WINSTON MID EAST ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY April 22, 2007
It has been said, no doubt, by you Binyamin Netanyahu, that you have learned from your past mistakes and, therefor, would be a qualified leader of the nation of Israel. So, let us ask pertinent questions now, before all the electioneering hype and promises.
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1. Ariel Sharon reversed himself on every commitment he made to Israel and her citizens to NOT surrender Jewish Land – by actually following his opponents’ platform to give away Gaza, Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Are you, Bibi, prepared to state categorically you will NOT abandon the above named territories?
2. Are you now or have you ever been on a leash to the U.S. State Department, CIA, or any other policy making U.S. institution with respect to Israeli doctrines?
3. You have given away 80% of Hebron to gain the approval of the U.S., the U.N., the E.U. Do you accept this now as a misjudgment? Would you do it again if ordered to by U.S. and/or Arab interests?
4. The Saudis have returned to a ‘plan’ supposedly inspired by the State Department to return Israel to the 1949-67 Armistice Lines, which Abba Eban called the “Auschwitz borders”. Would you ever accept this dictum IF pressed by the U.S. State Department?
5. When the P.M. Ehud Olmert is defeated, will you pursue Tzippi Livni as a partner in Likud – despite the fact that she agrees to the Olmert/Saudi return to Israel’s 1967 Armistice Lines. Moreover, it is no secret that Livni is a former (so-to-speak) member of Shabak (Israel’s Secret Service) and, no doubt, continues to report to her ‘home’ organization and take directions. Here again, even under pressure from the U.S. State Department (now under the management of Condoleezza Rice), would you take Livni into Likud as Sharon did?
6. Would you sign a contract with the Israeli people, stating that you will keep all of your commitments or, if broken, submit your resignation as Prime Minister?
7. Will you release more convicted and jailed terrorists so they can kill more Israelis while knowing that 50% of the jailed terrorists previously released by Prime Ministers from Yitzhak Rabin through to Arik Sharon have returned to kill hundreds of Israelis? Will you as PM release more terrorists as Ehud Olmert is now about to release 1,400 Arab security prisoners?
8. Will you accept State Department pressure to release Marwan Bargouti who is now serving 5 life sentences for murder?
9. Will you support Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) with more funds and weapons?
10. Will you close the Rafah entry into Gaza from Egypt so weapons, explosives and terrorists will cease flooding into Gaza?
11. Will you break the Olmert Doctrine of holding back the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) from sweeping through Gaza to remove the stored weapons and then destroy the Terrorists’ underground bunkers?
12. Can you bring back some semblance of ethics, belief in the G-d-given Land and the Jewish people?
13. Can you be the role model as was President Kennedy when he brought a sense of pride to his nation?
14. Many of the former and present Prime Ministers politicized the army’s officers corps to serve their political parties. They corrupted the Mossad and Shin Bet by appointing political hacks to run these once admired organizations. Will you clean house and allow these organizations to return to their prime, vital purposes?
15. Will you cease the practice of using police, soldiers and Shabak to attack the pioneering settlers as if they were the peoples’ enemies instead of the best of our people?
16. What will you do about a Supreme Court who has run amok and adopted the role of a Leftist Political Party?
17. What will you do to promote a law for Honest Reporting, given that the leading newspapers have adopted the role of a secondary Leftist Political Party, wedded to the Olso state suicide plan of abandoning vital territory and defense lines?
18. Will you make up for your political avoidance at the Wye fiasco by NOT demanding the release from prison of Jonathan Pollard (now approaching 23 years)? This error will, no doubt, float over your election campaign like the sword of Damocles.
19. Will you, in any way, shape or form, accept the immigration into Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem of several million so-called Arab Muslim refugees into the towns given over to Yassir Arafat by the Rabin-Peres Oslo Accords?
COMMENTARY
You have made an indelible reputation by NOT keeping your prior commitments but, now you say that you have matured and learned from your prior mistakes. That now you can lead with ethical backbone and not compromise where the good of the nation is at stake.
Granted that, like Arik Sharon, you would/might go back on your word – expecting the average Israeli NOT to make much of a fuss. Perhaps that too is coming toward an end as we see the incompetence of Sharon – followed by the incompetence of Olmert, Peretz, Livni, Peres whose actions set in motion Kassam Rockets and Katyusha Missiles blasting into Israeli cities.
Now, we hear that members of the Al Qaeda terror organization have entered into Gaza to join Hamas.
Would Olmert’s planned actions called “Convergence” to make Judea and Samaria “Judenrein” allow Judea and Samaria to become war zones like Lebanon and Gaza – only this time with Katyushas lined up to reach all of Israel’s major cities and Ben Gurion Airport? Perhaps the Israeli people will not be so passive as they have been for so long.
In your earlier days as Prime Minister, you left a bad image, e.g., that of a pompous king, full of himself, waving a large cigar as if it were a scepter of royalty. Hopefully, your arrogance has left you and the family bloodlines of your father, Ben Zion and your brother, Yoni, have emerged within you to make you stronger.
You are now old enough to see the contamination of Israel’s government where arrogant leaders made bad, self-serving decisions, stolen from the Treasury using the power of office.
Three more Big Questions to be answered by you are:
Can you, Bibi Netanyahu, rise above your past and be equal to your abilities to make a artful speeches?
Is this a new Bibi or the old Bibi merely re-packaged?
Are you going to morph into a butterfly or remain a caterpillar?
Please tell us, Bibi, because most assuredly, Israel needs a wise, honest, courageous leader at this time and NOT one on short leash to world powers who are desperate to please Arab oil sheiks and State Department spokespeople.
