For months, I have feared Sharon's plans to establish a Palestinian state as an "interim solution" in return for Arafat's agreement to return to the Oslo negotiations and to "postpone" his demand for Jerusalem and the "right to return." This "plan" is original to Sharon. It has never been proposed by any leftist government or any leftist body, even Gush Shalom. They didn't dare. And why didn't they dare? Because Arafat would obtain a political gun, sovereignty, through which to exact the rest from Israel--full retreat, full withdrawal, removal of the settlements, Jerusalem, refugees.

Immediately after his election, Sharon disclosed his plan to his closest advisers and said explicitly, "I will make Areas B [Israeli security control, PA civilian control] into A [full Palestinian Authority control] and I will connect them, giving both to the Palestinians as a state in a long term intermediate arrangement."

The bitter truth is: it is not Peres who is responsible, it is Sharon. Cabinet member Benny Elon [of the Moledet party] reacted to the proposed paper submitted by Peres to the Palestinian Authority's Abu Ala [proposing Israel recognize a Palestinian state in advance of agreement on contested issues] that Sharon could no longer be satisfied with silence or with saying this is dangerous: he must fire Peres. But how can Sharon fire Peres, if Peres brought to Abu Ala Sharon's own plan? Like all cuckolded husbands, Elon knows the truth in the depth of his heart. He just does not want to know because it is difficult for him to leave the government.

The truth is Sharon will not fire Peres. All sources are in agreement that Sharon knew and here is the proof. He said that the plan is "imaginary" and "dangerous;" he didn't say the plan was prepared without his knowledge and Ahmed Tibi [Arafat's adviser] is right when he said "Why didn't Sharon say outright that he didn't know about the contacts?" It was because Sharon knew and Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi knew he knew: only the right-wing members of the cabinet did not know. And Abu Ala added: "We negotiated in order to get a ceasefire." In other words, Israel negotiated under fire [which Sharon had vowed he would never do].

This paper, which was leaked too early for the taste of Peres and Sharon, will not have immediate political consequences, but it gave the "Palestinian state" a big push forward.

A short time before the newest mischief of Shimon Peres blew up in the media, Americans for a Safe Israel published a pamphlet called What Shimon Says, compiled by Roger A. Gerber and Rael Jean Isaac. It is their second collection of the nonsense and piffle of our Foreign Minister. Here are some of its nuggets. On the cover of the pamphlet, as an introductory visiting card, are Peres's words, reacting to his electoral defeat
Netanyahu in the elections of 1996.

Interviewer: What happened in these elections?

Peres: We lost.

Interviewer: Who is we?

Peres: We, that is the Israelis.

Interviewer: And who won?

Peres: All those who do not have an Israeli mentality.

Interviewer: And who are they?

Peres: Call it the Jews.

Right after the slaughter in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Israel's enemies tried to fasten on us the guilt for the disaster, as if Bin Laden did what he did because of the Palestinian issue. Peres was asked about this on CNN and replied "I think it's 100% right." Thus does the Israeli Foreign Minister give a sword into the hand of Israel's enemies.

The truth is that Ariel Sharon will not fire Shimon Peres.

In the pamphlet, there are examples of the abysmal ignorance of this man who pretends to learning and sophistication. There are citations from Peres's book Battling for Peace: "In almost every foreign war, it [the U.S.] has conquered territories. But in none of them has it even attempted to retain either territories or resources, or to rule over another nation." Go and tell this in Florida, Texas etc. And if you say, "Doesn't he at least know the history of Israel?," this is what he wrote in Yediot Ahronot: "Throughout all the years of Jewish history, we never controlled another people..." Now that we know this, take out your Bibles, and correct them: Joshua did not conquer and destroy the Hittites, Hivites, Emorites, Girgashites, Perizites etc. He did not enslave the Jebusites. David and Solomon did not conquer and subject the Amonites and the Moabites and the other nations as far as the River Euphrates. And Yochanan Hyrkanus did not conquer the Edomites and he did not expel those who refused to convert. And Alexander Yanai did not conquer and rule on both sides of the Jordan.

Some of the quotations show Peres to be utterly shameless. A normal person, whose forecasts and prophecies, bringing disaster upon an entire nation, have been shown to be utterly wrong, would not dare show his face. But not Peres. In 1996, he said: "He [Arafat] fights terror, he changed the covenant exactly as he pledged. Both the fighting of terror and the changing of the covenant is a new development in the last hundred years." In 1996, at the Labor Party Convention, he said: "By the year 2000, we will overcome Hamas, Islamic Jihad and ter-

January 2002               - 5 -               Outpost