Not a 'rightwing zealot.' Not a zealot at all.
OK, fine, forget my paraphrase of the buzzwords that are used by the Bolshevik left to describe him to this very day. The worldwide left still considers him a fierce militant, and the Israeli right still considers him a hero.
He is thought of as nationalist who wanted to unite his people and wanted equal treatment for all Jews.
Too bad his actions as PM showed otherwise.
Yes, much of the country praises him because they value the peace agreement he made with Egypt.
Israel is full of brainwashed, complacent, conformist people--on the left AND on the so-called "right".
But in terms of the rightwing, even if he made mistakes as a Prime Minister, you can't really turn the guy into some kind of villain.
Says who?
Look at his life accomplishments. He was a Jewish hero. Everyone even the left, recognizes that.
He was a Jewish hero in his youth, yes. In his later years he was something else.
He was a poor PM. But out of all them, he was a Jewish hero. A real idealist and a man amongst boys.
How can you be a poor leader and a hero yet at the same time? If I were to call any PM a "Jewish hero", it would be Levi Eshkol.
I can't see any comparison with him out of all prime ministers. THAT is what I meant. And everyone, from left to right generally recognizes that.
And this is very unfortunate. Because he has this ridiculous aura of greatness, he's essentially untouchable (even more so, in a way, than that alcoholic parasite Rabin). What I mean, is, that the left still attacks him for not being suicidal enough (lol!), nobody ever criticizes the logic of Camp David itself or argues that it was a bad idea for Israel.
He wasn't forced but he WAS pressured and was deceived by sadat (as well as carter).
Sadat was a two-bit sand negro coon. Everybody knew that and everybody knew that he was a paper tiger by that stage. The reason he had so much success for the first week of his Yom Kippur jihad was because he caught the Bolshevized Golda Meir IDF with its pants down. As soon as the IDF woke up and properly mobilized, Israel (despite having lost most of its tank force) mopped up the sand with those negroes pretty roundly. If it wasn't for the hollering of the Jew-hater Nixon, Israeli infantry could have sacked Cairo and Damascus in a few more days.
If you can't see that you simply are unwilling to consult the history.
I am not denying that Sadat tried his best taqqiyah with Begin, but he knew Egypt was the mortal enemy. Ultimately, the key player was Israel's "ally" Jimmy Carter.
From what I understand, later in his life Begin regretted his mistake of giving away Sinai.
Oh, really? Where did you see that? Did he ever PUBLICLY express his regret and apologize? Did he ever use any of his influence to argue against later land-for-peace deals or tell Reagan and GWB1 where to shove it? Did he raise his voice for Jonathan Pollard? The answers to those would be no, no, and no. Some footnotes in his memoirs or something he privately told his best friend don't count. Even after leaving office, he had the voice, clout, and prestige to be a powerful player, and he was simply too big of a force for the Bolshevik government to throw in the gulag. Coulda, shoulda, woulda.
So that makes your citing of verse even more inappropriate, but it was wrong in the first place.
Wrong? How so? The Bible verse I cited was very simple and straightforward. Are you trying to say that it WASN'T a sin for him to cave to world pressure and stab the Jews in the back?
Begin is not in a league with modern day mafiosos/money-buys-everything Israeli politicians like Olmert and Sharon. They can't even shine his shoes.
Comparing "bad" and "evil" is a choice we sometimes need to make in presidential elections, but it's no standard for righteousness in the elemental sense. Hitler tried to exterminate every last Jewish man, woman, and child on the planet. Stalin was fine with letting Jews who gave up their faith and became faithful little communists who worshipped him live. Does this mean that Hitler "wasn't fit to shine Stalin's shoes"?
You use strange terms. "Hardcore" hawk? What is that exactly? Don't know of any Israeli that uses a term like that.
Forget it already... you know what I was trying to say.
In any event, it wasn't for this reason that the people agreed with the peace accords. You again are trying to superimpose an oversimplification of your own making onto what happened.
The reason, then and now, is that the Israeli public is inherently trusting and goes along with the government, especially one with such a huge right-wing, nationalistic reputation as Begin's.
The people wanted peace with Egypt because Egypt had launched 2 invasions of Israel over the course of a 7 year period ( as well as the invasion they lost in the independence war) and maintained open hostility to Israel that was seemingly not going to end.
Egypt had its camelass handed to it in 1967, and after Israel was able to heroically mobilize against a total two-front onslaught from a state of zero percent readiness (worse than when Poland was attacked by the Nazis and Soviets simultaneously), it whupped Egypt pretty soundly in '73 too.
But Israelis had no reason to NOT want it to end. They thought, if peace is real here, it means we won't have to fight these animals anymore.
Yes, that is the difference between Jews then, now, and probably forever (barring a miraculous transformation of heart) and Amalek. Jews don't eat, breathe, sleep, and dream murder, even when they are facing a Shoah. Even during the actual German Shoah, most Jews would not even think of violently resisting the Nazis. Anne Frank wrote in her journal that she did not hate the Germans, and 98% of all Jewry (excepting the Jabotinskyites and the heroic Warsaw Ghetto heroes, may G-d avenge their blood), to the very end, felt like there was no choice but to march like cattle to the slaughterhouse. They said Ze'ev Jabotinsky was crazy and refused to listen to his call to arms. Thirty years later, when the Jews were well-armed and had a chance to do what G-d commanded and Joshua actually did to the Amalekite scum of the Middle East, they choked.
No more all-out-wars like we had in 67 and 73.
Again, this goes back to the Jewish pacifistic mindset. Jews just don't love death, which has been a tragic thing for them many times. If Israel had the will Egypt could have been rendered completely "Arabrein" in either of those wars. Jews are human beings who have a conscience, and that conscience unfortunately rears its head at the least opportune times. They are always feeling bad for the scummiest slime of the world and fearing the opinions of the goyim.
What is bad about that? Problem was it was not real peace.
The problem is that the vast majority of Jews worldwide, Israel included, have completely lost the warrior heart that G-d gave them at Horeb.
I don't think people were saying "Well Begin is really rightwing so even though I don't trust sadat, Begin will protect me I have faith in him."
What is a secular Israeli to do? They have to have faith in something/someone, it's human nature. This is exactly why most Israelis supported the Gush Katif ethnic cleansing.
The people were enamored with Sadat and his "gracious" visit to knesset. There was a hysteria. A national hysteria. The left and centrists supported it because they wanted peace. No more wars against egyptian garbage. The right some were probably deceived by Sadat... And those who weren't deceived by Sadat, I don't believe they would support Begin on that.
Nobody on the so-called right spoke up against Begin. Literally only a tiny handful of pioneers did--much smaller than the number that tried to resist Gush Katif.
You pretend that Israelis are mindless. They aren't.
Unfortunately, most major Israeli opinion polls and election results say otherwise. Kadima got the single largest vote of
any party in this spring's election, for instance.
If I think I smell a rat, I don't just say oh well so-and-so says its ok, so there's no rat...... Do you?
First of all, expulsions of Jews had never been tried before. There wasn't a precedent. Secondly, the Bolshevik propaganda of the Israeli establishment--which the so-called "hero" embraced--convinced almost all of the right, which should have known better, that this was needed.
I can promise you that if Golda Meir had tried to evacuate the Sinai she would have met with ferocious resistance from average Israelis and the IDF itself
Based on everything. Compare her reputation to Begin's. Compare her approval ratings. Remember the taste that her military demoblilization had left in the aftermath of 1973. I'm not saying she would not have succeeded, but she would have had a much bigger fight than Begin did.
Based on what? You just made this up. Israelis would be equally supportive of her peacemaking if she had done it rather than begin.
If this is so, then they were even crazier then I thought, but I don't think so.
If she was the one saying 'no more bloodshed" and shaking sadat's hand she'd be heralded by the "peace delusional" to this day.
No, I don't think so at all. The left would worship her like they do Rabin, but they would not be able to sell the whole nation on it. The Israeli mainstream right would condemn her (even if in practice they support the exact same things).
And the same ones who oppose Begin on the right
For all practical purposes right-wing opposition to Begin was (and is) nonexistent.
Where do you get the idea that no one questions that move today? The majority of Israelis agrees with it for many reasons. But the rightwing/kahanists/settlers.... They don't.
Here is what I mean. I mean that opposing the Sinai retreat in hindsight today is considered a fringe position. If any Israeli were to start attacking it and accusing Begin of selling-out or denying that it brought real peace, people on all sides of the spectrum would consider him or her insane. The same is
not true of criticism of Gush Katif. If I am not mistaken a huge percentage of Israelis (around 50%) have very big doubts about the Gaza expulsion in hindsight, and Israeli pundits (some of them not even that right-wing) criticize it all the time. It's not a blacklistable or fringe position.
And if Chaim disagrees with that, which I think you might say so, then I strongly disagree with him. But lets find out from Chaim, that would be interesting to hear what he has to say.
I know what he's said before on Ask JTFs about him.
But I'm already awake. And so is that small core who is ideologically willing to oppose the evil of the Israeli govt.
Even today the Kahanists are a very small minority even within the Israeli right. Most members of the Israeli so-called right haven't awakened, and still think Likud is the best/only choice.
You might be confusing the situation of America with that of Israel. In America, people wake up and then their 'angry letters' 'lobbying' calling congressman, staging rallies and protests, etc, all exercises of the democratic system, actually affect change. This type of "cab driver criticism" really does achieve things in America. It doesn't in Israel.
OK, here is what I mean. Most Israelis will not stand up and physically resist evil left-wing decisions. They certainly are willing to stand UP for evil left-wing policies though. During the Second Lebanon War, even at the height of the Hezbollah missile barrage across the northern half of Israel, the streets of Tel Aviv were jam-packed with freaks and mutants railing against the "targeting of Lebanese civilians". I don't even need to count the times that all public life in Israel has been brought to a standstill by Histadrut commie strikes. If the right used even half of that much force and strength in Israel, it would be almost impossible for evil Bolsheviks to implement what they do.
So that is irrelevant. It means nothing in Israel. It does not stop the judicial tyranny there. The more leftwing govt, the more leftwing judicial tyranny and evil policy, plain and simple. "Awake" or not, a person in Israel has to be willing. Only a small core in the rightwing is.
Yes, you are sadly correct. The vast majority of Israelis have been raised to be obedient to the "Jewish democracy" of the Israeli government--left, right, and center. There are plenty of Israelis who in their hearts are as right-wing as we are, but any sort of resistance is simply unthinkable to them. It's not even on their radar.
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