A LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA!
by Raanan Levy (former advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon)
Shalom, Mr.President:
I am writing you from a small village in Israel called Asseret. We are group of 7 small villages, united under a Regional Council called “Gderot”. A County, in American terms. A little over a year ago, I was in a meeting in NYC in a building designed by the world renowned designer, Phillip Stark. The population of that building alone, was larger than that of our entire “council”. Such, respectively, is the difference between our two nations. Yours is big. Very big. Ours is small. Very small.
In its longest dimension, Israel is a 7 hour drive long country. In its width, we have about 50 miles. You seem like a fairly athletic man. If you leave Tel-Aviv riding a bicycle at 7 in the morning, you will make it to lunch time, on the banks of the Jordan River, our eastern border.
I listen to you very carefully in the past several months. Particularly since you have become President of the USA. I listen to every word you and your senior aides are saying about the Middle-East. In your Cairo speech three days ago, I felt a pain in my chest, and decided I must write you.
I do not think my words will impact you greatly, Mr.Barack Obama. But perhaps, you will at least hear them. To my deep sorrow, no senior Israeli official is able to say those words to you anymore, words which should have been our official position in the past 2-3 decades. My Prime Minister and his senior aides, like his predecessors since 1992, are confused and lost in “political correctness”. Had we been a country which takes its vital affairs a tad more seriously, we should have been telling you now these exact words, with all due respect and friendship.
1. The State of Israel shall never again participate in ANY territorial dialogue with anyone. We are simply tired and ashamed of this hoax, which always failed and was a tragic mistake to begin with. From now on, there are no more territorial discussions ever, with anyone!
2. The present day boundaries of Israel, will be its permanent ones, forever. We shall never discuss handing over the Golan-Heights to Syria. No Palestinian official presence will ever be allowed in our Holy City, our Capital City, Jerusalem. The Cities we built in Ariel, Efrat, and Ma’ale-Edumim, will be annexed to Israel tomorrow, and shall never again be named “occupied territory” by any friend of the State of Israel.
3. The Palestinian Authority, is promoting terror and is corrupted. The Palestinians are torn apart amongst themselves and poor. They have no hope for an independent economy nor infrastructure for an independent state. They have nothing, Mr.President. Israel is longing for the day the PA will be a democratic, peace seeking entity, which abandons terror and incitement, and quits sends young children to explode on buses. On the day this happens,
Israel will actively participate in creating a better political and economic hope for the Palestinians.
4. We shall NEVER allow the Palestinian Authority to evolve into a sovereign state. Israel shall never accept establishing an additional Arab country in the narrow margin of 30 miles, between the Jordan River and Ben-Gurion airport. This would be a totally suicidal act on our behalf.
On the other hand, if and when the Palestinians will fulfill their part of the horrible “Oslo Agreements”, we shall reciprocate and work together with them to create a fruitful urban and administrative civil body and they will manage it. Other than that, we have nothing else to offer them.
A “Palestinian State”, will be another failed experiment, which will bring additional disappointments and bloodshed to the region. A transparent, democratic Palestinian Authority, is the only hope.
5. Jerusalem is the city of the Jews, and the Capital City of the State of Israel. This has been an un-deniable fact for 3,000 years. There is no theological basis for the Arab claims over Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran, and has been “turned holy” in a cynical political assult of the past 40-60 years. Israel shall no longer participate in this circus.
6. In your Cairo speech, you repeatedly suggested speaking in truth and honesty. A noble offer, no doubt. You have also stated that the “dislocation of the Palestinians has been going on for over 60 years”. In saying this, Mr.President, you have accepted the false Palestinian “Nakba”
claim in fullness. No longer talking about the refugee problem caused as the aftermath of the Six Day War of 1967, but a Palestinian disaster caused by the very creation of the State of Israel, in 1948. I doubt you realize the horrible ramifications of such statement to my personal well-being, the future of my children in Israel, let alone the very heavy damage this will bring to the ability to reach peace with our neighbors.
7. In your speech, you repeated the thought that Israel was recreated as a consequence of the Holocaust. This is not your fault Mr.Obama, we ourselves, have promoted this foolish doctrine in the past 60 years. But if truth and honesty is what we seek, please note that Zionism was “live and kicking” already in the late 19th Century. The immigration to Palestine, our “Eretz-Israel”, our redemption of this land by the return of Jews to their historic homeland – started back then. Even the League of Nations,
designated this land to the “Restoration”, in those very words, of the Jewish people in their homeland. It included all of Judea, Samaria and Jordan of today. It is not your fault to not see this Mr.President; many even here in Israel do not see this anymore. But when the President of the United States preaches for “truth and Honesty”, it is recommended to stick to facts, not to Arab propaganda.
I feel you are a fair man, and that you have good intentions, Mr.Obama. I do not think that you are knowingly seeking to harm Israel. I believe the accusations of you being an “Arabist” and all that, are nonsense. If Tzippy Livni, a leader of the Kadima party in Israel, is the most active agent for promoting a Palestinian State, and if Avigdor Liberman has offered portions of the Galilee to the Palestinians, and if Ehud Barak pressured Arafat to take control of East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, (Camp-David, June 1999), and if Ariel Sharon was able to destroy and relocate Jewish towns twice
(1978 Sinai, 2005 Gush-Katif), how can we come in fairness and be upset with you?
You will probably not be influenced by my letter to you. It will be easy for you to continue in the sorry direction you have started. You will continue to promise that America will stop making threats or dictations, but you will threaten and dictate – only to the Israelis. I can only be saddened, Mr.President, that there is no serious Israeli figure today, who will stand up to you, who will correct you, who will work together with you, to take a more just and moral approach. As matter a fact, Israel has produced a leadership that will make it probably easy for you. Peace, unfortunately, what we really so badly need here, will never come out of it.
Israel will continue in its ideological deterioration and its strategic margins will continue to narrow in on her. All, in the name of “Peace”, of course. And as we will watch it through the years to come, more Presidents will come after you, and push us more, and more.
But please don’t feel bad, Mr. President. You have no reason to feel bad. Because the painful truth is, it is not you to blame for your ideas I cry over. It is us. We did this to ourselves.
Respectfully,
Raanan (Rani) Levy
ranal@netvision.net.il
(Rani Levy was an Adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and resides in Israel with his family).
