May 7, 2004

"Did Begin Want Gaza?"

The question—At the Camp David negotiations did Menachem Begin demand Israel's retention of Gaza, or did he insist that Egypt take it along with Sinai?

Last week, someone close to Begin, who stood alongside him at Camp David, told me the following: Begin did not want to sign the accords as long as Sadat would not agree to take Gaza. The Egyptian President refused and Jimmy Carter pressured Begin to accede. The press reported afterwards that the Israeli Prime Minister demanded Gaza and would not sign until the Egyptians agreed to allow Israel ownership of the strip. I always believed this to be true but now I know the real answer—Begin did not want Gaza.

And why would he have wanted it? More than one million Arabs live on the strip, many in filth and squalor, agitated by Islamic radicals and led by corrupt politicians. Surveys show that most of the Arabs on the West Bank feel disdain for their poor countrymen, the Arabs on the southern coast of Israel. Imagine what life in Israel would have been like, had Sadat taken Gaza. Israel would have annexed the West Bank and absorbed its Arab population. This would have given Israel a stronger Arab minority of two million but Israel would remain a Jewish State.

What will Prime Minister Sharon do next, now that he lost the Likud party referendum with regard to his plan to unilaterally withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza? Deciding what to do about Gaza is not simple. To withdraw, Israel would have to uproot communities and dedicated people who have suffered Arab terror while courageously remaining at their outposts. The Arab brutality against Jewish Gazans continues. The recent murder of a pregnant Jewish mother and her four small children was an act of barbarism. It pains me to think that terrorists might rejoice at Jews being forced out of their homes.

On the other hand, can a community of eight thousand Jews withstand the terror against them by one million three hundred thousand Arabs? Are walls separating the Jewish population from the Arabs adequate protection? Apparently not.

Israel's prime ministers do what they have to do. Their political labels matter little. The policies of a Yitzchak Rabin or Shimon Peres are no different than those of Benjamin Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon. In fact, Likud's leaders have been more conciliatory to the Arabs than Labor's. Netanyahu gave away Hebron and now Sharon wants to give away Gaza and half of the West Bank without negotiations or a peace agreement. People say that Yitchak Shamir was the only Prime Minister who did not give away land or promise it to the Arabs. This is apocryphal. Shamir participated in the first Arab-Israel peace meeting in Madrid and his representatives had meetings with all of Israel's Arab neighbors in the hope that this would lead to peace. Who knows how far Shamir would have gone?

My seventh grade Rebbe used to tell us, "Have all the fantasies you can want because you will never pay taxes on them." And when we teased, "Why won’t we pay taxes, Rebbe?" he responded, "Because they are worthless." It is foolish for any of us to denigrate Israel's leaders because we have fantasies of knowing better what to do. Fantasying about the transfer of Arabs, for example, is not only worthless, but dangerous. The transfer will never happen and talking about it is fodder for the enemy. In the American parlance, this is grandstanding. It may be fun, but it is playing with fire. Lives depend on the decisions that Israel's leaders make. True, the leaders are mortals who make mistakes, but they do what they have to do. Until the day that Hashem sends Mashiach, we are bound by these decisions.

Shabbat Shalom