The Law of the Land
An argument we have been repeatedly is that a civilized society must obey the laws of the land. They tell us that since the Knesset has legislated the expulsion of Jews from the Gaza Strip, these laws had to be obeyed by both the Jewish villagers in Gaza and by the Israeli police and military sent to evict them. Consequently, Jews who protested their eviction were considered violators of state law and were punished by reducing their meager promised compensation. Furthermore, Jews who came to show solidarity with the victims were considered criminals according to Sharon’s laws, and many of them are in jail up to date. It has been heart wrenching to watch on TV the forceful expulsion of Jews and the relentless squelching of political anti-“disengagement” demonstrations (on site demonstrations were forbidden by those Israeli laws and/or by military regulations).
The argument, reemphasized by Israeli official spokesmen, that laws of the land must be obeyed, has limited validity because certain laws can be unjust or immoral. Let us remember that expulsion or persecution of Jews throughout history were always preceded by appropriate laws. Those atrocities were all legal. The Nuremberg laws, which legalized discrimination against Jews, were passed by the democratically elected Nazi regime. The expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492 followed a royal decree, which made it the law of the land – and it then became illegal for Jews to live in Spain, not unlike the current law in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Thus if Sharon and his hand-picked Attorney General proposed laws to be passed by the Knesset under Sharon’s heavy-handed clout, this does not make such laws ethical or moral, not to say advisable from the standpoint of national survival. Sharon’s laws of expulsion have been passed as the result of a political rather than a judicial process; since this political process has been faulty so are those laws. Notwithstanding the official line of the current Israeli government, a democracy must allow every citizen the option of disobeying a law deemed immoral or unreasonable, and be ready to defend such defiance in an impartial court of law
Unfortunately, even unjust, unethical, ill-advised laws, passed by a biased, self-serving legislature, remain valid until legally revoked. Under the current Israeli political system, laws can be revoked, or significantly changed, only by a new, politically independent, legislature following national elections. Unless Sharon’s laws of “disengagement” were abolished, these draconian laws, which legitimize arbitrary expulsion of Jews from their homes with no valid reason and without indisputably fair compensation for loss of property and income, might be soon applied again and again in other areas on both sides of the “green line,” following persistent threat of Islamic terrorism. This is why early elections and reversal of policy are so critical for the survival of the State of Israel.
Sharon could not have executed his plan of unconditional retreat without virtually dismantling and effectively abolishing Israeli democracy. Regretfully, Israel has lost its virtue of being “the only true democracy in the Middle East”. It is not a genuine democracy any more. Actually, it had hardly been a representative democracy in the first place. Members of the Knesset are not accountable to individual voters like in the US or GB, but are appointed by the bosses of the respective political parties. Therefore, the party boss, be it Arik Sharon or Shimon Peres, can reward or punish any Knesset representative of his party. It takes, therefore, special courage to challenge the Boss’s decisions, and it takes true personal integrity not to be bribed by lucrative ministerial positions in return for voting for the Boss’s proposals. Sharon fired three cabinet ministers whom he expected to vote against his disengagement plan, three additional ministers, including Nathan Sharanski and Bibi Netaniahu, resigned because of the same issue. Sharon appointed a new Attorney General, replacing one who was going to indict him for corruption. This new appointee has “fallen in line” on all issues concerning the “disengagement,” endorsing the arrest and detention for months of 14 year-old girls who demonstrated against the expulsion, so as to intimidate the community that might oppose the PM’s plan. Sharon even ignored a vote against the plan within his own party.
Intimidation of the populace is a daily occurrence in today’s Israel. For instance, the police confiscated the driver’s licenses of chartered buss drivers who were hired to ferry people from remote towns to anti-disengagement political rallies, not to speak of Sharon’s absolute refusal to hold a national referendum on the issue. Prof. Ron Breiman, Chairman of the Professors for a Safe Israel (PSI), a miniscule organization of academicians, was arrested, hand-cuffed and finger printed as a criminal, allegedly for showing solidarity with Jewish residents in the Northern Gaza Territory , distributing bumper stickers against the “disengagement.” Sharon’s autocratic regime seems to have little tolerance for dissidents, not unlike that of the now defunct USSR.
What could explain Sharon’s brute force-policy? To the best of our knowledge, Sharon never articulated his rationale for the unconditional retreat from Gaza. His claim that he does this because there is no partner to negotiate with, is pathetic. If there was no partner there is no deal. In such a case Israel should have helped to remove the present intransient Palestinian leadership, encouraging the establishment of an uncorrupt leadership, which truly cares for the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs rather then pursuing grandiose pan-Islamic militancy. Sharon refused to debate it in the Knesset and has been vehemently opposed a national debate on the issue, preceding a national referendum. In brief, the “lack of a partner” which has certainly changed with the demise of Arafat, was an excuse rather than an explanation. In fact, Sharon met and held discussions with Abu Mazen, Arafat’s successor, on several occasions before the expulsion.
This leaves us with just wild speculations about Sharon’s motivation. These include personal corruption, capricious egocentrism, despotic non-conformism, sociopathy or another mental illness, and US political pressure, among others. The latter explanation is tenuous at best, since Sharon was the one who proposed that unilateral retreat in the first place and President Bush was reluctant to accept it for quite a while; moreover, in his last visit to Crawford, just before the expulsion, Sharon was not treated by President Bush as a personal friend, which he was before he proposed his “disengagement” plan. Was Bush enthused by this plan, which succumbs to Arab terrorism and rewards it, he would have offered Sharon much more assistance than an ambiguous letter.
This plan might have been precipitated by Sharon’s strong anti-religious convictions, as most of the “settlers,” who were demonized for years by Israeli “liberals,” have been religious Zionists. The latest “explanation” I heard was that Sharon did all this to receive accolades from Kofi Anan at the UN, because both Arik and Kofi have something personal in common – both have sons accused of corruption.
The notion that anti-Israeli Arab terrorism cannot be stopped and the continuation of this threat has become unbearable as an explanation of Sharon’s motivation, is hard to accept, although this is who the Islamic terrorists interpret Sharon’s actions. If this was true, Sharon should have asked President Bush for a large territory in Nevada to resettle all the Israelis there (the Israelis has been proven to manage non-cultivatable deserts). This would have pleased the Saudis and Tony Blair and saved the US tax payers $5 billion annually. Then Sharon may have used the eviction of Jewish communities from the Gaza Strip as a feasibility pilot study for an ingenious solution of the “Jewish problem.”
Sarcasm aside, hedonism or cowardice of the mainstream Israelis could hardly explain Sharon’s policy. Actually, the expelled people were those who showed that Jews are ready to make great sacrifices withstanding terror and maintaining productive lives. This is how Jews lived in the Land of Israel since the first Aliah in the 19th Century. The new Jewish refugees lived in the “disputed territories” out of their free will. If economic incentives kept them in those territories and not a religion-driven ideology, as the Israeli leftist media presented them in a concerted demonization campaign, why did they fight so hard to remain in their communities against all odds. If these Jewish families were money motivated, why did their sons and daughters volunteer for the most risky missions in the IDF, rather than go into business like their cousins in Tel Aviv? There are too many paradoxes in this equation to make it plausible.
Another explanation advanced has been that Sharon just fulfilled the will of the people, because the polls said the majority of the Israelis favor the expulsions. This is a strange argument as Sharon was terrified by the idea of a national referendum. He simply knew that such a referendum would blow his pet project out of the water, very much like the referendum held among members of his own Likud party. So what about the polls? Anyone versed in the art of composing questionnaires know that one can obtain any result desired. I am not speaking just of the classic faulty poll “Have you stopped stealing from your boss? Yes/No,” which comes up with the finding that 100% of employee are thieves. A poll may ask “Would you evacuate Gush Katif to achieve peace in Gaza? Yes/No ;“ or “Would you evacuate Gush Katif to avoid IDF casualties? Yes/No” or “Would you allow 8000 Jew continue living among 1.4 million blood thirsty Arabs? Yes/No.” Reported polls will show in such a case that an overwhelming majority of respondents favor the “disengagement.” In brief, polls often reflect the choice of the pollster rather than that of the public polled. The fact remains that Sharon refused a national referendum that would have reflected the true sentiment of the electorate.
Coming back to the “classical” claim “How could we permit 8000 Jews continue to live among 1.4 Million Muslims? Consider the demographics!”, which has been used to justify the eviction of Jews from the Gaza Strip. Following this rationale Jews should not continue to live in Paris, Berlin, London, Warsaw, Moscow or Buffalo, New York. The only places for Jews not being a minute minority, outside of pre-1967 Israel, would be New-York City or perhaps Los Angeles. This argument only legitimizes Islamic religious intolerance, just as the unconditional withdrawal is delegitimizing Israel’s claim to the rest of the ancient Jewish homeland, a claim that had been reaffirmed by the League of Nations. Alternatively, it puts up with Arab aggression against Jews as acceptable behavior.
In brief, whatever was his motivation, Sharon took advantage of imperfections in Israeli political structure to establish a virtual autocracy that was followed by passage of immoral draconian laws in order to facilitate an ill-advised unconditional surrender of Jewish land to the blood thirsty Arabs. The expulsions did not take place because this was the law of the land but the law of the land was manipulated by Sharon to facilitate the expulsions. And the expulsions took place to facilitate that humiliating surrender.
One also hears the notion that “there was no alternative.” Tearing up the nation and demoralizing its army had to be done because of “ein brera” (there was no other choice).
But there were plenty of alternatives:
First, Israel could have eradicated the PLO by force instead of appeasing it.
Second, Sharon could stand up to the pressure of the US Department of State just as PM Shamir did (to the chagrin of James Baker).
Third, Israel could have made any Israeli territorial concession conditional on abolition of all Palestinian terror organizations (as specified in the Road Map) (Sharon seems now to change course and to choose this alternative. However, like in a tragic opera, this has come too late for the unfortunate evicted former residents of Gush Katif).
Fourth, Israel could put heavy economic pressure on the Arabs until Islamic terrorism is utterly abolished (unlike the United States’ economic dependence on Arab oil supplies, Israeli economy is independent of the PA economy, but not vice versa!).
Fifth, Israel could stand up to international political and/or economic pressure by mobilizing the Jewry in the Diaspora and the Christian Zionists to help maintaining Israel’s independent posture.
Regrettably, the American Jewish community that should have protested against such heavy-handed, blatant anti-democratic abuses by Israel’s PM, has remained quiet. It has supported the expulsion of unfortunate, law-abiding, highly productive Israeli citizens from their homes, presumably because the territory they lived on was claimed by the Arabs as “occupied Arab land.” However, American Jews fail to realize that the majority of Muslims consider also Rehovot or Tel Aviv as “occupied Arab land” that must be “liberated.”
Now Sharon has just announced that he will not transfer any more territory to the Arabs unconditionally. Where does this leave his staunch supporters in the US and in Israel? If they justified or even applauded his unconditional surrender, how can they agree with the idea that territorial concessions must have now strings attached. Will they now demonstrate against any conditional territorial concessions? On the other hand, if they agree with Sharon now, how can they justify the unilateral destruction of the Jewish communities in Gush Katif? If they believe Sharon’s latest statement, how can they forget that Sharon declared just three years ago that evacuation of the Jewish villages in Gush Katif is like the evacuation of Tel Aviv. By now Ariel Sharon must have left everyone baffled.
Why should secular Jews respect an Islamic religious doctrine that claims perpetual ownership of any territory ever conquered by Muslims, and ignore, or even denounce, fundamental Jewish religious premises that mandate Jews to regain sovereignty over their ancient homeland? Are these Jews, including many Israelis, trying to affirm the Islamic supremacist notion that Islam supercedes all other religions? Do these Jews, including Ariel Sharon, realize that by endorsing Arab territorial claims they recognize Islamic religious law as the “law of the land.”
Michael Anbar
August 29, 2005