Food for Thought: Imagine If...

Imagine if Shimon Peres was Prime Minister and he would announce a plan to annex the Gaza Strip against the wishes of the Labor party and his parties platform - would the media stay silent about this behavior?

Imagine if the Labor party central committee passed a resolution against such an action - yet he pushes through the annexation plan anyway - would the media stay silent about this behavior?

Imagine if a referendum was held for Labor party members that Prime Minister Peres morally committed to honoring and it came out against the annexation plan, yet he pushes through the annexation plan anyway - would the media stay silent about this behavior?

Imagine if he fires government ministers just to secure himself a supportive ministerial vote to support the annexation plan - would the media stay silent about this behavior?

Imagine if part of the plan called for transferring Arabs from their homes - would the media stay silent about this behavior?

Imagine if famous Left wing personalities started speaking out against the plan and calling upon citizens to stand up against the plan - Has the media/government and justice offices stayed silent?

*Yossi Sarid and former MK Ya'ir Tzaban wrote in Yediot Acharonot (June 27, 1990), in response to a proposal to temporarily move several Arab villages until the end of the grape harvest: "Let there be no misunderstandings amongst us, and let it not be said that you were not warned in advance: We shall not obey the transfer order, nor will our children or our students obey it. The day that the transfer order - a patently illegal order - is given, shall be the day of refusal to obey an order."
*Yehonatan Gefen, 1998: "Secular Israel is the occupied territories of the religious parties. If the secular desire to live here, they have no choice but to start an intifada. Yes, I am prepared to throw the first stone."

*An article in the Ha-Kibbutz newsletter, August 1995: "They [the settlers] are not my brothers. [...] A civil war will be a war [...] I will run to it [...] and I will crush their flesh with mighty blows, to rout them. [...] I will go forth to the foe in order to fight, for once, a justified war. [...] Much blood will be shed."

*Zeev Sternhal, in the Davar newspaper, 1988: "Fascism cannot be stopped with rational arguments. This can be stopped only by force, and when there is willingness to risk a civil war. When necessary, we shall have to forcibly deal with the settlers in Ofrah or in Elon Moreh. Only a person who is willing to advance against Ofrah with tanks will be capable of curbing the fascist drift that threatens to inundate Israeli democracy."

*In an article in the Ha'Aretz newspaper in 2001, this same Sternhal incited the Arabs to murder settlers, advising the terrorist organizations to place explosive charges only on the eastern side of the Green Line. "There is no doubt regarding the legitimacy of the [Arab] armed resistance in the territories themselves. If the Palestinians had a bit of sense, they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements. [...] They would similarly refrain from placing explosive charges on the western side of the Green Line."

*Minister Yosef Lapid himself has publicly supported refusal to serve in the IDF in any capacity as a form of protest, "I am merely calling for soldiers to refuse to carry out an illegal order - a principle taught to every IDF soldier during basic training." Elitzur quoted Lapid as having written, "The shame of exempting yeshiva students from IDF service will not end until a draft refusal movement arises in Israel ... Only if hundreds and thousands of draftees return their service orders will the political establishment be compelled to come to the IDF's aid."

This message is sponsored by the wake-up-already-if-you-still-think-Israel-is-a-functioning-Democracy-committee.