Steven Plaut
The Sharon Litmus Test, or, Which of the Two "ARIKS"?
For those of you who think that at long last Arik Sharon means business,
I have a good litmus test for you. Sharon - after all - is sending tanks
into the terrorist dens on the West Bank and in Gaza. He has even upset
Kofi Annan, the Cloud Monkey. The IDF has taken large swaths of Ramallah
and Nablus. They are arresting and interrogating. So the Age of the
Lemming is behind us, right?
Well, think again. Let me tell you how you will know when Sharon
REALLY moves Israel into the post-Oslo post-Lemminghood era. I will give
you a hint. It involves someone who had 11 brothers, one sister and a
coat of many colors.
Yes, Bible fans, you got it correct. There may be Israeli tanks in
Nablus but Sharon has not done a thing to restore Joseph’s Tomb to Jewish
control. You will recall that under Barak’s junta, Israel sat by while
the PLO stormed the shrine and desecrated it. A heroic Druse soldier on
guard was allowed by Barak to bleed to death rather than risk a
confrontation with the stormtroopers in rescuing him. Barak preferred to
ask the PLO for help in chasing away its own tanzim attacking the shrine.
The PLO has controlled the site ever since.
Now Joseph’s Tomb was one of several Jewish religious sites that the
PLO officially and formally pledged to honor under the first Oslo Accord
that it signed with Bill Clinton as witness. The desecration of the site
is in and of itself justification for complete re-occupation of the PLO
territories. The site, in the heart of Nablus, was put under Jewish
control by Oslo and the PLO pledged to respect it. Of course, like every
other Oslo pledge, the PLO violated it with no serious Israeli response,
not even the removal of the PLO appointees from their Israeli-paid
positions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
But this week, Israeli tanks are in Nablus. There is no better time to
level a square mile or so around Joseph’s Tomb, restore it to Jewish
control, renew the prayers there - like the Maccabees did at the Temple,
and erect a fortress around it to be manned forever by Jews.
Let me put this another way. Besides being Sharon’s name, I can think
of two places in Hebrew where the term "Arik" appears. The first,
Exhibit A Arik, appears in the Song of the Sea, the poem composed by Moses
after the tanzim troops of Pharaoh were exterminated, and celebrating
their demise. It says in Hebrew: Arik Harbi, Torishemu Yadi, and it means
"I will unsheath my sword and my hand will make mincemeat of them".
The second place in which the word Arik is used, Exhibit B Arik, is on
Israel’s Sesame Street. The Hebrew names for the Bert and Ernie puppets
are Arik and Bentz (not sure which is which).
Our Prime Minister has decide if he wants to be an Exhibit A Arik
- or to continue being the Sesame Street one....
Steven Plaut