OCTOBER 2005
THE BITTER FRUITS OF SHARON’S
DISENGAGEMENT PLAN
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Dear Friends,
Today is the forty-fourth day since the completion of the forcible expulsion of the Jews from their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria. As you surely remember, this crime against the Jewish people by Ariel Sharon commenced, very fittingly, on August 15, the day after Tisha B’Av. On August 23, the expulsion of the Jews from the communities in Gush Katif and Samaria was virtually complete.
Unfortunately, we are now being told by Ariel Sharon that he is planning further “painful concessions”. President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, are again making statements that the Gaza evacuation must be followed by additional steps: “It cannot be Gaza only.” And of course Kofi Anan, a prominent participant in the oil-for-food scam, joins the chorus and says that Israel must give up even more land. The majority of the leaders of the world agree that Israel should continue to give up land in the interest of “world peace”.
Does the whole world really agree with Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan? Are all the leaders of the world wiling to collaborate with Ariel Sharon’s crime against the Jewish people? Have they already forgotten the horrendous scenes on worldwide television of fathers and mothers and little children being forcibly dragged out of their homes?
Recently, I came across a poem by the famous author, novelist and playwright, Ben Hecht. This poem was originally printed as an ad in the New York Times on September 14, 1943. The poem is about the world’s apathy toward the tragic situation of the Jews of Europe at that time. Hecht focuses on the world’s ability to forget the Jewish plight, because the world is busy with other news. I found the refrain of each stanza haunting. It is relevant to the world’s reaction to today’s situation in Israel.
Don’t be bothersome; save your breath-
The world is busy with other news
And tell your G-d to forgive us please
For we are busy with other news
Tell him we looked askance at the crime-
But we were busy with other news
I believe that those who lived through the trauma of being dragged from their homes in Gush Katif and Samaria will never be able to forget.
Let me tell you about my good friends Rachel and Moshe Saperstein, founding members of Women in Green. They had a lovely home in Jerusalem, but in 1997 they decided to move to Neve Dekalim, a community in Gush Katif, to a house which had been built at the behest of the “old” Ariel Sharon.
They remodeled it and made it into a virtual show place. Rachel Saperstein was one of the spokespersons for Gush Katif. Her home and garden were therefore often shown in newspapers and on TV.
I came across an article by Rachel Saperstein entitled “HOME” published a couple of days ago on September 29, 2005.
HOME
By Rachel Saperstein
Gush Katif folks were taken on a tour of Jerusalem’s Yemin Moshe neighborhood one evening. They walked through the cobble-stoned streets and listened to the tales of this charming area – home to artists and the wealthy – many of whom use their beautiful homes as their Israeli retreat.
For the homeless of Gush Katif, wandering the streets brought back our own plight. Five weeks ago we, too, were the owners of beautiful homes on large plots of grass and flower gardens. We were not wealthy, simply dignified owners of a place called ‘home’.
We peered through uncurtained windows and watched families eating at kitchen tables or gathered near a television set, the comfortable simplicity of what people do in their homes, and for us… only a memory.
Esther Bazak owned an enormous house on the main street of Neve Dekalim. She entertained her numerous children and grandchildren there, and always offered the house to families celebrating a “Shabbat simcha” and needing to put up relatives and friends. Holding a picture of her home she asked a Jerusalem framer for a free-standing frame. “Haven’t got one” he said, “but I’ll put it in a frame to hang on your wall.” Esther took a deep breath and quietly said, “I don’t have a wall.”
Home today is a small hotel room. A tiny refrigerator and an electric kettle are our home appliances. My son just hooked up our computer to a mobile phone so we are receiving and sending e-mails. A plastic container with six shelves is my storage space. A few favorite books, toiletries, crackers, tea and coffee are parceled out into the opaque drawers. My granddaughter did the organization.
There is a picture on the wall, a seascape in dark blue of an angry sea smashing against the rocks. A friend brings me small gifts, always in orange, so a huge orange cloth rose leans against the tieback of the green curtain.
There are stains on the worn rug.
A television stands unused on a sideboard. Since our expulsion we haven’t watched the news, read a newspaper or listened to a radio. We have had to retreat into ourselves to protect our sanity. We don’t let the outside world into our cramped hotel room.
We eat our meals in the hotel dining room. Breakfast, after the schoolchildren are gone, is quiet; lunch and dinner are noisy as dozens of youngsters eat with their families. The chefs make an effort and food is plentiful and tasty. Sometimes we take food to the room for a quiet meal. A friend and former Jerusalem neighbor brought Chinese food and we ate from trays and re-told funny stories – a respite from our daily routine.
We share a laugh with our hotel families as we remember how we thought going to a hotel for a weekend was a luxury. Today we dream of living in a home, even for a weekend. Pazit borrowed her sister’s home, bought all the food and cooked up a Shabbat meal for her family, homesick for mom’s cooking.
We are people, religious people, educated people, who were forced out of our homes and jobs. We have yet to receive compensation from the government and we are still forced to pay the mortgages on the rubble that was once our homes.
Today we are dependent on the kindness of others. Someday, hopefully soon, we will return to being just like you and live in a home.
Shana Tova – a happy New Year to all our friends and supporters. May the Land of Israel and the Nation of Israel see a beautiful year.
(Operation Band-Aid means immediate help to the people of Gush Katif. A discrete envelope with 500 shekels is given to each family to use as they wish. Tax-deductible contributions can be made to:
Central Fund for Israel: Rehov Hagoel 13 Efrat, 90435 ISRAEL
Attention: Jay Marcus. Earmarked for: Operation Band Aid)
* * *
My friends, Rachel and Moshe Saperstein, will never forget that terrible week in August of 2005. Until the last minute they were praying for a miracle- a miracle which never happened.
I hope that my two-year-old granddaughter, Nava, will ultimately forget being so scared when she and her mother were forcibly carried out of their house and put on buses by Israeli soldiers. Nava’s mother told me that her daughter is still scared of soldiers. When she sees uniformed men, she starts crying uncontrollably, and in her mixture of Hebrew and English she keeps repeating “Chayalim, Chayalim (soldiers, soldiers), make mommy cry on bus”. How sad that a little two-year-old is frightened of the very soldiers who are supposed to protect her.
The world may already have forgotten the events of that fateful week in August 2005. We, the Jews, not only in Israel but worldwide, cannot allow ourselves the luxury to forget. The Gush Katif and Northern Shomron evacuees are still coping with temporary living conditions in crowded hotel rooms. Their desire to stay together as a community is ignored and not taken into account. They have no jobs, and no income. They live from day to day and have no idea what the future holds for them. People, who were once productive and self-sufficient citizens, are now dependent on other people’s generosity. The government seems to be opting out of taking sufficient responsibility for their plight.
In spite of all this Sharon is already talking about new “painful concessions”. Further concessions include “outposts” to be dismantled, evacuation of communities in Judea and Samaria and new “defensive borders”. All this is part of the Saudi-inspired Road Map, which is promoted by Russia the E.U., the UN and, unfortunately, the United Sates.
We must never forget that Ariel Sharon betrayed his own people by agreeing to the Road Map and by rewarding Arab terrorism with Jewish land. If Sharon is allowed to proceed with his treasonous plans, Israel will find itself without the territory and the means to defend its very survival.
The leftist elite in Israel wants us to move on, to forgive and to forget. They are now promoting the slogan: “Time for healing the wounds”. On the contrary! We must never forget and we must never forgive!
We must internalize the lessons of Gaza. Gaza is rapidly becoming a base for international terrorism. If Sharon is allowed to continue his dangerous dictatorial policies, Judea and Samaria will likewise be infested with terrorist organizations, threatening the rest of Israel including all major population centers, what Sharon likes to call, “Israel proper”. We must continue to fight Sharon’s defeatism and Arab terrorism with all our might.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
P.S. In this connection we highly recommend a powerful documentary, “IN THE FACE OF TERROR”. This is a very timely DVD on the connection between Sharon’s Disengagement Plan and Terror. It is produced by Ilana Gabriel and costs $20 including shipping. To order the DVD, visit our website www.womeningreen.org.
To view the trailer, go to http://www.gwu.edu/~fidfc/index.htm
Then go to the menu on the right and click on videos.
=============================================
Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
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**********************
LAND FOR PEACE or LAND FOR TERROR?
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Dear Friends,
Has there ever been another country in the world which has tolerated the murder of its own citizens by an enemy, calling them “Victims of Peace”? This is what they were called by Yitzchak Rabin after he signed those cursed Oslo Accords with Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993.
Has there ever been another country in the world which has expelled its own citizens from their homes and given away their land to the enemy calling it “Land for Peace”, as has just been done by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government?
Last Saturday, October 8, 2005, Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), laid the cornerstone for a new housing project set to rise from the rubble of the former settlement of MORAG.
The new town will be named Sheikh Khalifa City, in honor of the President of The United Arab Emirates (UAE), who is donating the $100 million its construction will cost. The new town is to have 25,000 residents.
Morag is part of the Biblical birthright of the Jewish people, which includes all of Gush Katif. It is within the boundaries of Shevet Yehuda (the tribe of Judah) in Biblical Israel. (See Genesis 15, Joshua 15:47, Kings 15:47 and Judges 1:18.) The earliest settlement of the area is by Abraham and Isaac, both of whom lived in the Gerar area of Gaza.
Morag was the southernmost settlement in Gush Katif. It was first established in 1972 as a pioneer military outpost (Nachal), which became civilian in 1983 and a religious agricultural worker’s cooperative, whose residents earned their living growing flowers and vegetables in hothouses. There were about 40 families with 220 people in Morag. We will now have, in their stead, 25,000 potential Arab terrorists in Sheikh Khalifa City, very close to the new Israeli border.
Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas said on October 8, at the groundbreaking ceremony of Sheikh Khalifa City: “The Palestinian Nation will continue its campaign towards the liberation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, and towards the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
“West Bank” is the late Jordanian King Hussein’s name for Biblical Judea and Samaria. Jerusalem is the first and most important holy place for the Jews and is mentioned over 700 times in the Tanach (Bible), whereas Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran. Significantly, Jews pray facing Jerusalem, while Muslims pray with their backs towards Jerusalem.
It has become evident that, by giving away some of our Biblical inheritance, Sharon has not achieved “Peace”, but rather made it easier for the Arab enemy to destroy the Jewish State (G-d forbid). In fact, as a result of the disengagement from Gaza, Sharon has enabled even Al Qaida, in addition to other terrorists groups, to build a base in Egyptian Sinai. From there, terrorists and a great quantity of weaponry are smuggled into Gaza and from there to Israel. The digging of secret tunnels is no longer necessary, as the Egyptian-Gaza border has become very porous.
IDF Intelligence Chief, Gen. Ze’evi-Farkash, says that Egypt has done nothing whatsoever to stop this illegal traffic. This is a danger not only for Israel but for the United States, as well.
President George W. Bush, in his speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, finally used “Islamic” and “terrorism” in the same sentence. Also, in that same speech, he recognized that Islamic terrorism has at its goal the “destruction of Israel.”
President Bush must also recognize and admit that Islamic terrorism has as its primary goal not only the destruction of Israel, the “Little Satan”, but is even more intent on the destruction of the “Great Satan”, the United States.
It is counterproductive for President Bush and US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to continue pressuring Israel to give up more of its land to the Arab enemy. Doing so would not be “Land for Peace”, but rather “Land for Increased Terror.”
It is now no longer sufficient to just pray for the “Peace of Jerusalem”. I believe that G-d may want us to prove ourselves deserving of his miracles.
How about asking your Senator or Representative for an appointment for a group of 8-10 people to see him/her at his/her home office in his/her state? You can then express to him/her that you worry about the threat of Arab Terrorism, which you think is as dangerous for America as it is for the Holy Land. It does not matter whether the Representative you meet with is a Democrat or a Republican, they are all up for reelection sometime in the not too distant future.
Contact the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121. Give them your address, and they will give you the location and the phone number of the District Office of your Representative and Senator. You will be surprised how willing they are to meet with you. After all, you are an important voter in their next election campaign!
In this connection, we recommend that you obtain the powerful documentary, “IN THE FACE OF TERROR”. An important segment deals with the testimony of Walid Shoebat, a former Muslim terrorist, who now lives in the US and has converted to Christianity. He speaks about his personal knowledge of the dangers of Arab-Muslim Terror. Mr. Walid Shoebat’s testimony is so damaging to Arab terrorists, that when he speaks in public, he is surrounded by bodyguards. Muslim terrorists are intent on silencing him by any means possible. You may want to send a copy of this DVD to your Representative or Senator when you request a meeting.
To view the trailer of, “IN THE FACE OF TERROR” go to http://www.gwu.edu/~fidfc/index.htm.
The DVD is produced by Ilana Gabriel and costs $20 including shipping. To order the DVD, visit our website www.womeningreen.org.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
=============================================
Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
To make a contribution via our secure server or through Paypal, go to: https://host5.apollohosting.com/womeningreen/funds/donation/donation.html
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PROMISE THEM EVERYTHING BUT GIVE THEM NOTHING
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Dear Friends,
I received an email from a friend, Jennifer, dated October 14, 2005. I am reproducing her letter in its entirety. I believe that she expresses what many of us feel.
Ruth,
This is deplorable! All the media hype about the compensation that the Jews would get for making this concession. Where is the media now when the promises are empty? Where is the outcry from the Israelis? Where is Sharon? Where is the international community? If this had happened to the Palestinians the media would be all over it. Where is Pres. Bush and America? I think you need to post this in your weekly letters letting us all know what a farce this is. We need to put pressure on Sharon to follow up. If he doesn’t keep his word the world needs to know for the sake of the next group they want to evict.
Jennifer
On Sunday October 16, the JERUSALEM POST published a very timely article entitled,
“”Time Runs Out For Gaza Evacuees””. This article is a “”Must-Read””!
* * *
TIME RUNS OUT FOR GAZA EVACUEES
Tovah Lazaroff, THE JERUSALEM POST
October 16, 2005
The word “”fair”” made Gaza evacuee Jay Aizen jump out of his chair in anger and start shouting. His face was as red as the baseball cap he wore.
“”That’s bullshit,”” he yelled at the Disengagement Authority representative who told him that the government had acted fairly with regard to him and other evacuated settlers from Gaza. In his anger, the US immigrant slipped momentarily into his native English.
The two men were sitting in the lobby of the Shirat Hayam Hotel in Ashkelon this week assessing the possibilities available to the eight members of the Aizen family, who have been living in three hotel rooms for close to two months. They are no closer to finding a home now than they were when they arrived.
The hotel’s plans to, by Sunday, evict him and the 29 other families living there have added an extra element of pressure to the situation. The government will house the families in another hotel, but many do not want to endure a second move, to the extent that Aizen and a number of other families plan to refuse to leave.
Only after the hotel’s decision to close was made have the Aizens learned that they have been charged NIS 300 a night since October 6 because, having not yet settled on a temporary home, they were among the families whose hotel subsidies have been cut by the government.
What’s stumping Aizen at present is the question of where to live while he works out the details of his family’s future. In the long term, he expects to receive compensation funds from the government to build a new home, but there is no saying when these funds will arrive or how much the family will receive. He is already anticipating that he will have to sue the government for what he considers the full value of his loss.
In the meantime, while the government has budgeted a two-year span in which settlers can build permanent homes and receive a rental subsidy, Aizen feels stuck between what appears to him as two untenable options for that period after his government-sponsored hotel stay expires at the end of October. It’s a problem he has been kicking around since he returned from the US at the end of July, where he had been on a three-month assignment as a consultant.
He could sign a two-year contract for an 80-meter modular home provided by the government. With six children, however, it would be a drastic shift from life in the 350-meter home he built with a porch off every bedroom.
His other option is to spend $300 of his own money on top of the $550 rental subsidy to rent an apartment or a home large enough to fit his family more comfortably. In addition to the monetary cost, however, that move would also isolate him from friends and former neighbors who have chosen the modular home route.
“”It’s like asking me if I want to jump into the sea or a fire,”” Aizen said.
He believes the government is responsible for providing him with a home of equivalent value even during this two-year period, but at this point, he said, he would settle for something even one-third the size.
“”Be smart. Spend the money, rent the home,”” advised the representative, as he put his hand protectively on Aizen’s, now that the 61-year-old former Elei Sinai resident had calmed down from his outburst and was again sitting in his chair.
But Aizen was incredulous that the government wouldn’t simply provide him with a home big enough for his family.
“”Why should I have to pay money because the government kicked me out of my house?”” he asked.
Having already once in his life saved for and built his own home, he now fears that he will have to waste his money on rental costs and not have enough funds left to build another.
That fear is also present when he considers signing a two-year contract for a modular home. If the modular home doesn’t work for his family and they want to leave it, they stand to lose all rental subsidies, he said.
Hindsight would be helpful here, Aizen mused, looking at the pool and palm trees outside the hotel lobby.
“”All my options are fraught with big defects,”” he said.
Each day of waiting in the hotel is a financial loss for the Aizens. With their possessions in storage, they have found themselves spending money on both replacement items and the storage itself.
Even examining the possibilities is expensive. The Aizens are looking at a rental in Ashkelon, but the owner lives in Switzerland, and this means international calls and faxes.
What makes it hard, Aizen told The Jerusalem Post, is that it’s a risk either way. He knows of a Gaza family that, having initially rented a place, is now looking to join a modular community of settlers instead because their children feel isolated.
“”We are afraid of that, too,”” he said.
With his blue floral Hawaiian shirt, Aizen looks more like a tourist on vacation than a frustrated, cynical evacuee with no home.
“”This isn’t how I usually dress,”” Aizen later told the Post following the exchange with the Disengagement Authority representative.
The Hawaiian shirt was the only clean one he had left, he said. The red Phillies baseball cap hid his poor haircut from the day before.
“”Even in a crisis, you have to deal with bad hair days,”” he said.
The Zionist fervor Aizen felt when he came to Israel from Philadelphia in 1974 has soured. In different times, he said, he and his wife Pnina so admired Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the couple named their youngest son Arik after him. They even invited Sharon to the circumcision. Sharon declined, but when the prime minister visited Elei Sinai later that year he asked to see the baby and held him in his arms.
They have photos, but those are in storage along with the rest of their possessions.
Aizen recalled how he and his wife Pnina had slowly built their home on the sea’s edge in north Gaza. Thinking about how it had been reduced to a pile of rubble brought tears to his eyes.
“”It wasn’t just a house,”” Aisen said. “”It was something I spent years of my life developing and designing. I built it myself.””
He had wanted to take everything, including the tiles, but in the end he didn’t even manage to get out all of his possessions.
Only after the house had been torn down did he remember storing old record albums like Sylvester the Seal in the attic along with some sentimental letters and other mementos.
“”I look at the 15 years of my life in Elei Sinai as a waste of time,”” he said bitterly. “”I trust nothing about this country. I feel rejected and betrayed by everything I believed in.””
He has even considered the option of returning to the United States, but is hesitant to give up his 30-year investment in Israel. It’s more likely, he said, that he will move up north with a small number of Gaza families, but the plans have yet to be finalized.
Aizen said he feels like the character of Tevya from the Shalom Aleichem play Fiddler on the Roof, who was chased out of his village in Russia.
“”Except that I am living in Israel, for God’s sake,”” he said.
Copyright 1995-2005 The Jerusalem Post – http://www.jpost.com/
* * *
For the sake of the survival of the Jewish State we pray that we will soon be able to get rid of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister, so that he will not be able to evict the rest of us from our homes in our Promised Land.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
=============================================
Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org
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*******************
BUT WE NEVER GOT A WARNING!
LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN) JERUSALEM
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Dear Friends,
Recently there has been a marked increase in terror attacks against Israeli citizens.
The Sharon Government laments that “”we never got a warning””, as an excuse for the lack of response to the renewed Arab violence.
“”But we didn’t get a warning”” is what we were told, when just eleven days ago, three young people were gunned down by Arab terrorists at a bus stop in Gush Etzion in a drive by shooting. Two young women, Matat Rosenfeld-Adler, 21, a bride of only three months, and her cousin, Kineret Mander, 23, as well as Oz Ben-Meir, a 15 year-old boy, were murdered. Simultaneously Arab terrorists opened fire at teenagers walking on a road near the Eli Junction in Samaria, causing serious injuries.
What caused, or at least contributed to this tragedy? Highway 60, the tunnel road, which is the main north-south traffic artery in Israel, had until recently been closed to private Arab cars. Sharon had removed the checkpoints on this road, as a ‘confidence building’ measure to the Arabs, thereby giving the terrorists the opportunity to murder Jewish civilians. After the attack, the terrorists sped away in their private car and escaped to Hebron. To date they have not been apprehended. The checkpoints have been temporarily reinstated, but there is already talk by the Sharon government of eliminating them again.
Last Monday, numerous Kassam rockets were launched into Israel from Gaza, some landing in Sderot. Of course, The Arabs did not bother to warn us before they carried out this attack. Miraculously nobody was hurt. Such attacks have become more numerous since we left Gaza.
“”But we never had a warning!”” is what we were again told by the Sharon Government when an Arab terrorist blew himself up yesterday at the Hadera market, killing at least five innocent shoppers and wounding more than thirty, seven of them seriously.
What caused, or at least contributed to this particular tragedy? The terrorist who detonated himself in the Hadera market had recently been released by the Sharon Government from an Israeli prison, this in a gesture of support for Palestinian Authority Chief, Mahmoud Abbas!
Of course, the Sharon government is not truthful when they say that Israel has not received warnings. Honestly now, does Sharon expect a telephone call from the terrorists announcing the time and place of their next attack?
Indeed, the Sharon Government has had plenty of warnings.
The Arab celebrations over Ariel Sharon’s shameful surrender of Biblical Gaza and Northern Samaria stressed that this victory was made possible by the terror war against the Jews and the rest of the Infidels. Mahmoud Abbas jubilantly stated, “”Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and the northern West Bank (Samaria)”” he said. “”Tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem.””
At the groundbreaking ceremony of Sheikh Khalifa City on October 8, built on the ruins of the Jewish Gaza community of Morag, Mahmoud Abbas said: “”The Palestinian Nation will continue its campaign towards the liberation of the West Bank and Jerusalem and towards the construction of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.””
Those remarks were not enough of a warning?
The Sharon Government was further warned when Abbas stated that he had no intention of disarming terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. (This is his own group of terrorists.) Any such action on his part, he said, “”would lead to civil war””.
These remarks by Mahmoud Abbas certainly were a clear warning of Arab intentions to continue their terror war.
Warnings came as well from the Israeli Defense Establishment.
One such warning came from Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who had originally, before the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif, expressed his view that terror would decrease after the disengagement. After the expulsion, however, he changed his view completely and stated, “”Judea and Samaria will become the main theater in the struggle against terrorism.””
Former Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon, was one of the first to warn of the dangers of Sharon’s disengagement plan. He said, more than a year ago, that disengagement would provide a “”tail wind”” for terrorism. In a speech in Herzliya on April 19, 2005, he said: “”The Israeli public must not think that the Mashiach (Messiah) is arriving with the withdrawal. Immediately after the disengagement we can expect a burst of terrorism- especially in Judea and Samaria.”” Yaalon was subsequently removed from his job for daring to publicly disagree with Ariel Sharon.
Army Intelligence Chief, Aharon Ze’evi Farkash warned of Al-Qaeda’s intentions toward Israel. He has stated that this global terror group has exploited holes in the Egypt-Gaza border to infiltrate Gaza. Al-Qaeda’s presence in Gaza, in the name of “”The Jihad Brigades in the Promised Land””, has also been announced on Islamic websites known to be friendly to Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist network. Al Qaeda is known to have a working relationship with Hamas.
Credit us with some intelligence, Ariel Sharon! Jews are being killed, not because they do not have advance warning of Arab attacks, but rather because your suicidal surrender policies of Jewish land have encouraged a renewed onslaught of terror.
There you have it, dear friends. Because Sharon gave parts of G-d’s Promised Land to Israel’s enemies, Gaza is quickly becoming the capital of international terrorism.
Are Sharon’s policies dangerous only for Israel? Yesterday, Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly called for Israel to be “”wiped off the map””, and lashed out at Muslim nations which recognize the Jewish state.
“”We should not settle for a piece of land,”” he said of Israel’s pullout from the Gaza strip. “”Anyone who signs a treaty which recognizes the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world,”” Ahmadinejad said, warning Muslim leaders who recognize Israel they “”face the wrath of their own people.””
“”The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land,”” he thundered in a fiery speech on what he called an “”historic war between the oppressor and the world of Islam””.
“”The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world,”” the Iranian President told a conference in Tehran entitled “”The World without Zionism””.
Who then is the “”Oppressor”” the Muslim leaders keep talking about? This is the term used by the Muslim World to refer to the “”Great Satan””, the United States. Israel, in Muslim eyes, is just the “”Little Satan””, the creation of the “”Great Satan””.
Get real, America!
It is important that President George W. Bush, the US State Department, and Condoleezza Rice finally realize that Israel must be allowed to defend itself and that it is counterproductive to pressure Israel to give up land to the Arab enemy. It is harmful to American interests if Israel is pressured to indiscriminately open up Gaza border crossings, which may be used by potential Arab terrorists. Pressure, as well, to provide a road from Gaza to the West Bank, thereby cutting Israel in half, would be sheer folly. In the wake of 9-11, would America allow a road from Mexico to Canada to bisect the United States, even though both of these nations are friendly to the US?
It is erroneous to say that the Muslims have never given us warning. On the contrary, America experienced Islamic terror on 9-11. Israel experiences Islamic terror virtually every day. We do not need any warnings. We need to recognize the destructive goal of Islamic terror.
We will be able to defeat Muslim worldwide terror, only when we realize that both Israel and America are considered the common enemy.
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
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P.S. To better understand what worldwide Muslim terror is about, we recommend that you obtain the documentary DVD, “”IN THE FACE OF TERROR””. An email correspondent wrote me that he had seen the DVD at a friend’s house and had found it very interesting. He asked me to send him a few copies of the DVD, and requested that same arrive by a certain date, as he planned to show the video at his home to a group of friends.
To view the trailer of “”IN THE FACE OF TERROR”” go to http://www.gwu.edu/~fidfc/index.htm.
The DVD is produced by Ilana Gabriel and costs $20, including shipping. To order the DVD, visit our website www.womeningreen.org.
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Women For Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green)
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