Israel Palestine Infos
Uri
Avnery
July
14,
2012
Two
Faces.
TWO
FORMER
Prime
Ministers
of
They
also
raise
a
universal
question:
which
is
preferable
-
an
honest
fanatic
or
a
corrupt
pragmatist?
YITZHAK
SHAMIR
died
two
weeks
ago
and
was
buried
in
the
cemetery
of
the
“Great
of
the
Nation”
in
When
I
described
him
on TV as “the
most
successful
terrorist
of
the
20th
century”,
the
interviewer
raised
his
eyebrows.
But
it
was
an
accurate
description.
Shamir
was
not
a
great
thinker.
In
his
teens
he
joined
the
right-wing
Zionist
youth
organization
of
Vladimir
Jabotinsky
in
We
both
joined
the
Irgun
underground
at
the
same
time.
I
was
too
young
to
take
part
in
actual
terrorist
actions,
he,
eight
years
my
senior,
carried
them
out.
At
the
time,
the
Irgun
killed
scores
of
Arab
men,
women
and
children
in
attacks
on
Arab
markets,
in
retaliation
for
Arab
attacks
on
Jewish
civilians.
We
defied
the
policy
of
“self-restraint”
ordered
by
the
Zionist
leadership.
In
the
summer
of
1940
the
Irgun
split.
One
of
the
commanders,
Avraham
Stern,
founded
the
organization
known to
the
British
as
the
“Stern
Gang”.
(Eventually
it
was
called
LEHI,
acronym
for
Fighters
for
the
Freedom
of
Stern
was
a
logical
person.
The
aim
was
to
set
up
a
Jewish
state
in
all
of
I
could
not
accept
this
atrocious
logic
and
did
not
join,
though
the
temptation
was
there.
Shamir
did.
He
was
caught
and
imprisoned
(unlike
Stern
himself,
who
was
caught
and
shot
on
the
spot).
Within
a
short
time,
virtually
all
the
members
of
the
organization
were
killed
or
arrested.
The
group
ceased
to
exist
–
until
Shamir
and
a
colleague,
Eliahu
Giladi,
broke
out.
The
two
acted
together
and
brought
LEHI
to
life
again.
One
day
Shamir
had
Giladi
tried
and
shot.
Giladi
was
not
accused
of
treason,
but,
on
the
contrary
-
of
excessive
zeal.
He
made
plans
for
revolutionary
actions,
such
as
killing
David
Ben-Gurion
and
the
entire
Zionist
leadership.
Shamir
decided
that
his
adventurous
nature
endangered
the
organization
and
that
he
must
be
removed.
Afterwards Shamir
named
his
daughter
Gilada.
Many
years
later
I
asked
him
which
historical
personality
he
admired
most.
He
answered
without
hesitation:
Lenin.
I
understood
that
he
admired
him
because
Lenin
ruthlessly
followed
the
maxim
“the
end
justifies
the
means”.
Shamir
was
one
of
LEHI’s
three
leaders.
He
was
responsible
for
operations
and
organization,
meticulously
building
a
deliberately
small
group
of
selected
individuals,
executing
incredibly
daring
actions.
He
himself
planned
every
single
operation
in
the
greatest
detail.
The
most
famous
was
the
assassination
of
Lord
Moyne,
the
senior
British
functionary
in
the
Middle
East,
in
He
was
arrested
again
when
the
British
shut
down
Tel
Aviv
and
conducted
a
house-to-house
search.
Shamir
was
well
disguised
but
could
not
hide
his
most
obvious
characteristic:
he
was
very
small,
almost
a
dwarf,
with
a
big,
strong
head.
The
soldiers
were
instructed
to
arrest
every man
below
a
certain
height.
This
time
he
was
sent
to
a
detention
camp
in
LEHI
never
amounted
to
more
than
a
few
hundred
members.
But
it
played
a
major
role
in
driving
the
British
out
of
this
country.
IN
Once
I
decided
to
stage
a
small
demonstration
in
the
Knesset.
I
wore
under
my
jacket
a
t-shirt
saying
“Peace
is
better
than
a
Greater
When
Begin
made
peace
with
As
prime
minister,
his
most
outstanding
achievement
was
to
do
nothing,
except
building
settlements
–
quietly
and
unobtrusively.
Under
American
pressure,
he
attended
the
He
did
not
dream
of
making
peace,
which
would
have
drawn
frontiers
and
barred
the
way
to
Greater
Remarkably,
this
man,
who
joined
the
Irgun
(like
me)
in
protest
against
“self-restraint”,
exercised
self-restraint
par
excellence
when
Saddam
Hussein
rained
missiles
on
His
other
great
achievement
was
preventing
Jews
from
reaching
the
For
a
short
time
he
was
the
mentor
of
the
young
Binyamin
Netanyahu,
but
then
he
came
to
detest
him.
After
Netanyahu
made
a
small
tactical
concession
to
the
Arabs,
he
called
him
“Angel
of
Destruction”.
One
may
assume
that
he
was
also
disgusted
by
Netanyahu’s
penchant
for
luxury.
When
not
lying
for
the
fatherland,
Shamir
was
straight
as
a
ramrod,
living
in
utmost
modesty.
There
never
was
–
or
could
be
–
even
the
slightest
hint
of
corruption.
Which
leads
us
straight
to
Ehud
Olmert.
ONCE
upon
a
time
there
was
a
Minister
of
Education,
Zalman
Aran,
who
was
known
for
his
dry
humor.
A
party
functionary
once
came
up
to
him
and
said:
“Ziama,
you
can
congratulate
me.
I
have
been
acquitted!”
“Strange,”
Aran
replied,
“I
have
never
been
acquitted!”
Olmert
has
been
acquitted
many
times.
During
his
entire
career,
he
has
danced
from
one
acquittal
to
the
next.
This
week
it
happened
again.
After
a
long
trial,
in
which
he
was
accused
on
five
different
counts
of
corruption,
he
was
acquitted
of
four.
One
concerned
his
habit
of
letting
himself
be
invited
by
several
charity
organizations
to
lecture
in
the
US,
and
letting
all
of
them
pay
separately
for
the
same
first
class
ticket
(using
the
surplus
for
his
family’s
private
outings.)
Another
count:
reporting
to
the
State
Comptroller
that
his
collection
of
expensive
pens
was
worth
a
tenth
of
its
real
value.
The
district
court
decided
to
acquit
him
on
all
counts
for
lack
of
proof,
except
one:
that
as
Minister
of
Industry
he
had
favored
the
clients
of
his
close
friend,
who
obliged
him
by
keeping
a
large
amount
of
cash
stashed
away
in
his
safe.
Olmert
celebrated
his
partial
acquittal
as
a
great
victory.
The
media
–
the
same
media
which
celebrated
his
indictment
when
it
all
started
–
are
taking
part
in
the
celebration.
He
is
still
awaiting
the
outcome
of
an
even
bigger
trial.
The
accusation,
this
time:
taking
bribes
for
the
building
of
a
huge
multi-billion
architectural
monster
in
the
center
of
Among
the
outcries
against
the
Attorney
General
in
the
media
was
the
accusation
that
he,
a
mere
civil
servant,
had
toppled
an
incumbent
Prime
Minister
on
trumped-up
charges.
Worse,
that
he
had
done
so
just
when
Olmert
was
about
to
make
peace
with
the
Palestinians.
Nonsense.
In
his
years
in
the
Prime
Minister’s
office,
during
which
he
initiated
two
dirty
wars
(
However,
Olmert
is
already
hinting
that
after
his
next
acquittal
he
will
return
to
political
life.
SHAMIR,
THE
dead
honest
fanatic,
has
many
followers.
Olmert,
the
living
corrupt
pragmatist,
has
very
few.
Netanyahu, their current successor, has the vices of both and the virtues of
neither.