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Peace Process

Landau: Israel is disengaging from Zionism


By Ryan Jones
September 09, 2005

Senior Likud MK and party platform loyalist Uzi Landau said this week that despite the fact that polls show him to be unelectable, he has no choice but to seek the prime minister's chair in an effort to end government corruption and return Israel to its Zionist roots.

In an interview published Friday in The Jerusalem Post, Landau said the ?disengagement? from Gaza and northern Samaria was not a one-time event, but represented a disengagement from Zionism.

?The withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria...is not merely a geographical pullout, but the beginning of a process of withdrawal from Zionism,? Landau told the Post's Ruthie Blum.

The phenomenon was a ?spiritual withdrawal from Jewish-Zionist values.?

?An entire culture of educating generations of pioneers to settle the country...is crumbling before our very eyes,? the respected politician lamented.

A major part of that process had been a concerted effort to demonize the Jewish settlers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, people who were once regarded as ?Zionists at their best.?

Far from the dens of radicalism the leftist media made them out to be, Landau remembered fondly the former Gaza Jewish communities as ?a different Israel, characterized by mutual respect and compassion and living by 'honor thy father and mother.'?

But in what he could only describe as a mockery of democracy, the Sharon government broke all its election promises, adopted the platform of its defeated left-wing rivals, and destroyed this shining example of Israeli Jewish culture.

More than that, the ?bureaucratic nightmares? and uncertainty Gaza's Jewish refugees are now being made to bear for the sake of ?peace? is nothing less than ?a human tragedy.?

Amid these efforts to ostracize once revered pioneers and the destructive effect being had on Israeli society as a whole, Landau felt he must become prime minister and put Israel back on its original path.

To that end he has joined forces with fellow Likud leadership candidate Binyamin Netanyahu in order to ensure early party primaries this November, where the Likud Central Committee is expected to remove Sharon from his position of power.

Despite his solid integrity, most Israelis still view Landau as a long shot due to his lack of charisma.

To that he responds: ?Was Harry Truman charismatic? No. Did he have integrity? Yes. Did he not get to be president of the United States??

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