An Open Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu Dear Mr. Prime Minister: The chasm that has opened in Israel between the pro-Oslo leftists and those who voted for you has its counterpart between our own American champions of appeasement, and those who dread the realities behind the Arab professions of peace. in essence, it is the split between those who cling to the delusions of the coming brotherhood of man, and those who cannot forgive the true meaning--and the warning--of the Holocaust. For many years, I have admired your eloquence and resolve, your dedication to the survival of Israel. Your voice has been a trumpet call to Jews everywhere to accept the realities facing Israel. Your election gave us here in America a new surge of hope. Here at last was the clear-sightedness that would reverse the slide of Israel toward extinction. What we have seen instead has shaken our hopes. You were not elected to continue the suicidal policy of Shimon Peres. You were elected to reverse that policy. You were not elected to subject Israeli sovereignty to the veto of Yasser Arafat, or to depend on Arafat's protection of Israeli lives. You were not elected to bargain with Arafat for a Judenrein Hebron. Clearly, the Jewish majority who voted for you understood the real intentions of Arafat, and expected you would act to frustrate those intentions. In your own book, you cited the one reply to the Arab blood lust: deterrence. Who, better than you, the brother of Jonathan, remembers the thousands who laid down their lives that Israel might live? Is their sacrifice to end in ignominious piecemeal surrender? You have been saying, in effect, "Believe in me, things are not so simple. We must give here and there to gain this or that." Surely, by now, in the clarity of private accounting, you must realize that the choices are indeed simple. You must bring yoursef to a review of the realities: the Arab world is intent on the

destruction of Israel; the Oslo process is their tool to bring this about. The West has accepted and encouraged the slice-by-slice diminishing of Israel's ability to defend itself. And each surrender to PLO demands brings closer the day of a combined assault on Israel by the PLO, by Syria-Lebanon, and yes, Egypt, and yes, Jordan. You have the historic opportunity to stand up in the Knesset, cite the numerous violations by Arafat of the Oslo accords, and announce that further negotiations are on hold until total cessation of terrorist incursions, until full cooperation by Arafat in extradition of known terrorists; further indications that Arafat's forces fail to control acts of terror will mean that the Oslo process is dead. Israel will defend itself by any and all means. Remind the world that the flow of oil is not threatened by a safe Israel; it is threatened by war against Israel. Remind the world that you do not intend to preside over the destruction of Israel because a befuddled minority dreams of peaceful Arabs while their children are blown to bits in the streets of their cities. Remind the world that Jews will not again be herded, helpless, to destruction. They will resist, as they have successfully resisted before, with weapons in their hands, all assaults on Israel. Remind the world that we will not permit the destruction of the Jewish homeland to provide one more Judenrein Islamic state. It is in your hands, Mr. Prime Minister, to arrest the perilous slide of Israel to an unthinkable disaster. There is still time. Respectfully, Abraham Gootnick

PASSOVER TALES (Continued from p.6) Samuel who had anointed David, four hundred years before (35:18). The pattern repeated itself after Josiah's death. More falling away, division, defeat, the destruction of the Temple, which today is again in ruins. After the mall bombing in Tel Aviv, March 24, Marwan Barghouti, Secretary-General of Arafat's mockery cabinet, expressed condolences for the bomber, and added, "it is peaceful to throw stones." An Israeli soldier commented, "By the time we are told whether we can use rubber bullets, plastic bullets, tear gas, just our shields or live ammunition, we will be dead."

As Hezekiah showed, loving kindness without strength and self-respect is really condescension, self-delusion and suicide that leaves no one in peace. But there need not be another exile. Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim and Manasseh again await reclamation which will come when Zionists and Orthodox co-operate in liberation, law and re-conquest of the land. The nations will be driven out, the boundaries of Israel expanded (Exodus 34:24). There will be a day like that shortly after Daniel prophesied, when Cyrus declared, "The Lord, the God of Heaven has commanded me to build him a Temple in Jerusalem...Whoever there is of His entire people, may God be with him, and let him go up!" (II Chronicles 36:23). Eugene Narrett is Professor of English at Framingham State College, in Massachusetts.

June 1997               - 11 -               Outpost