The feelings of frustration, together with the dissatisfaction with the
policies of the Peres-Sharon unity government, have become sorrowful facts
under which most Jews live. The zig-zag policies of the government are
disconcerting. The statements of Sharon's office which tell us that this
government will not leave area A until its ultimatum is complied with turn
out, once again, to be a statement of a paper tiger. The demands, similar
to those made by US President Bush on the Taliban regime in Afghanastan,
that the Palestinian Authority outlaw the PFLP, Hamas and other terrorist
groups, and to arrest and turn over to Israel the murderers of Minister
Ze'evi, are inconsistently abandoned by Sharon. There is a rush to tell the
world that we soon intend to withdraw, weakening the morale of our nation
and the IDF.
     What does all this mean? Certainly it points to a lack of an overall
plan, and a resolve to apply it, something vital to a nation engaged in a
war for its survival. Moreover, it highlights the impossibility of decisive
leadership as long as a divisive Labor Party remains part of the unity
government. The small Labor minority which forced Oslo on the public, and
is still committed to this suicidal plan, has been given key positions by
Sharon in the unity entity. Labor continues to express its own conflicting
views, and insists it has the right to do so.
     We have a PA that has ruthlessly killed and maimed scores of Jews
during Arafat's intifada. Yet it has not been required to compensate
families that have been gravely harmed, nor children who were left without
parents, or lost limbs as a result of these Arab atrocities. The PA even
refuses to pay its long overdue huge electric bill. All this because we do
not have the leadership capable of making consistent, purposeful and firm
decisions.
     Women In Green urge the Sharon Government to make an end to the false
and divisive unity. To use the monies that have been withheld from the PA
to attempt to compensate those Jewish families that have sustained grave
losses as a result of these Arab attacks. If these monies are not used in
this fashion, we can surely expect that they will be turned over to the PA
at some stage. Thus the PA will be rewarded for the violence it has
created, and escape paying for the irreparable damage they have caused to
many innocent Jewish families. There is no better deterrent to Arab
violence than to have them personally pay for the damages they cause. In
addition, a firm decision to shut off, on a given date, its electricity
will result in the immediate payment of the PA's outstanding bill.
     There is ample precedent for Arabs paying damages for their intifada.
History is replete with such payments by those who go to war and lose.
Sharon must rid himself of the Arab apologists in the Labor Camp who
generally hold views diametrically opposed to those held by the majority of
the public. There must be an end to disunity, and an inaction caused by
dissention. There is a sufficient majority to form a government which will
truly work solely in our own national self-interest. Moreover, such a
government will be more consistent with, and representative of, the
overwhelming majority that voted out Labor in the last election.
WiG, POB 7352, JERUSALEM, 91072 Israel, Tel.
02-624-9887, Fax: 02-624-5380, http://www.womeningreen.org
Russion version