Likud MK Uzi Landau, one of the most outspoken opponents of the disengagement plan, answered readers' questions on April 18. Many thanks to the thousands of people who participated in this live event.
Landau believes the pullout plan poses a danger to the State of Israel and is a reward for Palestinian terrorism. "Our opposition to disengagement," Landau said last year, "is because when you're in a war you want to win the war and dismantle the terrorist organizations."
Landau has spearheaded the opposition inside the Likud against Sharon's plan. Thirteen anti-pullout Likud lawmakers, led by Landau, have been dubbed the Likud "rebels."
Haifa-born Landau has been an MK since 1984, and has held several ministerial posts. He also holds a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sir, your approach is totally wrong. We are building communities in Judea and Samaria, that you refer to as the West Bank, because we are building them in our homeland, no different than in other parts of the country. King David, as we know in the scriptures, was born in Bethlehem of Judah, not in Bethlehem of the West Bank, and Jerusalem has never been but the capital of the Jews regardless of the many occupiers that conquered it over the past 2,000 years.
The most holy place in Jerusalem is called the Temple Mount not because of its mosques but because of the Jewish temple there. Begin refered to Jerusalem as Jerusalem D.C., that is David's Capital. How do civilized people settle their differences? In our democratic world, this is done through negotiation. In the Oslo agreement 12 years ago, which effected huge and far-reaching concessions for Israel, the Palestinians committed themselves to settling all differences through negotiations. But like many things which the Palestinians believe they can get through force rather than negotiation, they have been using blatant terrorism on the issue of settlements too. But the real problem the Palestinians have is not the existence of a settlement in Judea and Samaria but the existence of big settlements in our cities Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva and Haifa, our very existence in those cities is seen as a provocation in their eyes.
Sir, your approach is totally wrong. We are building communities in Judea and Samaria, that you refer to as the West Bank, because we are building them in our homeland, no different than in other parts of the country. King David, as we know in the scriptures, was born in Bethlehem of Judah, not in Bethlehem of the West Bank, and Jerusalem has never been but the capital of the Jews regardless of the many occupiers that conquered it over the past 2,000 years.
The most holy place in Jerusalem is called the Temple Mount not because of its mosques but because of the Jewish temple there. Begin refered to Jerusalem as Jerusalem D.C., that is David's Capital. How do civilized people settle their differences? In our democratic world, this is done through negotiation. In the Oslo agreement 12 years ago, which effected huge and far-reaching concessions for Israel, the Palestinians committed themselves to settling all differences through negotiations. But like many things which the Palestinians believe they can get through force rather than negotiation, they have been using blatant terrorism on the issue of settlements too. But the real problem the Palestinians have is not the existence of a settlement in Judea and Samaria but the existence of big settlements in our cities Tel Aviv and Be'er Sheva and Haifa, our very existence in those cities is seen as a provocation in their eyes.
I think that the Revisionist movement, while secular, always had a tremendous respect for all segments of Israel's society - including, of course, the religious parts. And in itself it also had tremendous respect for Israel's tradition. Truly, Israeli politics changed much and definitely, the present norms of Israeli politics unfortunately led by Likud figures are far from reflecting the classical liberalism of Jabotinsky. But we all hope that putting the Likud back on track will revive that too.
All the concerns you raise are in place. I hope this government will eventually find the mechanism to fully understand the huge risks in this process and replace it with a different process that will really bring us to peace while reducing terror. But I don?t have an idea at the moment for doing that.
First Sir, this is truly a war which the Arabs have launched against Israel for almost 100 years with the clear purpose of totally destroying the chance for the Jews to have a state of their own, like any other nation. The Palestinians could have had the dignity of a state in 1948 when they were offered a Palestinian state by the UN resolution. They rejected it and went and attacked Israel because in that very resolution, the Jews too had earned a state. Between 1948 and 1967, no one heard about a Palestinian people, and the "territories" of Judea and Samaria and Gaza did not have any Jewish settlement or community. They were inhabited by the Palestinian people and only used as a a stone to launch terror attacks against Israeli people. Please note that during these years there was no claim for a Palestinian state nor that there is a Palestinian people because the Arab countries controlled Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Only after the attack on Israel in 1967 again in order to destroy the state which ended in Israel's conquering Judea and Samaria and Gaza did the Palestinians for the first time demand a state. They had the chance in the Oslo agreement again to have a state of their own and Israel went to far-reaching concessions to come to peace terms with the Palestinians, and yet again the problem then too was that when they had to recognize Israel as a free and Jewish state in return, they resorted once more to terror. And this so even with the present Palestinian leadership - they are unprepared to fully accept the existence of the Jewish state.
That the Palestinians have no regular army, thank God this terror entity doesn't have an army, but it has an abundance of different terrorist organizations which are deliberately targeting women, children innocent passers-by, bomb kids in discos and students in universities in order to promote their political objectives, and they are popularly supported by the Palestinian population. In all of our history with the Palestinians, whenever they had a chance to have a state of their own in which they had also to agree to the existence of a Jewish state, they always turned it down. Please note the dangers to countries and people today do not come only from entities that have regular armies, but rather from terrorist organizations that with mega-terror activity are targeting hundreds of thousands of innocent people in order to promote their evil political objectives. Please see the examples of the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York, the bombing in Bali, Indonesia, the hundreds of schoolchildren in Beslan, the hundreds in Madrid and this is only part of the list. The Palestinians are no different. The Palestinian terror organizations are part of this worldwide concert of terror and their terror should be treated no different than Al-Qaida terrorists.
Iran would undoubtedly launch a nuclear attack on Israel if it knew that it could get away with it unharmed. But if it knew that on the one hand, the chances to really penetrate our air defense systems with a missile are very small, while on the other hand the price it would pay for it would be disproportional, turning them back to the Stone Age, I guess they would be much more hesitant.
Your reasoning is quite interesting, implicitly you assume that much thought has gone into the disengagement plan. Let me say that I have no clue as to the logic of this plan. People on the right and left alike should ask serious questions regarding its logic. I question if the prime minister has any grand plan in which the disengagement plan is just one step or one link. In fact, what is going to be the day afte disengagement is completed? To whom are we going to turn over the keys, to the Hamas extremists? Are we going to let the influence of Hezbollah dominate the area? Can we really trust the Egyptians to stop the smuggling of advanced weapons from Sinai to Gaza after having 10 years experience with them of totally failing to stop the free flow of weapons from Egypt to the Palestinians. What is Israel going to do if katyusha rockets hit the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod, which will come in their range, but also the shelling of the northern towns of Afula and Beit She'an, Hadera and Pardes Hannah that will be in the range of Qassam rockets once Israel withdraws its forces from northern Samaria? What will Israel do if a ground-to-air personal missile, even the primitive Strela-7, will hit a plane coming to land in Ben-Gurion International airport? Who will pay the six billion Israeli shekels needed to compensate the people for their relocation, the addiional three billion for the redeployment of the IDF plus the additional billions of shekels needed to compensate for the serious damage to the Israeli water resources company up north? Has the prime minister really fully considered, analyzed the consequences of tearing apart our society? What are we getting for it? And you sir, are trying to see the underlying deep thinking behind it. I see none, with all due respect, I see none.
In Israel, the right-wing national camp is usually stronger than the extreme left wing camp. In the last Knesset, the right wing had around 68 votes versus 52 on the left altogether. If Sharon has managed to persuade using various methods 13 Likud members to switch their positions, which tilts the balance altogether and makes it possible to promote a clear left-wing extreme policy, which is of course done in a non-democratic or in a democratically-illegitimate manner. Why does Mr. Sharon change his mind? I have no clue. I have known Mr. Sharon for decades. I was a firm supporter of his policies. I understood his reasoning. I don't understand anything now. He is a different man and there is neither ideological nor pragmatic logic in this disengagement plan.
Perhaps we don't mean the same thing when we speak about the new Palestinian Authority. From every crack of their structure you see that they are not working well, in fact at this particular time as Israel has stopped its campaign against the different terror organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad extremists, they are using this time in order to re-arm, smuggle more weapons and train themselves, to prepare for a new round of terror attacks. Abu Mazen, the new Palestinian leader, is simply ignoring all of that on purpose, he isn't dismantling the terrorism infrastructure in contrast to the road map agreement that was signed a year and a half ago. He hasn't cracked down on terrorists, he hasn't collected illegal arms. In the Palestinian schooling system they continue to use those textbooks that describe the Jews as the enemy of mankind, the plague of the third millennium, as Satan on earth, that they should be prepared to carry out suicide bombings in order to obliterate us. All this continues under Abu Mazen, so when you say that the PA is now keeping the siuation under control, I don't know what the heck you are talking about. Perhaps in the USA you are failing to read the proper information that is available to every person who wants to read it. That Israel didn't relase more prisoners? The hundreds that we have already released without a reciprocal plan, isn't that a sufficient number? Are you expecting Israel to release terrorists with blood on their hands in the hope that this will encourage future peace rather than promote terrorism? And therefore we have responsibility to the safety of our citizens and after the loss of one thousand of our citizens just over the past four years, after following such suggestions as releasing many prisoners, evacuating Palestinian cities and the like, that we have done in the hope that this will bring peace, of course we are much more careful, as you would be if you were in our situation.
Because you need two to tango. And the Palestinians have never ever handled a real dialogue with us. The Egyptians did and we have peace, the Jordanians did and we have peace. The Palestinians use negotiations only to get on the table concessions that they coubdnlt have gotten otherwise and this process of unilateral stopped, they turned immediately to use terroism.
First of all, it's not Likud political ideology that disintegrated. Weak Likud political leaders changed their policy but the majority of Likud's membership still hold strong to the very basic principles. I think that it would be a grave mistake to break away from Likud and form a new party. We have enough parties in Israel. The proper way is to debate these issues within the Likud and changing Likud's leadership and Knesset reps will put Likud back on track in two major points. First on reviving its defense and for political principles. Secondly, putting much more emphasis on cleaning Israeli politics of corruption. My anti-withdrawal arguments were also focused much on security reasons but not only. Two major non-security problems do develop.
First, under the important principle of reducing friction between us and the Arabs, Arik Sharon has decided to transfer people from their communities. The major problem there is he has decided to transfer 24 communities which are Jewish only. Why on earth doesn't it make sense based on the same important principle of reducing friction to move even one Arab community in the name of political wisdom. The Sharon government has simply laid down the precedent in the principle of reducing friction that the only people to be transferred are Jews. And this doesn't make any sense whatsoever and its unjust. The second problem has to do with the moral justice of our war with the Arabs on this land. There is only one Palestinian state - which is Jordan. Seventy percent of the population there is Palestinian. The queen was born in Tul Karm. The crown prince is Palestinian. So Jordan is Palestinians. There is another Palestinian state which Israel has agreed in the roadmap after certain conditions have been fulfilled. This does not satisfy the Palestinians.
There is no chance for any peace with the Palestinians unless terrorism is toally dismantled as a precondition. And once this is done and there is a chance for a new and different Palestinian leadership after an interim period, with the help of foreign countries such as the EU and the U.S., without the intervention of Israel, will develop democractic structure which will make it possible to elect a new Palesitnian leadership. After three years of this Palestinian leadership and a change in the Palestinian education system to teach their kids that they ought to have peace with Israelis rather than become suicide bombers, then it will be a proper time to sit and negotiate peace between us and the Palestinians. But anyone who speaks about any compromise or suggestion of a detailed plan is simply doing something that no one in a war is doing ? that is making concessions already before the negotiations start. What you do in war is want to win and concessions you make with your defeated enemy after the war is decided and those concessions are mutual.
First, I don?t think Israel should have the intention to keep Gaza. Perhaps, Erwin, you might want to keep it. I don?t. I thinking holding any piece of land, rather than transferring it to the pals, isn?t really going to make any step forward to peace. On the contrary. It is only going to harm the chances of peace. The real problem we have with the Arabs is not any piece of land that they see in our hands as a provocation. Our very city of Tel Aviv is a provocation in their eyes. They are simply unprepared to accept our existence as an independent Jewish state here on what they consider to be Arab land. The question, therefore, as if it is better to keep the land and continue to lose our sons in future hopeless struggle is simply ill-defined, it is unfounded. I would like to attract your attention to the fact that we have handed over Gaza to the Palestinians as we did with vast areas in Judea and Samaria and basically they have control over 97 percent of the Palestinian population and are responsible for running their day-to-day aspects of life. But it is their perception that with terror, they can push us to even more far-reaching concessions than we made under Oslo. And that?s why they pushed on with terror. If we were to have Swiss people or Canadians as our neighbors, peace would have been here long ago. But the Palestinians are not Canadians, they have no regard for human lives, human rights, written agreements. In the Middle East, is already clear there is no mercy for the week, regardless of the territory they are on. Gaza is not the issue. The issue is the state of mind of Israeli who fail to understand the after so many years of wars with the Arabs that it is only our strength and ability of deterrence and their total understanding that they have no military option that will be the real basis of a future negotiations for peace.
Well, I did vote against the government but to topple a policy you need to have a majority but the left in Israel and non-partisan members of the Knesset such as Abdelmalik Dehamshe and Taleb A-Sana joined with the prime minister to promote a policy that transfers Jews only. I believe that the promotion or nominating seven additional deputy ministers was done with the purpose of solidifying the camp of the prime minister for future votes in the Knesset. I can sssure you Prime Minister Sharon will not the be only one competing to be the Likud candidate for prime minister. If I also join the race, I haven't yet decided on that, but I'm considering it.
Truly I think it is imperative for Israel to separate itself from the Palestinians. This is why I was the first minister in the cabinet who demanded to build the fence. I did that as being responsible for Israel?s police. Interestingly enough, Sharon of Likud, and Peres and Ben-Eliezer of Labor were against it. And I think we have to go for separation also if it should be done unilaterally. But the ?disengagement? plan is not the real separation. It is called disengagement from Gaza in order to attract the sympathy of the majority of people. But we have really pulled out of Gaza 10 years ago. All the highly populated areas of the Gaza Strip have no Israelis whatsoever. Pal terrorist pushed us back, forced us to go back after the Park Hotel bombing on March 2002, to the hearts of the cities ? Tul Karm, Qalqilyah, Jenin and Nablus in order to stop terrorism. But we haven?t gone back to the city of Gaza. That?s why terrorism from northern Samaria cities such as Jenin gradually diminished while in Gaza they continues to launch their rockets at the Katif region communities. The IDF did deploy surrounding Gaza in order to stop the launching of these rockets. But as we haven?t chased the terrorists to their dens, Qassam rockets are still launched. The only thing that we do in Gaza is that we pull out from regions where we have no Arabs and that were separated from Arabs in the first place - such as the Katif region. This whole concept ? as if we really disengage ourselves ? is a hoax and is directed at naïve people who do not read the small letters of this plan.
Let me first stress that Likud's positions adopted by its major institutions such as its members referendum or decisions takens by its central committee have been totally violated by the present Israeli government, headed by Mrr. Sharon.
Sharon is executing a left-wing policy which is in contrast to Likud's policy. After this disengagement, if it takes place, the Likud will be different. It's clear to me that the Likud, if it wants to survive as a meaningful party must combine a vision with pragmatism. After disengagement there is no vision, and the Likud will have to reclarify and redefine the major debate will be on its future nature.
I should add that the very same problem stands before Labor. Labor today is a party that stands on opportunism - it has no vision. I guess the problem for Israel today is to have major parties for which a prime minister and government will be formed to lead the country are parties that have a vision and have a power and the skills to carry out this policy and that will have a position which one can argue for or against.
The situation today is that what one sees is many ministers and MKs in the big parties taking decisions not based upon what is best for the coutnry but rather what is best for themselves, and this is something that should be a major concern for those who care about the wellbeing and the future of the country.
The group I belong to - the loyalists or the faithful - we shall never leave Likud. We are those who carry the banner of what Likud is, in the Knesset and the public representing Likud?s position since the time of Begin and Shamir, of course being adapted to the rpesent situation.
Exactly the same question was raised 12 years ago, when the Oslo agreement was signed and many of us saw its imminent tremendous dangers to Israel's security on the one hand and its clear undermining for any chance for peace on the other hand. It took us a number of years and 1,400 proofs - in the form of 1,400 Israeli citizens that were murdered - to understand the tragedy of the underlying assumptions reflected in your question.
Are Palestinians' threats really theoretical or have we paid a heavy price when we made this Oslo mistake? Does the average Palestinian really need some real hope in order to stop terror? Basically what we see are two things: First in all of the surveys taken without exception, the majority of the Palestinians see the terror is rewarding and the real hope they see is using terror in order to obliterate Israel. The suggestion that Israel needs to show its seriousness in its approach in order to get legitimate borders I think is a fallacy.
All Israeli governments, left or right without exception, in all its previous negotiations wanted to have serious peace with all the Arab countries. So it was between Begin and Sadat of Egypt. So it is and so it was with Rabin and King Hussein's peace agreement. But with the Palestinians we haven't had the real partner, we haven't had a real will or wish on their side. And for many, many decades the only tool they rely upon is terrorism, which follows limited political processes that are unidirectional. The Palestinians continue to follow them on the condition it is Israel that makes compromises. The bottom line of this unilateral pullout, done without a partner on the other side, with no negotiations, with no agreement, will simply expose Israel to many, many risks in the future and will make peace much more distant.
