriving in Israel
to study the situation and help pull the right together. If Dr.
Moskowitz and his delegation succeed in impressing the heads of
the major political factions that they have no choice but to work
together, there is a VERY GOOD chance that we will be victorious.
The truth is that we really don't want Barak, Beilin, or Shahak.
However Bibi must know that if he wants to be a chicken, eating
crumbs off the floor, he cannot disguise himself, claiming to
be something else. If he wants to cluck around,
that is his prerogative. But he cannot make believe that his clucks
are actually intelligent speech and try to sway us to act accordingly.
Arafat is Arafat, Eretz Yisrael is Eretz Yisrael, and Hebron is
Hebron. Nobody, however hard they try, will ever be able to persuade
us otherwise.
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post of January 27, 1999
The election campaign is in full swing. Officially, this is the result of the earlyelections legislative initiative by opposition MKs Haim Ramon and Haim Oron, but it was actually sparked by the objections of many coalition members to the Wye Memorandum. The agreement cost Netanyahu his Knesset majority.
On the eve of the Wye conference, Netanyahu claimed that he was willing to take a political gamble and endanger his coalition's stability to achieve a good agreement with the Palestinians that would assure Israel's security. Netanyahu was relying on the safety net offered by Labor Party leaders to implement any agreement he would reach at Wye.
But after the agreement was reached, he soon discovered that he had fallen between the cracks; he had lost some votes of his coalition partners and the votes promised by the opposition. The Wye agreement hastened the coalition's internal disintegration, as rifts developed between those demanding its complete and immediate implementation, without conditioning it on the Palestinians' fulfilling their commitments, and those calling to totally abandon the Wye agreement. Yitzhak Mordechai led the former group; Benny Begin the latter.
Surprisingly, though, the Wye agreement has not yet become a central issue in the election campaign. In his letters to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Mordechai, US President Bill Clinton did not forget to rub in the importance of the Wye agreement and praise their part in achieving it. But the voters don't seem inclined to debate an outdated accord. After all, under the agreement, the negotiations on the permanent settlement should already have started. But the major parties' stances on the subject of the permanent settlement remain shrouded in mystery.
The elections are meant to be the ultimate opinion poll on all essential issues, great and small. But unfortunately, as we are bombarded, morning, noon, and night, with an increasing number of preelection opinion polls, we lose the opportunity to make a precise assessment of the public's views, both on questions of religion and state and concerning relations with our neighbors.
When Ronni Milo first raised the centrist party standard, he sharply criticized the clericalization of our society. But when Yitzhak Mordechai was chosen as leader of the party, he not only went to pray at the Western Wall, but also went to kiss Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's hand. The new party acts like all the old parties; it is trying to be as variegated as possible, to make itself attractive to different groups of voters, religious and antireligious alike.
Before the crisis that led to the elections, Netanyahu and Ehud Barak conducted talks about establishing a nationalunity government. In the 10 secret sessions, agreements were reached on a number of diplomatic issues, including the Golan Heights question. The Labor Party claimed that there were no serious differences of opinion on territorial compromise on the Golan Heights. Now the center party comes along and says it wants to renew talks with the Syrians on the basis of territorial compromise. But the new party hasn't made it clear what it means by "compromise." Does it mean that it will refuse negotiations on the basis of a Syrian ultimatum for a full withdrawal to the shores of the Kinneret? It doesn't specify if we should refuse to conduct negotiations if the Syrians refuse any compromise.
MORE complicated are the solutions being proposed in Judea and Samaria. The Hebron and Wye agreements show that the Likud is also ready for territorial compromise. Both parties make withdrawal conditional on Israel's security needs. But both they and the center party are unable to define the parameters of these security needs. For example, do they refer only to the Etzion and Ariel blocs, or indicate also a firm stand against concessions in the Jordan Valley?
Before the negotiations on the permanent settlement, none of them will reveal a map of their fallback positions. They are only talking about their starting points in the negotiations. Concerning the extent of possible concessions there are differences of opinion, even within the party leaderships.
Only the NRP and Herut at one extreme, and the Communists and Arab parties at the other, have taken clear stands on territorial compromise. The other parties have obscured their positions, and none of them tells the voter what will happen if the Palestinians refuse to accept our generous offers and demand everything. So the public is unable to express its opinion on their manifestos. Their vague language also serves to conceal the differences of opinion in parties that act like supermarkets, selling a variety of conflicting positions.
Almost all the parties repeat the mantra of "united Jerusalem
under eternal Israeli sovereignty." But none of them makes
clear what will happen if Jerusalem becomes the only issue preventing
the signing of a peace.
Originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post on January 20, 1999
When the polls close in a few months, it is far from clear what
mandate the winner will have. Of the major candidates, we have
one who wants carte blanche, another whose soundbite platform
is internally inconsistent and a third who would not be facing
early elections if he had only followed what he has embraced,
once again, as his platform.
Does Amnon LipkinShahak have red lines? He claims he does, but
won't reveal them. Shahak's unstated motto, "Trust me,"
denies his supporters the opportunity to vote their views. Ehud
Barak is confusing. He advocates separation "we here, they
there" yet supports annexing the major settlement blocs
and keeping "United Jerusalem" intact.
Barak is equally vague on security issues relating to the Palestinians.
He trivializes the issue of illegal weapons missiles, cannons,
mines, etc. that the Palestinian Authority has and refuses to
dispose of, labeling it "a thousand rifles that Palestinians
may or may not have," insisting that the real security issue
is the nonconventional threat posed by Iran and Iraq.
Does he mean that as long as Yasser Arafat doesn't have a nuclear
device we shouldn't let Palestinian weapons get in the way of
further withdrawals?
Of course, in the democratic process the voters cast their ballots
for the closest available match which is rarely a perfect match
to their goals and ideals. Hopefully by Election Day, Barak
will clarify his program. But that would still leave us with the
Peres problem. Barak's spokesperson, Aliza Goren, told me that
if Barak is elected, Shimon Peres will be a minister. She assured
me that Peres would not work behind Barak's back. But given Peres's
track record, I tend to doubt this. And I am not alone.
A Gallup Poll commissioned by the Independent Media Review and
Analysis organization this week found that over half of adult
Israeli Jews believe that Peres would pursue his own program even
if it clashed with Barak's policies. Almost 44% of those who voted
for Peres in 1996 shared this view.
As for Netanyahu, he zigzags. He is now proud that he is building
on Har Homa, but the construction contracts stipulate that "the
manager is allowed to halt construction for governmental reasons."His
campaign slogan on territory is "Barak will hand over, the
Likud will keep" yet Netanyahu pushed through approval
of the Hebron withdrawal and pulled out from even more territory
after signing the Wye Memorandum.
Netanyahu speaks of "reciprocity" yet he left most of
Hebron before reciprocity was assured, and did it again this winter
when he termed the Palestinian handwave in Gaza a "PNC decision
to revoke the Palestinian charter." (It should be noted that
the Palestinians' own official news agency, WAFA, doesn't say
that there was a vote only a waving of hands.)
It would have been one thing if the "hand wave" had
truly been a watershed event. But it wasn't. Arafat still considers
violence to be a legitimate tool for pressuring Israel. The statements
of incitement continue; the only difference today is that a committee
meets to catalog them.
Wye was so ambiguous that this committee has yet to even agree
on what "incitement" is, let alone actually take measures
to stop it. And the incitement works, with a recent Palestinian
poll by the Center for Palestine Research and Studies finding
almost 53% of Palestinians supporting armed attacks against Israel.
The prime minister insists that his administration ensured the
security of the settlers in the Hebron Agreement, yet he concedes
that their security has been compromised by Palestinian violations.
But let's be fair. The withdrawals outlined by Wye, as bad as
they were, would probably not have brought the Netanyahu government
down. It was the serious uncertainty regarding his true agenda
that yielded the critical mass of opponents from his own camp.
Which brings us to MK Ze'ev (Benny) Begin, who at this time is
not considered a major candidate.
He certainly has a clear position on withdrawals he wants none
but is "Just Say No" enough? Does Begin plan, as his
detractors claim, to march back into Nablus and Gaza? Is he a
oneissue candidate? Far from it.
Begin told me this week that he would support maintaining the
ties and programs between Israel and the PA for the mutual benefit
of all. While Barak speaks of slashing the number of Palestinian
workers permitted within Israel, Begin sees Palestinian employment
as vital for the welfare of our neighbors criticizing the efficacy
of closure as a security measure.
The same goes for Palestinian access to Israeli hospitals, ports
and other services. But can Begin cut a deal with Arafat? Given
the declared "red lines" of the other candidates, Begin
notes, he is in good company. Insisting on a united Jerusalem
under Israeli sovereignty and the retention of major settlement
blocks Israeli demands unacceptable both to Arafat and the Clinton
administration puts Barak and Netanyahu in the same boat as
Begin.
With one major difference. Begin would reach the impasse with
a stronger position on the ground and the diplomatic advantage
of clarity.
=============
Dr. Aaron Lerner is the Director IMRA (Independent Media
Review & Analysis).
The newspapers called him "a statesman, a considered strategist, on whom peace depends." Television and radio broadcasts repeatedly reported almost always relying on anonymous sources that Mordechai had blocked numerous military adventures the prime minister had planned. The members of the media, most of whom make no secret of their hatred for the Likud government, inflated Mordechai's ego. Mordechai, in turn, acted as if he'd forgotten that these journalists were essentially reporting what his own public relations people were feeding them. His spokesman, Avi Benayahu, who is known to have leftist roots, indeed did good work, painting Mordechai as a diplomatic Popeye and security Gulliver, depictions that had no basis in reality.
And Mordechai began acting as if he believed his own publicity. His ego swelled to balloonlike proportions, until Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, by firing him on a live TV broadcast, stuck a pin in it.
Mordechai was so secure with what the papers were writing about him that he allowed himself to do things that are forbidden in a democracy. The Likud minister, for several weeks, conducted both covert and overt talks with the Labor Party, as well as with those whose blind ambition is to overthrow Netanyahu Dan Meridor, Ronni Milo, and Amnon LipkinShahak.
He was trying to figure out where it most paid for him to be. Stay in the Likud? Fine, but he demanded a signed agreement from Netanyahu securing his status. Join the others? Maybe, but only if they'd let him head their list, so he could demand for himself no less than the prime minister's post.
At the same time, in a blatant publicrelations ploy, he managed to secure for himself an invitation from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. All this went on when he was still defense minister and a member of the Likud. He really believed that Netanyahu wouldn't dare do anything to him, since, after all, he was such a popular figure, an outstanding statesman and a superior strategist.
Mordechai forgot that he was popular primarily because he was defense minister. The position made him; he did not make the position.
Mordechai was a good fighter on the battlefield, exhibiting personal bravery. But the battle he is particularly proud of when he commanded the battalion that engaged the Egyptians at the socalled Chinese Farm in the Sinai in October 1973 though a brave battle, served no real purpose, led to many casualties, and generated the sad joke: "Mordechai fought there until the last Chinaman fell."
Mordechai is also proud of the fact that he is the only general to have commanded the Southern, Central and Northern commands. But so what? He didn't leave his particular mark in any of these posts; during his stint as OC Northern Command, for example, the ongoing war in Lebanon was conducted in the same routine and stupid fashion.
In fact, the chief of General Staff at the time, one Amnon Shahak, wouldn't agree to appoint Mordechai his deputy, a disappointment that forced Mordechai out of the IDF and led him to pursue a political career.
Funny now this same Shahak is telling us that the man that he didn't think was worthy of being his deputy, is nonetheless fit to be Israel's prime minister. Perhaps it would be funny, except that now Mordechai, as the political commander of the centrist party, and Shahak, as his deputy, are insisting they are worthy of leading the country.
If Mordechai truly was a statesman, instead of acting like a petty
political activist who'd gotten caught with his pants down last
Saturday night, he would have learned something from some of the
great political battles of the past.
Take Moshe Dayan, a leader with a history of military and diplomatic accomplishments a hundred times greater than Mordechai's; he set up his own party in 1981 to run against Menachem Begin and barely got two Knesset seats. Ezer Weizman did something similar in 1984 against Yitzhak Shamir, and met with similar "success."
What does Mordechai have in his kit bag to sell us that could be any better than what Dayan and Weizman had to offer in their time? Soon it will be clear that he has far less, and the Israeli public will be the beneficiaries, since Mordechai will no longer be defense minister.
Because as defense minister, nothing commanded more of his attention
than his own image.
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post of January 8, 1999
The original concept of autonomy was designed to provide the Palestinians
with maximum political selfexpression, short of statehood. Except
for a small minority, all the political parties in Israel agreed
that an independent Palestinian state was too much of a risk and
a danger. Contrary to this undertaking, however, the RabinPeres
government deliberately set in motion a process that would lead
to the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan
River. By the time the Peres government was removed from office,
it had become abundantly clear that we had been saddled with a
hostile entity, governed by a terrorprone leadership, that was
serving as a safe haven for terrorists.
Binyamin Netanyahu was elected against this background. Most people did not expect him to renounce the Oslo Agreements outright and trigger a fulldress confrontation with the PLO. We did, however, expect him to undertake a thorough review of the Oslo process and steer it toward a healthier track. This would have entailed, first and foremost, applying a brake to the slide toward a PLOterrorist state. In addition, he was expected to serve notice to Yasser Arafat, right from the outset, that he must choose between living up to every undertaking in the agreements and a total suspension of the Oslo process. Netanyahu would have thus unmasked the total bankruptcy of the previous government's policy of "promoting the peace process as if there is no terrorism and fighting terrorism as if there is no peace process."
We were all sick and tired of Hamas terror attacks, coupled with PLO prevarication, doubledealing, and deception. A firm, principled, and consistent Israeli posture would have elicited popular support here and understanding in the US. Instead, Netanyahu adopted a policy of acrosstheboard equivocation. He would initiate contacts with the Palestinian Authority, intimate that progress was being made in the Oslo process, then turn around and publicly castigate the PA for violating the agreements. Similarly, one day he would declare wholehearted support for the inhabitants of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, and the next day it would transpire that the government refused to permit bringing in even one caravan to a settlement. He would trumpet eternal dedication to united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and at the same time prevent any building in Har Homa or Ras alAmud.
THE FINAL blow was the Wye Plantation agreement. Contrary to the Netanyahu's protestations, that agreement has not rectified any of the disastrous blunders in the Oslo Accords. If anything, it only compounded the grave situation which those accords had created. It enabled, by such measures as an airport at Dahaniye, the resumption of the trend toward Palestinian statehood. It did not check the tide of Hamas terror attacks which were countenanced, if not encouraged, by the Palestinian Authority.
The argument that if we reject Netanyahu, we will be saddled with Ehud Barak does not hold water. The Israeli Left has been steadily losing the last vestiges of ideology and credibility. Since the demise of socialism, the Labor Party has been groping for a substitute without much success. It adopted the motto of peace with the Palestinians with gusto and fanfare, but that crusade turned sour because the PLO's concept of peace turned out to be a sham. It then chose Barak as its leader, hoping that following in the footsteps of Yitzhak Rabin, also a former chief of General Staff, would guarantee success for the party.
But that move turned out to be another blunder. Barak is an inexperienced novice in the complex political arena. He is, to a large extent, a prisoner of the RabinPeres ephemeral achievements in peace. Amnon LipkinShahak is another candidate who mistakenly believes that being a former general is a sure guarantee of success in politics. He is trying hard to sell a centrist image. But once he and his competitors begin disclosing each other's past, Shahak' s central role in creating and promoting the Oslo process will place him squarely in the RabinPeresBarak camp.
We cannot afford a leadership that is tied, ideologically or politically, to the Oslo process. We have paid too high a price for governments that gambled with the country's security and future. We desperately need a new and courageous leadership that is not beholden to the disastrous policies of the past and is capable of adopting a course toward a secure and stable future for our state and people.
(c) 1999 The Jerusalem Post
===========
Yossi Ben-Aharon is a former directorgeneral of the Prime
Minister's Office.
Carville's office in the firm of Stanley Greenberg and James Carville
was burglarized of records supposedly pertaining to polls done
in Israel for Carville and Clinton's client, exGen. Ehud Barak
of the Labor Party. What's that smell? Could
it be that the burglary was a putup job so, as in the past, Labor
could scream that the opposition was terrible, horrible, untrustworthy,
evil, Nazis, storm troopers much, much more.
Why would a burglar steal polling data when most of it changes
by the hour in Israel? How did the burglar know which filing cabinet
to break open? Barak has already said that strategy is planned
in his office so the great Carville thoughts were not stolen.
But, consider the benefit and an opportunity to jump on the shouting
platform, saying, "We have been injured!" If that was
the intention, to blame Netanyahu and Likud for stealing those
precious files it worked. NPR, National Public Radio has already
gleefully proclaimed there is speculation that Netanyahu and Likud
did a Watergatestyle burglary. Netanyahu through his spokesman,
David Bar Ilan already had to deny that Netanyahu and Likud had
burgled Carville's office. Having to deny is as good as proof
for the media and the gullible public.
Well, in Washington the art of the Dirty Political Tricks was
sharpened to an ugly razor's edge. I would not be surprised if
many of those in Washington, so desperate for a Labor win, thought
that a little burglary would be just the right touch. The fact
is that Netanyahu has been conducting almost weekly polls and
knows by the minute where he stands relative to the competition.
He, least of all, needed what Carville had accumulated.
I smell a Dirty Political Trick and it's time to ask Labor, Barak
and Carville if they have any ideas who would want files of little
news except to be spun by the spin doctors in the bowels of the
Oval Office, the State Department, Industrial
Arabists and all those who are desperate for a Labor government
return to power. They have reason to worry, given the fact that
Ehud Barak is not showing any leads in anyone's polls. A little
'explosion' on the political scene would certainly help Labor's
cause.
Come to think of it, Yitzhak Rabin was in a similar losing position
in the polls when he was shot. The perpetrators of that affair
are still being investigated. Strange isn't it, that all these
things happen before elections, when one side is down in his polls.
So, what's the next likely move?
First, the NEW YORK TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, LA TIMES, CNN,
NPR are likely to run this 'great' event as a lead story,
following the Clinton trial. CNN will, of course, show footage
of the building and, with some luck, the vent on the roof where
the penetration was made. All of this will percolate down through
other newspapers and TV anchor news. This kicks off the whisperwhisper
campaign that Carville's polling notes were a "Key to the
Election" of his client, General Barak and the Likud did
it.
This thing is so amateurishly transparent that the event didn't
deserve a two inch column on page 52 of a 51 page newspaper.
But, folks...watch the PR buildup in the US which will be funneled
into Israel where the four leftist newspapers will jump on the
story and spin, spin, spin.
So, c'mon, you can do better than this pathetic attempt at what
appears to be nothing more than a cheap Political Dirty Trick.
In any case, this appears to be merely a warmup for coming political
Dirty Tricks, courtesy of the Labor party, Carville and Arabist
propagandists who desperately want Labor to fulfill their fondest
dreams. Add to that "Campaign Contributions" in different
forms with most brown bagging it from Mr. Clinton's White House.
===========
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst & commentator
and a research associate of the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.
It is scarcely worthy of comment per se that so far so much surrounding
the Israeli elections has concerned matters of security policy.
This, of course, is not unusual for Israeli politics. But what
is particularly remarkable about it is that it is so little worthy
of remark. Why should this nation have uppermost in its political
debate matters concerning frontiers, safety for its citizens,
threats to security, what is or is not safe? (And this almost
ceaseless and continuous for 50 years, at that!)
Indeed, this issue may legitimately be taken further still. It
should be a matter of the utmost concern that debate over what
the borders of Israel should be exists in the context of Arab
sensibilities. For this fact itself speaks volumes about the nature
of relations with those whose longstanding hostility and trackrecord
of aggressive endeavour still has a profound impact on Israeli
politics and society. Thus when the late Yitzhak Rabin commented
that one made peace with one's enemies, it was what is nowadays
called a 'sound bite' but actually lacked truthful content. One
cannot 'make peace'. It is not an objective reality to be made
by one side. It cannot be readily and easily imposed by one side,
although aggressive desires and intentions may be deterred. Nor
indeed is it made with enemies. Rather it results from changes
of heart that evidently have produced friendship that stands tests
and withstands disagreement, and from this change of heart and
attitude, from the steadfastness of this newfound friendliness,
peace flows. Enemies must cease being so before the reality of
peace can occur.
Trust, in international relations, as in any others, must be earned
and also be seen to be well founded. If it is a matter of gambling
then it is not firmly founded. It is plain enough that if good
will needs purchasing, it cannot at the same time be genuine and
bona fide. The dire fact of the matter is that Israeli politics
reflect the need to try to buy Arab toleration and acceptance
of Israel's right to exist, and also even, of her de facto existence.
Thus, as in no other country's case in the world, the degree of
land to be surrendered in the process of trying to appease and
buy acceptance is a determinant of the platform of political parties.
The level of risk to be taken with citizens' lives has become
an issue separating these parties, one from the other (hence the
disgraceful oxymoron 'victims for peace' characterised one interpretation
of the causes of Islamic murder). Willingness to trust the words
of avowed enemies, hitherto absolutely undependable, marks off
one set of voters from another.
Despite these realities, lurking and prominent, the disgraceful
nature of them passes the rest of the socalled liberal, democratic
world by. So the Israeli right is made to appear as if it does
not really want peace and is morally corrupt for not accepting
the idea of Arab good will on which the DOP and Oslo accords
are predicated. Since however not their school books and not their
professional organisations, not their news media, nor their politicians,
have even begun to speak or broadcast warmly or in friendly attitude
concerning Israel, there are no grounds for accepting strategic
weakening. But the Likud appears to have suffered a loss of identity
and principles. It has suffered major figures departing. The new
'centre' parties are actually further to the left than Labour
traditionally was before the 1992 elections and Israel's true
safety is arguably less than at any time since 1973.
The left of centre 'Jerusalem Report' put on its cover page for
October 12, 1998 '25 Years After the Yom Kippur War Could Israel
Be Surprised Again?' Its finding was that to some extent the answer
rested on the outcome of negotiations with the Palestinians. But
it is not negotiations which make security, any more than pieces
of paper do. Rather, it is changes in outlook and perception which
make these worthwhile. So far no evidence exists to show either
that the PLO leadership's 'constituency', or their own beliefs
and statements, are at all different to what they were. Since
the Palestine National Covenant was declared 'caduq' by Yasser
Arafat in 1988, eleven years have changed nothing. President Clinton's
attendance at the most recent pretence at advertising changes
in the document still made no difference as the body was not the
one cited in the Covenant as the one which could change it. The
committee meeting revealingly about incitement cannot even
agree on a definition.
Corruption and brutality in the PA governing regime, not to mention
armaments smuggling, mean that Israel's neighbouring Arab entity
reveals no trace of those qualities required in a neighbour. It
adheres to the spirit and letter of agreements if at all with
extreme reluctance, builds where it should not and tolerates car
thefts continuously. Why should any of this tempt anyone to vote
in favour of further concessions and transfer of assets? The persistence
of Arafat is worthy of tribute, according to Shimon Peres recently,
but his persistence is that of attitudes of violence, hatred and
murder. That Israeli votes should involve acceptance of appeasement
of dictatorial evil in the form of him and Hafez elAssad is a
tragedy. That, in the face of this, the Right needs to rally,
unite and spell out the realities unequivocally should appear
obvious. It is by no means clear that it does.
Benjamin Netanyahu has purported to seek 'reciprocity' from the
PA. He has, however, continued the process of land surrender regardless.
He knows the original accords were illegal in a number of ways
but has set about declaring that he regards them as binding. He
set out, perhaps, to make them work. That might, even if misguided,
have been a noble objective. One reason his government fell was
that some felt things (at Wye for example) had gone far enough.
Can anyone seriously now think that the accords have worked? If
so then there is nothing to fear for any Israeli choosing to shop
in Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Kalkilya, Gaza or anywhere else. If
that is not so, then the weakening and costs to Israel of continuing
with the demands of Oslo remain pointless and the process should
stop.
If in turn the matters of frontiers and security are so controversial
and undetermined after nearly six years of the 'peace process'
then it is time to say 'no more' and for all reasonable people
to accept the unpalatable reality. It is to be hoped that the
Israeli elections will reflect this sooner rather than later.
Election platforms need to reflect truth and reality, not dreams
which have already failed.
Autz7 Internet January 7, 1999
After a steep climb in the popularity ratings, the new contender
for premiership, Amnon LipkinShahak, in one fell blow, put an
end to the dream to refreshen the dull, wornout and discredited
political stage with a new element - a party of the center, with
a knight in shining armor - a former Chief of Staff - at its head.
In a pressconference, formally announcing his intention to run,
LipkinShahak finally showed his cards, for everybody to see that
there is nothing in them. Question: What about the Kibbutzim breaking
the law, opening their shopping malls on the Shabbat? Shahak's
answer: "To that the answers will have to be given by dialogue."
And what about the Reform representatives in the religious councils?
"An answer to that has to be found".What about the drafting
of the yeshiva students? "One should sit with them and talk,
until the problem is solved".And what about unemployment?
"I intend to deal with their problems." But how? Only
when pressed hard, Shahak revealed his real agenda, the only area
where he has a clear concept and straight answers: Peace, with
a capital "P". Peace will bring investments and reduce
unemployment. And how is this peace to be achieved?
A Palestinian state, as the outcome of the final status negotiations;
The uprooting of Jewish settlements; Solving the Lebanese predicament
by satisfying the Syrian demands in the Golan. Shahak left no
doubt as to his readiness to surrender the entire Golan, save
only for some bickering around the nearest proximity of the Kinnereth.
Of course, none of these ideas is new, new is only the pathetic
attempt to hide this leftist program under the cloak of "centrism".
But what in this Meretzplatform belongs to the center?
And yet, Shahak rejects the proposal to join Labor, whose left
wing has the very same orientation. Shahak admits this, but claims
that his sole purpose in running separately (and thereby jeopardizing
both his and Barak's chances to win) is to evade the "Leftist"
image of Labor. Everything is clear now: Shahak tries to find
a formula, how to be a leftist without looking like one. Yet in
this he utterly failed. Words like "there is a rift in the
nation, I know of no one who can heal it", or "We shall
convince very many people that we are serious and that we speak
the truth, and they will come" - make a naive, almost childish
impression. The Israeli public is by now sophisticated enough
to ask for specifics, and specifics there were none.
In an interview on the TV, Shahak in addition to all that made
a very grave mistake, that for some reason passed unnoticed. After
having passed judgment on Netanyahu "as dangerous to Israel"
without giving any reason for such far reaching accusation, he
hinted darkly that in the wake of the September 1996 Kotteltunnel
riots, Netanyahu proposed a military action inside the Palestinian
Authority territory, which was "very wrong" and would
have had very negative results. Such a proposal
was rejected by him and by the Minister of Defense. By this, Shahak
reached a new nadir in Israeli public political morals. From now
on an P.M., deliberating over security matters even in the most
intimate circle, must guard himself against the possibility of
his Chief of Staff going tomorrow into politics and then using
such inner topsecret intelligence - against him in the political
arena. This is a new, very serious, breach in the very foundations
of our political fabric. But the largest question mark around
Amnon Shahak are his friends and confidants, the inner circle
of his political advisors. One of them is Uri Savir, Peres' right
hand man in Oslo, in short "Mr. Oslo". Which reminds
us, that Shahak himself, while serving in the army, was Peres'
front man in dealing with the PLO, contributing no little to the
politization of the army. Now, the civilian Mr. Oslo, Savir, and
the military Mr. Oslo, Shahak, again march hand in hand, but this
time under the banner of "Centrism".
Another intimate advisor is Shimon Sheves, in the past Rabin's
Director General in the Prime Minister's Office, who was the center
of many political scandals, later left his post with Rabin and
is now involved in a criminal investigation, close to prosecution,
in a financial scandal . Under public pressure Sheves now retired
from the official entourage of Shahak, but assured us, that nevertheless
his advice would continue to be available. And then there is Mr.
Yossi Genossar. A short biography: Genossar served as deputy chief
of the G.S.S., the famous Shabak. The man first became infamous
in the Izat Nafssu affair, an officer in the IDF, who - under
suspicion of treason , brutally tortured by Genossar - admitted
guilt. In the military court Genossar perjured himself denying
torture, causing Nafssu to be sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment.
A committee, chaired by Justice Landau, pointed out that Genossar
himself had doubts as to Nafssu's guilt, and yet did not shrink
from committing perjury to get him convicted. Nafssu was eventually
cleared and released.
Then Genossar was involved in the bus No.300 affair, where members
of the Shabak killed captured and disarmed terrorists. A semijudicial
committee was set up, the socalled Zoreacommittee, in which
Genossar served as member. However, he betrayed his trust, leaked
out information, also advised the Shabak, how to maneuver the
committee to obliterate the truth. Genossar was sacked from his
post in the G.S.S.
When the Labor government came to power in 1992, Genossar , who
by then had become a prominent member of Labor, was given the
post of Director General of the housing Ministry. But here, the
High Court intervened and ordered his dismissal. Justice Barak
had this to say: "A criminal who committed perjury and obstructed
justice - how can he lead a government office, what personal example
can he give to his subordinates? How can he gain public confidence
in the fairness and straightforwardness of public servants?"
Now, Mr. Genossar is in private business. The Israel economic
paper "Globs" (16 February 1966) ran a big article under
the caption "How did G. from the Shabak transform into Mr.
Five Percent of the Palestinian Authority?" Further in the
headlines: Yossi Genosar, while serving as Chairman of Amidar,
brokers business with P.A. - involved with Muhamad Rashid, Arafat's
right hand, cashing in percentages. For instance, import of cigarettes
into the socalled Autonomy. Genossar demanded 3% of the turnover,
otherwise there would be no licenses. Says Globs, summing up:
Muhammed Rashid and Yossi Genossar are like Siamese twins. In
any deal involving Rashid the name of Genossar pops up.
Tell me who your friends are, and I shall tell you who you are.
In his press conference, Shahak gave Genossar full backing, as
one of his nearest personal and political friends and collaborators.
If this is the renewal and renaissance of Israel politics, we
shall soon yearn for the old ones.
===========
Elyakim Ha'etzni is a lawyer and Jewish activist who lives
in Kiryat Arba.
Tonight I'd like to say a word about the linkage being apparently
made between the early release of Jewish murderers and Palestinian
terrorists, some things you may not recall about Yitzchak Mordechai
including a Gallup Poll we commissioned last week, and Barak's
"E" word.
1. Israeli Murderers Are Not "Our" Murderers
President Ezer Weizman is commuting the long sentences of seven
Jews who were serving time for murdering or attempting to murder
Arabs. Arye Shumer, speaking on behalf of Weizman, explained that
the move was to "encourage the peace process." Releasing
Jewish murderers encourages the peace process?
Let me explain the theory: Weizman, and apparently Justice Minister
Hanegbi, think that those who oppose the release of Arab terrorists
will soften their stand if they are paid off. And the "payoff"
is the release of Jewish murderers. Now I am not going into the
backgrounds and stories of the Jews who murdered Arabs. If they
were crazy, or acted because of extenuating circumstances or any
other explanation that might be offered to justify a reduction
of the sentence of an individual murderer. Such matters should
be considered on an individual basis. These murderers should face
the same system that any other murderer in Israel faces. It should
have absolutely nothing to do with the socalled peace process.
The point is simple: when Weizman and Hanegbi think that they
can "pay off" opponents of the release of Palestinian
terrorists by releasing Jewish murderers they are asserting that
these opponents identify with the Jewish murderers.
Let me make it clear, and I am confident that I speak for the
overwhelming majority of those who oppose the release of terrorists
the Jewish murderers are not repeat not on "our"
side. I do not consider there any gain whatsoever in the release
of Jewish murderers. I am deeply insulted and offended by the
very idea that my president, Ezer Weizman and Tzachi Hanegbi think
that I and others identify with these Jewish murderers.
It pains me that while the overwhelming majority here in Israel
do not identify themselves with the release of Jewish murderers,
the opposite is the case for the Palestinians. The Palestinian
leadership calls for the release of all terrorists regardless
of how heinous their crime. The Palestinians argue that all terrorists,
regardless of what they did, were essentially soldiers. And as
soldiers, they maintain, the terrorists should be released since
the "war" is over.
But even wars have rules. That's why Adolf Eichman ended
up at the end of a noose in Israel rather than a ticker tape parade
in Berlin.
2. Some Things You May Not Recall About Mordechai
Just some quick reminders about exDefense Minister Yitzchak Mordechai:
when he pressed for Israeli withdrawals he rarely remembered to
make withdrawal conditional on Palestinian compliance. As Akiva
Eldar noted this week in Ha'aretz, at a critical stage in the
Wye negotiations Mordechai had the hutzpa to reveal Netanyahu's
hand by telling US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that
the suitcases Netanyahu ordered put outside to signal an imminent
departure were empty.
Mordechai says he opted "many times" to leave cabinet
meetings in order to avoid hearing inaccurate reports. Talk about
fulfilling his duties as a cabinet member! If he thought someone
was lying it was his obligation to do something about it. That's
what's needed and that's what the public wants. An IMRAcommissioned
Gallup Poll of adult Israeli Jews last Thursday found Israelis
opposed Mordechai's walkouts almost five to one.
On June 19, 1996, Netanyahu began his first full day in office
by establishing the National Security Council (NSC), a council
first proposed by the Agranat Commission that investigated the
foulups that preceded the Yom Kippur War. This was to be the
start of his hundred days. Unfortunately, Netanyahu dropped the
plan because thendefense minister Mordechai feared that the NSC
would encroach on his turf.
3. Barak's "E" word
As I noted several weeks ago, Ehud Barak has chosen to make the
use of the "E" word as an integral part of his campaign.
He keeps calling his political rivals extremists. He labels people
from the camp that opposes him "extremists".
It seems that in every interview he manages to fit in Zion Square,
the Rabin in a Gestapo uniform photo montage and the coffin at
Raananaa Junction. This is out and out incitement. When Netanyahu
was in Zion Square and every place else he made a point to
admonish those in the crowd with unacceptable placards to take
their signs down and denounced unacceptable slogans. That Barak
should even mention the photo montage is incredible since the
only reason it is known to the public is that a GSS agent, Avishai
Raviv, made a point of getting it televised in order to hurt the
nationalist camp.
As for the coffin in Raanana Junction Barak doesn't even try
to claim that it is Rabin's coffin anymore. He just calls it a
coffin. One of scores of coffin used in protests as a prop by
Israeli students, workers, Arabs and others.
Hopefully this heavy use of the "E" word will
backfire on Barak. After all, when you label such a large part
of the population "extremist" that's a lot of people
who won't vote Barak.
==========
Dr. Aaron Lerner is the Director IMRA (Independent Media
Review & Analysis.
Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio -- Feb. 7, 1999 / Sh'vat 21, 5759
1. RECLAIMING INNER INDEPENDENCE
There is an old saying that it is easier to take a Jew out of
the Diaspora [Galut] than to take the Diaspora out of the Jew.
The truth of this adage becomes abundantly clear when one witnesses
the reactions of the Israeli media ever since the news broke this
past Friday that King Hussein was dying. Voice of Israel radio
decided to play sad, subdued, mourning music. Channel 2's Oshrat
Kotler looked as if she'd lost a close relative. "Independence"
is not only a political status it is also a state of mind. The
Jews of Israel still have a long way to go to attain inner "independence",
inner balance and selfassurance. Lost 1929 years ago, these qualities
cannot be retrieved in merely 50 years.
2. LEST WE FORGET
We all support the peace treaty with Jordan. There is also no
doubt that, among Arab rulers, Hussein most closely fit the definition
of a "good neighbor." And yet, we should never forget
the facts: It was Hussein that desecrated the Jewish cemetery
on the Mount of Olives, even using some of the tombstones for
Arab Legion latrines. With his consent, the socalled "West
Bank" served as a basis for terror attacks until 1967. One
need only recall the massacre on the bus in Ma'aleh Akrabim in
the Negev which claimed 11 victims; the 34 victims of Jordanian
terrorist attacks in 1954; and the frequent shootings from the
wall around the Old City of Jerusalem. In 1967, Hussein joined
the Egyptian attack on Israel. After the retreat of the Jordanian
army, Israeli soldiers found written orders from the King
instructing his men to kill everybody men, women and
children in Motza and Sha'alvim, two Jewish communities situated
between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
3. SPLIT PERSONALITY
After '67, Jordan once again began to serve as the basis for terrorist infiltration, resulting in heavy Israeli casualties in Karame. During what became known as Black September 1970, the benevolent, smiling, welleducated King killed approximately 20,000 Palestinians. (Subsequently, Israel gave asylum to over 100 terrorists who sough