Think-Israel

THINK-ISRAEL

HOME Jul-Aug.2005 Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web

WHERE WILL SHARON FIND ANOTHER SUCH PEOPLE?

by Yossi Blum-Halevi

On the morning of the second day of the siege of Kfar Maimon, journalist Ben Caspit, the court scribe for Ariel Sharon, wrote the following words from his lord's mouth:

"The events in Kfar Maimon and the increasing seriousness of calls for disobedience disquieted the prime minister. Sharon said: 'There is a small group of people trying to bring the state to destruction. It is an attempt to take control of the regime. Where is their responsibility, from where do they get such insane audacity? Those inciting disobedience are acting to bring destruction upon Israel.'

"Sharon is enraged seeing what is happening in Kfar Maimon, and the calls for soldiers and policemen to disobey orders caused him to express himself in an unprecedented fashion. It is the most serious thing possible, the prime minister says, "They are explicitly inciting disobedience. As for violence, there is no need to speak explicitly. They are hinting, they are giving permission. They are people ready to do anything; it is an attempt to replace the regime; a small group of people that is trying to bring the state to destruction; they have audacity that is difficult to imagine....

"'There is a real danger here. They are taking young boys and girls, poisoning their souls, causing them to chant, "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" I see those calls. I am not panicked by such things. Traitor, murderer, traitor, murderer, I've already been called from every possible direction; it is total madness. It is an effort here to replace the regime, to take over the regime! What, they will run the country here? Where is their responsibility? It is a denial of the authority of a legally chosen regime, and it is all based on a lie.'"

Sharon, anonymous people who are close to him say, has lost all inhibitions. The shameful actions of IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Police Chief Moshe Karadi last week brought the state of Israel to a moral low that it has never known. The dictator from the Sycamore Ranch also proved that he doesn't know how to back up his two personal servants, who made irresponsible use of the security services under their authority. 20,000 soldiers were taken out of the tanks and armored personnel carriers poised to invade the centers of terrorism in Gaza, or were hastily sent from training bases, to go to Kfar Maimon, in a way that was threatening and unprecedented, and that might have led to civil war, God forbid.

Ben Caspit goes on to quote Sharon: "The police acted exactly as it should have. I was not involved in that decision, but it was self-evident.... The involvement of Gideon Ezra and Karadi is a sterling model of our uncompromising attitude when it comes to defense of democracy and of the rule of law."

Democracy and the rule of law? This, from he who has abused them to the point of disgust during the years of his dictatorial rule?

To those statements by the tyrant from the Sycamore court, it would be appropriate to reply with the words of King Yannai to Shlomtzion, his wife: "Do not fear the Pharisees or those who are not Pharisees, rather fear the hypocrites who are like Pharisees, whose actions are like the deed of Zimri but who ask for the reward of Pinchas." (Talmud, Sotah 22b)

Indeed, Sharon comes to ask great reward from the media, which is cushioning him with cotton, like an etrog - citron (http://freund.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/04/journalists_or_.html), during these fateful days. And instead of pelting him with etrogs, as the people did to Yannai for his having violated the holiday of Sukkot, the media is defending his criminal actions and attacking the people, the victims of Sharon.

An evil king such as Yannai arose over our people on the eve of the destruction of the Second Temple, like Sharon in our day, when the plot to expel thousands of Jews hangs like a sword over our heads. Alas, the cynical process of history, which returns upon us as a decree of fate; for that same Yannai, a puppet king like Sharon is to America, crucified 800 of his Pharisee opponents, slaughtering their wives and children before their eyes. And the head of the General Security Services tells us that over the five years of Ariel Sharon's rule, 1,050 Israelis have been murdered - old people, women and children - while he, Sharon, who speaks so eloquently of "national accountability" and who pretends to "take responsibility", stood idly by the blood of the murdered, and violated his oath before the nation and the Knesset - to defend their lives and security.

That same Sharon today behaves towards his nation like one of the most evil people in the annals of our people. His hypocrisy and cruelty know no satisfaction. He feels the earth shaking under his feet. He knows, in his merciless shrewdness, that no tyrannical rule has been able to repress a people that rises like a lion and says "enough" to its oppressor.

The tyrant Ceaucescu stood on the balcony of his Bucharest palace in the spring of 1989 and gave a speech to crowds of his people, who were hungry and downtrodden into the dirt at the hands of the cruel Securitate, the Romanian security police that preserved his rule. The Romanian people, who had never dared to open their mouths, heard the tyrant speak of "people's democracy, the rule of law and the good of the people." A loud snarl erupted from the giant square, where half a million men, women and children had assembled, and their voice was like frightful thunder to the ears of the ruler. 'What happened to the people?' Ceaucescu asked his advisors. 'They are hungry,' they answered him. "Then distribute to them sausages," replied the despot, and history changed its course in blood and fire.

Do you, Sharon, also want to preserve your rule by means of the bayonets of the police, the special forces and the border guards? To continue to voice your lies in our ears? Look at this wonderful nation. Can you dare speak to it in this way? Have you lost your mind, Mr. Prime Minister?

From your Sycamore Ranch, not far from that village named after a rabbi and Zionist leader, you could hear the masses of the House of Israel, women, old people and children, besieged at your unmerciful order, and prevented from receiving water, food and medical care. Thousands of policemen and soldiers pressed upon them with water cannon trucks and other destructive vehicles for firing gas, salt, rubber and "screaming" devices that shock the ears of the protestors.

How did your heart allow you to act this way? Thousands of your citizens were there, religious, secular, natives and immigrants, Haredim and members of kibbutzim, who left everything and went forth for a fateful mission - to try and save their homeland from the anti-democratic swindle that is the malignant and wicked Disengagement Law. They sacrificed everything, days and nights they slept on the ground, on thorns, among the gnats, in the terrible heat. They were under siege with their children and babies in a village that displayed true Judaism, Judaism that is compassion and helping others. It was the greatest hour of the people of Kfar Maimon, who opened their hearts, homes and property, giving those under siege water, food, warmth and love.

Sharon, your hour, politically, is coming. Don't let history and mindlessness lead the citizens of Israel to disaster. Do the little you can before you go and don't make the situation worse. Bloodshed can lead us to the abyss. Your true responsibility will find expression in preventing that bloodshed.

Sharon: Have mercy on the children, on the women in Gush Katif, in Ganim, Kadim and Sa-Nur.

You have no other nation, and we have no other land. Where will you find other people like your nation in Kfar Maimon?

I carried out an encompassing tour of Netzarim, Kfar Darom and Gush Katif. I saw the God-fearing farmers continuing with their daily labor by the sweat of their brows, as if no terrible decree to destroy their life's work was hanging over their heads. Quietly and determinedly, Netzarim is living its life, and in Shirat Hayam the sound of building continues; in Morag, they went out to milk the cows, and in N'vei Dekalim, to the hothouses and to production; in Ganim and Kadim there remain spirited people determined to remain in their homes and in their towns, together with the residents of Homesh and Sa-Nur.

Whoever saw the determination of the wonderful youth bedecked in orange in Kfar Maimon understands that no one can best them. They are the true democracy, they are Zionism, they are the foundation of the existence of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.

Sharon, Olmert, Shetreet, Tzipi Livni, Limor Livnat, Shalom, Naveh, Ezra, Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as the rest of the Likud traitors: Had you taken the trouble to visit the roads of the western Negev - between route 232 and route 34, and between the Gamma Junction and the detention camps at Kissufim and Ein HaShlosha - you would have understood, after a visit to besieged Kfar Maimon, that barbed wire, concrete barriers, detention camps and iron cages, all of those things, evidence your moral defeat.

You, and those who supported the wicked law, lost the battle for this wondrous people. "The Day After Kfar Maimon" will be, with God's help, your last day in politics.

Kfar Maimon was Sharon's Bastille; and the Kfar Maimon rebellion of the heart symbolizes the new, Jewish, Zionist and unified Israel.

Yossi Blum-Halevi is veteran and researcher of the Yom Kippur War, who wrote "When Calling for Paratroopers" and "Sanctification - Memories of the Yom Kippur War." He currently works in a high-tech company. His website is http://erez.israel.net/

This article appeared as an op-ed piece in Arutz Sheva (IsraelNationalNews.com) July 27, 2005.