1. BobW said:

Here in the diaspora, I am supersaturated with material on the pro and con positions re the Edict of Expulsion. PM Sharon's GOI has given many reasons in support of the edict. I am loaded with material from the "Israeli Right" with reasons contrary to GOI positions.

Yehuda Poch makes a major error when he writes that the PA (the well-dressed PLO) is an undemocratic regime. It's obviously true but out of context. The entire area is undemocratic. The net effect if accepting the Poch statement is to wait for Sheul to freeze over to obtain political stability.

It is not correct that Natan Sharansky is the only voice against disengagement. There are many others. The new pending Jewish Israel can form their national security leadership from those fired with prejudice by PM Sharon. They were fired because they spoke out.

It's interesting that Yehuda Poch frames his theme as democracy versus tyranny. It is not. The actual theme is Judaism versus the world.

Prior to Natan Sharansky making Alyia, many prominent Israelis discussed the "tyrannical society" of the PLO. The PLO was once expelled from Israeland Jordan to Lebanon. The US then exiled the PLO to Tunisia. Somehow, the PLO meandered back to within Israel.

Peace is not the most valuable state of being. Don't count on "freedom" emerging during the next 10-20 Ramadans.

Even with his international popularity, Natan Sharansky is wrong.

Kol tuv,
BobW

2. felix quigley said:

Sharansky starts from the position that it is possible to reform the PLO, that it is possible for the PLO to set up a democratic state, and therefore for there to be a democratic Arab state which will be called Palestine. His difference with Sharon and his friends (who are now the total enemies of Israel) is on tactics, not on strategy, since they both hold that strategy as sacred. The article above by Poch is full of exactly the same wrong illusions.

I think that if people investigate the very name 'Palestinians' they will find it came in along with Arafat and the Fatah Charter. From the Fatah principles I take this:

Article (7) The Zionist Movement is racial, colonial and aggressive in ideology, goals, organisation and method.

Article (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.

Article (9) Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation.

Article (10) Palestinian National Liberation Movement, "FATEH", is an independent national revolutionary movement representing the revolutionary vanguard of the Palestinian people.'

(To trace this development of 'Palestinian' see the article Arafats Jesus by Gerald B. Honigman.)

It is as fundamental as that. The whole movement of Palestinianism is directed to eliminating the Zionist entity. In essence those who promote the PLO, Fatah or Hamas state are really cutting their own throats. Sharansky does when it comes right down to it fall into that category. He resigns (and it is a welcome resignation) because of Sharon's weakness and the pressure on Sharon, and on Sharansky. I would place no faith in Sharansky. I urge readers to treat with particular distain the reference which Poch makes to Sharansky having influence on Bush.

When will people wise up? See an article in Emperors New Clothes (www.tenc.net) which shows that Cheney and the CIA were pushing for a Palestinian state in the 1980s! Yes, I did say the 1980s!

3. Joseph Alexander Norland said:

Though we don't know what's in Sharansky's mind, if we judge by what Sharansky said, then Felix is quite right: in principle, Sharansky does accept an Arab state in the Land of Israel.

But in the land of the blind, the one-eyed is king, and in the land that accepts Sharon's Deportation Plot, Sharansky is likewise king. At least he rejects dividing Jerusalem (which Barak accepted at Camp David), he demands "something" in return for ceding territory (while Sharon is ceding with no reciprocity), and seems to suggest "democracy first" (while Sharon is appeasing with no demand to democratize or clamp down on the terrorist infrastructure).

It is a mark of haw far the situation has deteriorated if we have to laud Sharansky, notwithstanding his acceptance in principle of an Arab state in the former Palestine.