Settler figure on road map: Jews also willingly went to camps

Haaretz ^ | 26/05/2003 08:28 | Haaretz Service

[yonif]

Veteran settlement movement figure and former MK Elyakim Haetzni, responding to an opinion poll showing a majority of Israelis in favor of the road map peace plan, Monday compared supporters of the peace plan with the Holocaust-era Jews that he said "willingly boarded those trains [to concentration camps], believing everything that the Germans told them."

Haetzni, a Hebron resident, blasted as an act of "national treason" and a "national catastrophe" the Sunday decision of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet to conditionally approve the road map, a U.S.-UN-E.U.-Russian- endorsed peace outline.

It was a historic day "in the same sense that the Destruction of the Temple was historic," Haetzni said.

Asked about the results of a Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper poll published Monday, which showed that 56 percent of Israelis supported the road map, Haetzni said:

"Yes, of course. And the Jews also willingly boarded those trains, believing everything that the Germans told them. The Jews are a people which is very dangerous to itself. It is a people that has brought Holocausts down on itself throughout the course of its history," he told Israel Radio.

"It is a people that has extraordinary powers of construction, and extraordinary powers of destruction. It builds and destroys, and this is an intrinsic part of Sharon's personality - Sharon is the greatest builder that we have had, and the greatest destroyer. Today he is in a destruction phase."

Haetzni said that the road map would inevitably set Israel on a collision course with the United States, its closest ally and supplier of billions of dollars in foreign aid.

"The state of Israel arose at the end of the British Mandate," he said, referring to the British caretaker rule in pre-state Palestine. "Our sovereignty ends with the beginning of the American Mandate."

"What they [the Americans] are doing now in Afghanistan and Baghdad they will do now in Jerusalem. Of necessity, their interests will collide with ours, and this is a disaster for Israel."

Haetzni did not relate directly reports that militant settlers had begin charcterizing Sharon as a "traitor," an epithet that recalled the tempestuous period in which Yitzhak Rabin was widely cursed by rightists as treasonous prior to his 1995 assassination by a far-right Israeli.

"When the Oslo process began, we [the settlers' Yesha Council] sat and said that we would not tag [people] with the label of traitor. We would use the term "national treason" when the conditions applied."

Asked if the latter term now applied,Haetzni said that it did.

[onyx]

Hysteria is ugly no matter which side. I trust President Bush --- who, wisely, has yet to spend one ounce of his political capital on the road map --- and I trust Prime Minister Sharon, a warrior with Israel's safety and survival his top concern.

Unlike their predecessors Clinton and Barak, Bush and Sharon want peace, but NOT at any price. Neither leader will sell Israel short. Won't happen. Not now, not ever.

[Reactionary]

"Neither leader will sell Israel short."

This "roadmap" does exactly that. The Palestinians will never accept peace, and any concessions they make will be to weaken and destroy Israel in the long term.

And when the inevitable happens? What then? Bush will have nothing to show for this huge diplomatic risk, and Sharon will have an even bigger problem with terrorism. You know, as well as I do, that this is what will happen.

[goldstategop]

True. Ariel Sharon felt confronting the U.S at this point would be the worst thing Israel could do. After all Israel does not want to be seen as the party that blocks peace. I much prefer to let the Palestinians gum up the works all on their own and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of it thus far.

[yonif]

The roadmap is a prize to the terrorists. Even if, as some say, this is nothing but a tactic, it will be of a grave cost to Israel in the future.

[onyx]

The entire Muslim-Arab world does not want peace! Only tiny, little Israel wants to be left alone to live in peace!

The 'road map' is a carrot to the palies and the A-M world, which everyone (Bush and Sharon in particular) knows is doomed to fail! And fail it will, but at least US & Israel will show the world that we're the parties "trying" for peace.

When the road map fails due to escalated violence, (as always) then I look for the "stick" to be used, jointly by US and Israel.

I cannot understate that Bush has yet to use even one ounce of his own political capital on behalf of this 'road map.'

Bush is not a fool, he's not an appeaser, he's not looking to win a Nobel, and neither is Sharon.

I completely trust both 'elected' leaders: Bush and Sharon. G-d guides both men, and THAT's a fact!

[Atchafalaya]

QUAGMIRE
NEXT RIGHT
I'd trust a Clinton before I'd even listen to the PA negotiaters. They have been the most disingenous (being PC) people to deal with. Ah, Allah says it is OK and encouraged to lie when dealing with your enemy. Well Duh! Like this snowball is going fly in hell. Ressurect W. T. Sherman and give him a mission!

[The Westerner]

Why does the United States desire to give a "carrot" to the Palestinians? It's like offering a carrot to Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Truly, the thinking behind this is that of an impaired child.

[onyx]

I don't know you and you don't know me, but I think we're on the same page, albeit not entirely.

Palie violence will never end, --- not of their own volition. The palies are an idle people, no industry of their own, their only employment comes from Jews/Israel, yet they're taught to hate Jews! Go figure!

I don't think their hatred for Jews is based entirely upon Mohammedanism, because hatred for Jews festers in all too many communities.

I wish all hatred would cease, but I find myself "hating the haters." I'd gladly nuke 'em.

[onyx]

Why the "carrot"? My guess, because we're playing to the rest of the world. Give me the "football" and I'll nuke 'em.

[Words]

Peace in Mideast can be achieved by two approaches:
1. Beat a Mideast terrorism into dust.
2. Beat a Mideast friend into submission to terrorism and terrorist acts end in Mideast and move elsewhere, but it'll be invariably the western "road map" direction..

[onyx]

Can't say that I disagree!

[onyx]

I'm a bit lonely on this thread. :)

[bvw]

I understand. In wrestling, it's like letting yourself be taken down, because you know you can get a reversal. You plan the takedown -- that is you allow the adversary to take you down in a way that will best put he and you in a position for that reversal.

Can you say "Damascus, Israel"?

[onyx]

Yes, wrestling! Great point! I wish I would have thought of it! When my youngest son was 10 years old, he won the Grand National Championship in wrestling!