Israel Matzav

Time to say 'I told you so'?

This past week, after a Kassam hit Ashkelon, I suggested that maybe it's time for the Yesha Council, which represents the leaders of the revenants in Judea and Samaria, to start speaking out against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convergence consolidation realignment surrender and expulsion plan for the Jews of Judea and Samaria:

One final word. The Yesha Council - the Council of the Jewish towns of Judea, Samaria and (until recently) Gaza - has been silent since the elections in March. I understand that many analysts have said that they should sit tightly because if they begin to make noise, it will inspire Ehud Olmert to try to pull off his convergence consolidation realignment surrender and expulsion plan for the Jews of Judea and Samaria more quickly, whereas now the plan has no urgency. I would adjust that strategy now, because I believe it may be possible now to start fomenting opposition to the plan to make sure that ultimately it is defeated.

I would do something very simple. I would take the distance from the point where the Kassam was shot (between the former Jewish towns of Nisanit and Dugit) to Ashkelon, and I would graph that distance on a map from the presumed route of the 'security fence.' The graph would show that far more than 200,000 Jews will be in Kassam range if Olmert's plan goes through. Every time the 'Palestinians' shoot another Kassam that goes further, I would revise the maps. I would put them all over the web, all over the bus stops and in every publication that is willing to print them.

A fellow blogger who has connections to the Yesha Council sent out a link to my post and reported back that he heard back from only one person - and that the reaction was negative. I have to wonder why.

This evening, Arutz Sheva is reporting that Haggai Segal and Rabbi Avi Gisser, both of Ofra, are calling for the right to remind the rest of the citizenry that "we told you so."

Segal, broadcasting on his Knesset Channel TV show and writing in his weekly column in B'Sheva, says the right-wing must not be as modest as it was when the PA broke out the Oslo War in late 2000.

"The right-wing at the time," Segal writes in B'Sheva, "criminally decreed upon itself a form of modesty. It felt that it would be better to show 'gallantry of victors' (woe unto such victories), and let the new reality speak for itself. There was a naive belief that the Minister of History would assume responsibility for sweeping all the false peace prophets into his garbage bin. The right-wingers were innocent enough to believe that those false prophets would hide out in shame. That's why not one official or important source outside of Yesha said the little words, 'We told you so.' If someone ever tried to say this, he would immediately receive a kick under the table."

"This nobility cost the right-wing dearly," Segal continues. "After a few months of shock, the leftists again reared their heads. Instead of cowering apologetically in their corners in mourning and shame, they started pointing an accusatory finger at Yesha. Their publicists began brazenly rewriting history, formulating strange theories in which the Oslo War was actually Israel's fault. Just this past week, one of the main Oslo champions, Ben Caspit of Maariv, wrote, 'I'm not certain that Oslo would have been so catastrophic, had we not helped the agreement to collapse by building more settlements.'"

"Now, with another left-wing initiative, the insane Disengagement plan, going up in flames, we see again a left-wing trend to evade responsibility," Segal writes, noting a host of left-wing figures who have been saying that they always opposed a unilateral move and warned that it would strengthen Hamas, etc. "We're beginning to think that at least a third of the Kfar Maimon protestors [tens of thousands of people who came to protest and possibly even to physically stop the withdrawal from Gaza - ed.] were left-wingers..."

Segal continues:

"In light of the danger that this chutzpah-like narrative will begin to attract attention, and mainly because of the danger that the lessons of the Disengagement might not prevent a further withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, Rabbi Avi Gisser of Ofrah declared this week the opening of the 'We Told You So' campaign. He is not one of the most vocal or raucous spokesmen in the right-wing, but he has reached the conclusion that there is no other choice. He feels that the right-wing must not again fall for the sweet illusion that the left-wingers will recognize their folly and not repeat it. He took out a large ad in Haaretz this week, declaring, 'We told you so - Whoever runs away from Gaza, Gaza will run after him. Whoever disengages and converges, terrorism will find a way to re-engage with him.'

Now, if you all follow the link to Arutz Sheva, you can hear then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin telling us all (in Hebrew) how there will never be Katyushas shot from Gaza into Israel. No one had heard of Kassams in 1995.

I think it's time to start working on the maps.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:09 AM