Difference between revisions of "Natan Sharansky"

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==Views==
 
==Views==
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===Without Jerusalem we are colonialists===
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===Without Jerusalem 'we are foreign invaders and colonialists'===
 
As co-founder and chairman of [[One Jerusalem]], a hard-right pressure group, Sharansky has signalled his unwillingness to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. While Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, he wrote, in a Haaretz article entitled ''[http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/temple-mount-is-more-important-than-peace-1.102869 Temple Mount Is More Important Than Peace]'' that:
 
As co-founder and chairman of [[One Jerusalem]], a hard-right pressure group, Sharansky has signalled his unwillingness to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. While Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, he wrote, in a Haaretz article entitled ''[http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/temple-mount-is-more-important-than-peace-1.102869 Temple Mount Is More Important Than Peace]'' that:
 
:The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country.
 
:The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country.
  
 
:One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future.
 
:One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future.
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===Blaming the victim===
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Sharansky wrote in The Wall Street Journal of what he termed 'the Palestinians' most shameful military tactic: pimping the suffering of their civilians as a weapon of war.' He went on to state his belief that 'Palestinian children are dying today not because of Israeli brutality, but because their own leaders have chosen to use their children as human shields, and their pain as a battering ram against Western sensibilities.'<ref>[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120586642556073.html How the U.N. Perpetuates the 'Refugee' Problem], Wall Street Journal, accessed June 26, 2012</ref>
  
 
== Affiliations ==
 
== Affiliations ==

Revision as of 15:52, 26 June 2012

Natan Sharansky of the Jewish Agency for Israel photographed in 2007

Natan Sharansky (formerly Anatoly Sharansky) is a former Soviet dissident prisoner and former Deputy Prime Minister of Israeli.

History

Born Anatoly Sharansky in 1948 in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, he was one of the founders of the Helsinki Monitoring Group. In 1973 he was denied an exit visa on security grounds and becmae heavily involved in the refusenik movement and Zionist activities. In 1977 he was arrested on charges of spying for the United States. Although the U.S. government categorically denied any connection between Sharansky and the C.I.A., Sharansky was convicted in 1978, sentenced to 13 years and imprisoned. His wife Avital in conjunction with organizations around the world[1]. In February 1986 he was released in a US-Soviet prisoner exchange and immediately emigrated to Israel, adopting the Hebrew name Natan.

In 1988, he was elected President of the newly created Zionist Forum, active in promoting immigration and absorption of Soviet Jews, and was an associate editor of the Jerusalem Report. In 1994 he co-founded Peace Watch – an "independent non-partisan group committed to monitoring the compliance to agreements signed by Israel and the PLO"[2]. Then, in 1995 he co-founded a political party, Yisrael B'Aliya, allegedly with the aim of bringing a million Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union and a million Jewish citizens of the United States and Europe to Israel. [3] He represented the party in the Knesset from 1996 until January 2003. The name means both “Israel on the Rise” and “Israel for Immigration”.[4]

Sharansky served as Minister of Industry and Trade from June 1996-1999, as Minister of the Interior from July 1999 until his resignation in July 2000, as Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister from March 2001 until February 2003. He was Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs from February 2003 until his resignation in May 2005.[5] His May 2005 resignation was in protest aganist Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza.[6]

He served as Chairman and Distinguished Fellow of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center until June 2009 when he was elected Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel by the Jewish Agency Board of Governors[7]

Political history

Activities

Part of President Bush's political DNA

Sharansky is the author of three books. His memoir, Fear No Evil, was published in the United States in 1988 and describes his time as a prisoner in the Soviet Union. His latest book, Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy (2008), is espouses the importance of national and religious identity in building democracy.

His most famous work The Case for Democracy: the Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (2004) became widely known when President George W. Bush revealed that he had read and agreed with it. Bush stated that the book had become "part of my presidential DNA"[8]

The Shirley & Banister Public Affairs Republican PR firm did promotion for Sharansky's Case for Democracy book, according to Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter[9]. O'Dwyer's credited Shirley & Banister with securing a Rush Limbaugh interview and a meeting with "President Bush, who along with Condoleezza Rice, has cited the work in speeches and interviews."

Campaign to free Pollard

In February 2004, Sharansky announced his intention to visit Jonathan Pollard, the imprisoned Israeli spy, in a US federal prison. Sharansky lent his reputation as a former imprisoned Soviet "dissident" to the campaign by Zionist groups in the US to release Pollard.[10]

Lauded and reviled

Natan Sharansky was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1986 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. On receipt of the latter, presented by President George W. Bush, the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, Muwatin, called him a "racist".[11]

Views

Without Jerusalem 'we are foreign invaders and colonialists'

As co-founder and chairman of One Jerusalem, a hard-right pressure group, Sharansky has signalled his unwillingness to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. While Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs, he wrote, in a Haaretz article entitled Temple Mount Is More Important Than Peace that:

The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country.
One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future.

Blaming the victim

Sharansky wrote in The Wall Street Journal of what he termed 'the Palestinians' most shameful military tactic: pimping the suffering of their civilians as a weapon of war.' He went on to state his belief that 'Palestinian children are dying today not because of Israeli brutality, but because their own leaders have chosen to use their children as human shields, and their pain as a battering ram against Western sensibilities.'[12]

Affiliations

Publications

Notes

  1. ↑ Natan Sharansky Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed June 26, 2012
  2. ↑ Biography:Natan Sharansky, Jewish Agency For Israel, accessed June 26, 2012
  3. ↑ Redress Information & Analysis, "Profile Anatoly "Natan" Sharansky Israel's great dissembler", Redress Information & Analysis, accessed 25 February 2009
  4. ↑ Biography:Natan Sharansky, Jewish Agency For Israel, accessed June 26, 2012
  5. ↑ Natan Sharansky Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed June 26, 2012
  6. ↑ Conal Urquhart, "Sharansky Quits in Protest at Pullout", The Guardian, 3 May 2005
  7. ↑ [http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/About/Updates/Highlights/Archive/2009/jul02.htm Natan Sharansky’s Acceptance Speech as Chairman of the Executive], Jewish Agency for Israel, accessed Jun 6 2012
  8. ↑ Tom Barry, "POLITICS-US: A Meeting of Minds and Policy", IPS News, 7 February 2005
  9. ↑ Vol. 38, No. 18, May 4, 2005.
  10. ↑ Sharansky To Visit Pollard, IsraelNationalNews.com, accessed June 26, 2012
  11. ↑ Natan Sharansky: "Racist"?, FrontPageMag.com, accessed June 26, 2012
  12. ↑ How the U.N. Perpetuates the 'Refugee' Problem, Wall Street Journal, accessed June 26, 2012
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