Home >> Middle East >> Israel  Email  Print Interview with Israeli MK Benny Elon Anthony Stroe - 8/17/2005 I am here with Knesset Member Benny Elon from the right of center National Union Party. He's a strong opponent of the Israeli government's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Anthony Stroe: Mr. Elon, what does the National Union Party stand for?
Benny Elon: The National Union Party is a faction of a few members. We have only 120 members in the Israeli Parliament, Knesset. It’s a faction of seven members out of 120. We really believe and are careful to stay a Jewish state. Democratic but Jewish. And we see that a kind of assimilation is going over and even right wing or so called right wing Likud party is losing the essence and not only that they are not strong and cannot watch the territory and the borders, they are also losing the Jewish face of the Jewish state. And that in one sentence is who we are.
AS: You were formerly the Minister of Tourism in Prime Minister Sharon’s cabinet, what caused the schism between you?
BE: I have to say that it was a shock. As a child, I remember Arik Sharon as an icon, hawkish, another kind of Jewish leader, hero. Someone that knows how to stand up and to stand up for the things that he believes and to fight for the State of Israel, not only for the survival, but for the revival of the Jewish state. Since he became Prime Minister he started a new, I don’t know how to explain it, but he himself said, “Things that I see from here, from the chair of the Prime Minister, I didn’t see from there.” So he just changed his entire platform. In the beginning, when I was in the Cabinet, I thought that it was a tactic to reach more unity, in order to fulfill his policy. But now I can see that he just came to the position and abandoned all of his faith and platform and things that he promised before he became Prime Minister.
AS: What is your position on the disengagement plan?
BE: I think that disengagement is a word that came from the laundry of the PR guys of the Prime Minister. The real term is uprooting, or expulsion, or even worse. I think that it’s just a plan to whet the appetite of our enemies, giving them for no exchange, for nothing, gifts like our Biblical heartland, our territories, going to give them the illusion that all of the Jews are going to be uprooted. Dozens of settlements in North Samaria and South Judea, Gush Katif in the future may be more; it’s just up to them. If they will continue with their attacks (terror attacks). If they will continue with their fighting against the very existence of the Jewish State, they will have another disengagement. Because of the fact that we’re giving now under fire, a kind of withdrawal, a kind of unconditional surrender under fire. You know I cannot imagine the picture that the enemy will sit and see on TV how Jews by force uprooting their brothers that settled three generations in the dust and created a paradise from nothing. They symbolize the whole picture of the children of Israel that came back to the land of Israel with deep faith that they are part of the Biblical vision of the return to Zion. We are in a generation that really believed that when we came out of the Holocaust and left the exile in order to establish a new kind of Jew. A Jew that’s not going to be a wandering Jew. (A Jew) that’s going to be settled in his own land, stick to the ground, and all of a sudden the enemies can see that we cannot be only wandering Jews, it’s part of our genes, and three generations of creation on the ground, sticking to the ground, in a second, by tragic mistake and decision of Prime Minister Sharon is gone and the visual picture of Jews destroying the agriculture, the houses, the Yeshivot, all of the things that they created. This is the disengagement plan? I think that it is a disaster that wanted to be clean by laundering the word. It’s not disengagement, it’s destruction.
AS: Why do you think that your position is going to help the peace process?
BE: I’m sure that this disengagement has nothing to do with peace. The opposite is right. It will whet the appetite of the enemies to have more bloodshed. And it will create more bloodshed, and the opposite is right. When you show the enemies that we are in Israel in the state of Israel, in the land of Israel, not on a temporary basis. We are for good. We are forever, and we are not strangers that they believe only for a while and it’s up to their terror attacks until we go when you show them that we believe according to the Bible that this is our land, they will respect it. If they will see this kind of determination, they will say to themselves, it’s another story. That touches religion, maybe in the Koran we see it another way, a little bit, but they have their Bible, and all of the Christians also saying that they have their right to go back to Israel. They belong here. If they will understand that we belong to the land of Israel, no bloodshed will be anymore. So I’m not naïve to think that they will understand immediately, but the opposite is also right. When they see that we don’t believe that we came forever and for good. When they see that’s up to their terror activities to throw out and to create the situation that we are not there, they feel commitment, and you can hear them in the Mosques every Friday. They say it, we do to the Jews what we did to all the strangers that came here, and we are the natives. We are going to be here forever. So you have to understand. This is something very very important. You cannot win just by force. Many empires lost the power and became bankrupt, not because they had a technical problem with the quality of the metal of the tank, or the cannon, they lost it when the soldiers didn’t want to fight. When the citizens didn’t understand the moral and the ethical justification for being and for fighting. This is the risk and the thing that’s going to be now in Israel, because of the fact that the people in Israel have to understand that we are there not just because of strength of the IDF and we are not there just because of the power. The opposite is right. We have to have power in order to fight, and not to be uprooted from the land that according to the Bible and to Justice belongs to us. When you show them that they’re right, that we can be out, that even Prime Minister Sharon that was one of the hawkish guys, says “occupied territories” instead of saying “liberated territories” instead of saying the Land of Israel. So they say, OK it’s a question of time. And all of them will be out if we continue with our religion, with Islam, with our faith, because this is Dar El Salaam. The land that belongs to the Moslems, to the Islam. The Jews and the Christians are not allowed to be in this area. This is the most dangerous thing in this plan. It whets the appetite of the Moslems, the enemies. To uproot all of the Jews from all of the land of Israel.
AS: Do you think that there’s a risk of a civil war in Israel?
BE: We have always, always to be afraid of this risk, why? Because we had it in our history. It’s a myth with no truth that Jews cannot shoot each other. We did it in history. We had two kingdoms, Israel and Judea in Biblical times that fought with each other. We knew how to fight one with each other in the exile. We knew how to fight with each other when we established the very beginning of the independence in Israel. Between the Irgun and others, so we have to be careful. We are not allowed to have this nightmare of civil war. Civil war will destroy the state of Israel. The most dangerous enemy that Israel has is Israel. We can destroy the dream; we did it in the past. That’s how our sages taught us that the Second Temple was destroyed because of self-hatred. And we are not allowed to come to this situation. It’s very complicated, and I think that Prime Minister Sharon has responsibility, like I have responsibility. Everyone has responsibility to be careful not to fall into this very slippery and dangerous withdrawal of civil war. I think that the responsibility that the Prime Minister has is even more than others because he is sitting next to the stern, he’s the leader. And because of it, the fact that he’s going to order Jewish soldiers in IDF uniform, a uniform that represents the unity of Israel, that represents no divisions, no parties. Everyone has the same clothes, the same uniform and the same external enemy. To take these young soldiers and to give them an order to uproot their brothers and sisters is a big, big mistake. It’s not just a mistake, it’s a crime. To do it is really not to be careful in creating a civil war. But it won’t win. We’ll never let other people to raise a hand against our sons and our brothers when they serve as soldiers. But we all have to be careful, it’s so sensitive. It’s the first flower of our redemption after 2000 years of exile. And you know, when you have a fresh, first flower, you can destroy it if you’re not sensitive. You can destroy it. You can destroy the whole Zionist dream by being brutal and not sensitive. So, first of all, these words of the Prime Minister but I don’t want to give up my responsibility, my colleagues have the responsibility, everyone has to do the best not to let this dream, the Biblical dream, the Jewish dream, the Zionist dream collapse in front of our eyes.
AS: Do you think that the Palestinians should have their own state?
BE: I’m not sure that the self-determination of the Palestinians is something that they have to create. Another state that they will speak Arabic and the culture and the religion will be the same that they already have in 21 states, but it’s up to them. I’m, not going to tell them yes or no. I just want to give you the basic information. 21 Arab states surrounding Israel have 16 million square kilometers, when Israel with Judea and Samaria and Gaza has 28 thousand square kilometers. This means that 21 Arab states surrounding Israel have 571 times more territory than Israel. This is something that is really not necessary, but if they want to make a declaration that Jordan, that exists as Palestine, and Jordan is Palestinian geographically and culturally, it was East Palestine. Today 75% of Jordanians recognize themselves as Palestinians. If they want to make a declaration that Jordan is Palestine, the Queen is Palestinian, Abdullah’s wife. Geographically and historically it was East Palestine when the British had demanded on the land of Israel before the establishment of the State of Israel, before 1948. When people called this place Palestine. You know, my mother was born in Jerusalem, Palestine. I’m seven generations in Israel. Until 1948 the name was Palestine. The Jerusalem Post, the same newspaper we have today they used to call it Palestine Post. So, until 1948 the British and all the others called the land Palestine. The majority of Palestine belongs to the Hashemite kingdom. Palestine was on the two banks of the Jordan River. The majority of Palestine belongs to the Hashemite kingdom. If they want to be called the Hashemite kingdom of Palestine, and they will have a Palestinian state on the east bank of the Jordan river and the Jews will have a Jewish state on the west bank of the Jordan river it will be something to encourage. I’m not going into the issue of Pan-Arabism, if the Arabic family is one nation, or if they have to be divided into many states. And I’m not going into the religious issue of Pan-Islamic, if all the Moslems are one in this area, or if they have to be divided. It’s up to them, but not instead of a Jewish state. They have again, 16 million square kilometers, 571 times the territory than the tiny, tiny state of Israel. The only Jewish state in the whole world.
AS: Are you submitting this plan?
BE: Yes, I tried to find Arab partners. I even spoke with Prince Hassan the uncle of the current King of Jordan Abdallah that was once. He’s the brother of King Hussein who was supposed to be the king. I spoke with a few ministers in the Hashemite Kingdom. I spoke with many representatives in America. I gave them this plan and if someone wants to see the details about the plan they can go to the website www.therightroadtopeace.com .I think that it’s not something that I can decide for them, it’s up to me to be careful not to lose the very existence of the Jewish State and to fight not only for our survival as a Jewish People but also for our revival as a Jewish people and as a Jewish State.
AS: What will happen to the Jews in Gaza if they remain there if the disengagement plan is cancelled?
BE: They created a block of settlements for themselves and it’s even more than ten years that they are connected to their brothers and sisters in the land of Israel (the Jews) and have nothing to do with the Arabs that run themselves in the Gaza Strip. There is no connection today between the Jewish settlements and the Arabs. I think that they can survive. The truth is that the best for the Jews and for the Arabs is to change the demographic situation; it’s part of the plan that we just spoke about. The Right Road To Peace, by building some Marshall Plan like America did in Europe, or like the Macarthur Plan that America did in Japan in order to have a humanitarian way of seeing things and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem in the refugee camps. It’s a real problem. The Palestinians in the refugee camps have to be resettled somewhere; they have to have a rehabilitation program. They cannot stay there. They are in a miserable situation and they became the infrastructure of the terror. This area is wonderful on the Mediterranean coast. Only Arabs that belong to this area for generations that have orange groves and have nice houses. If only Arabs and Jews could live together it could be paradise. The problem is that more than 2/3 of the population are painful refugees that for 4 generations are stuck there because of their brothers that refused to solve the problem. They have so much money, and so many opportunities to solve the problem, and they kept them in a frozen situation in order to use them cynically as a tool to uproot the state of Israel by demanding the right of return to Jaffa, Haifa, and Tel-Aviv and to destroy the achievements of the war of independence in 1948. In Israel neither the left wing nor the right wing are ready to give them this dream for them and a nightmare for us, so no one is going to let them go back to Jaffa and to Haifa. They have to be with the facts and not with the illusions and to understand that for peace they have to open a new page in their life exactly like we the Jews did. We had in the same war in 1948 more Jewish refugees from Arab states in this area than the Arabs. We had a million Jewish refugees from Egypt, from Syria, from Iraq, that left behind property, prosperity, and generations of creation and came naked to Israel and established a new state not with revenge just with hope, love, and looking to the future. And they are stuck on hatred, incitement, creating terror, killing us and themselves, and the cynical politicians, Arab leaders creating this monster. We have to change it, this is the peace. Peace is not a cocktail party, shaking hands in the White House, or in some capital in Europe. Peace is to grow to the ground and to see the people that need to be supported and to have some real Marshall Plan to help them and to change the situation. If we’ll do it, it’ll be good for the Jews and good for the Arabs.
AS: What will happen to the Jews in Gaza if the Palestinians establish a state?
BE: I don’t know if the problems will be with the Jews. I think that the problem will be first with the Arabs. This state will be a Hamas, Islamic Jihad terror state, gangsters against gangsters. We saw a little bit after the Oslo Accords. They suffered so much. The Arabs themselves. The Jews at least are protected. They have another way of life, they’re independent. But these are Arabic, Muslim, fundamentalist terrorist state will be a real hell, a real hell for the Arabs, and for all the people. You know it’s on the Mediterranean coast. This will be the place that terrorists will be sent to all of Europe and to other places. I think that it’s irresponsible to let a fundamentalist, terrorist Muslims like Hezbollah, like Hamas, that are the stars number two, and number three on the list of terror organizations in the USA to have their own army and their own state. I cannot understand how President Bush on the one hand is chasing after terrorists all over the world and on the other hand letting Arik Sharon build an independent fundamentalist terror, Muslim state in the biblical heartland of Israel on the Mediterranean coast.
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