Selling Munich, Selling Disengagement: Selling Out Israel

When brutal Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu was finally overthrown, he was convicted of mass murder, genocide and crimes against humanity and then executed. His close adviser and associate Corneliu Vadim Tudor however not only escaped justice but went on to found his own political party named 'Greater Roumania' based on anti-semitism and nostalgia for a return to the Ceausescu era. He openly denied the Holocaust

Tudor was quoted as saying, "This country [Romania] could only be governed through the mouth of a machine gun." One of his former political associates claimed he had a hit list of politicians and reporters to imprison when he came to power and far from being a joke, Tudor pulled in over a quarter of Roumania's vote in the Presidential election.

Realizing his image was holding him back, Tudor attempted to transform his public image to make himself more palatable to voters. To do this he hired a man named Eyal Arad. Eyal Arad is Sharon's top image consultant. Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum issued a press release breaking all ties with Arad. The editor of Romania's newspaper wrote a letter to Sharon appealing to him to tell Arad to withdraw. Sharon made no such move.

A year later Arad would serve to run the public relations war room that would push through the Disengagement and the forced expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes. While those expelled from their homes have yet to receive compensation, Arad was paid tens of thousands of dollars to promote Disengagement. And now there is more work for Arad.

Steven Spielberg retained Arad to promote his new movie Munich in Israel. The movie done at the twilight of Spielberg's career, with his Dreamworks studio dismantled and sold off and his movies failing at the box office, is meant by Spielberg to convince the Israelis of the futility of fighting terrorism. And Spielberg has found the perfect man to promote it.

It is impossible to understand the current state of affairs in Israel without understanding that it is full of men like Arad who hover around politicians, comprise much of the Knesset and field the endless business ventures of the old boy's network that has made selling out Israel so possible. If there is anything that Sharon's new party Kadima represents it is a demonstration that a third of the Likud, major figures from Labor would flock to a party that represents nothing except political ambition and money. Far worse than left wing activists like Beilin or Peres are the Arad's, the mercenaries of Israel's political and economic life.

It is the Arads who struck business deals with the Palestinian Authority in the 90's, who promoted their cause in America and Israel and kept the peace process running no matter how many Jews the Palestinians killed. It is their kind who have sold weapons to the Palestinians and to Hizbullah. It is men like Gonen Segev who jumped ship from a right wing party to prop up the peace process when Rabin offered him a ministry and has now been convicted of drug smuggling. It is the former Shabak and Mossad figures who have gone into buisness with the Palestinian leadership, managing their investments and business ventures inside Israel. It is the drivers who smuggle through Palestinians into Israel for money not caring whether they are terrorists or not.

And now it is Eyal Arad, who will work for an anti-semitic dictator in waiting or help Sharon expel Jews and create a "Hamastan" in Gaza or work to promote the propaganda film of a liberal director trying to beat down what is left of Israel's will to resist terrorism. Many blame the left for destroying Israel's morale and giving in to terrorism but while the Israeli left like the American and European left hate their country and support its enemies; it is those 'pragmatists' within Israel only out for themselves who have been responsible for the catastrophe that has engulfed Israel since 1992.

Beginning with Rabin who initiated the peace process for political reasons and went from calling for "Breaking their bones" to shaking Arafat's hand, all the way to Sharon who went from fighting terrorism to surrendering to it; the 'pragmatist' Israeli figures who cared nothing about the country and only about staying in power have brought matters to this point. The Knesset filled with squabbling groups who care only about their narrow cause and worse yet, only their pocketbook has made a mockery of legislative authority. Into that breach the left wing judiciary has run riot functioning as a virtual dictatorship and assigning itself ultimate authority over any and every issue.

To the pragmatic politician who cares nothing for the country, Arad is the perfect accessory. An adviser with no moral values or red lines, who openly lied to investigators looking into Sharon's financial improprieties, worked to promote an anti-semitic dictator and will now promote the condescending tripe of Hollywood's most famous and most ignorant Jew.

Such men have been chipping away at Israel's morale serving as eager tools of anyone from Palestinian terrorists to corrupt politicians to European and American diplomats eager to improve their standing in the Arab world by disposing of the pesky problem of Israel's existence. They have eagerly embraced post-Zionism because ideals only obstruct men who are only out for themselves. They have marketed the destruction of Israel because there are short term profits and because they prefer a state of affairs in which international trade is easy and borders are open and Israel's global reputation is good even if that comes with the death of thousands or even tens of thousands of Israelis and the eventual destruction of the country. Their money is in foreign bank accounts and unlike their victims they can always move to Oslo or Los Angeles when things get bad. And they will.

Every country, every political and economic system is saturated with corruption because the law of human character states that the greedy and the self-serving, the ruthless and amoral are likeliest to climb and cling to power. But the greater the peril a nation is in, the less it can afford them. Israel cannot afford them at all. America cannot afford them for long though America is saturated with the same ideology that favors sacrificing security and survival to short term buisness and political interests. Europe is defined by that ideology and that is why Europe is dying and will not last another generation. Israel doesn't even have that long. How long America has rests in our hands.