Tag!

I was thinking about how I felt about Ariel Sharon last week.  For many of us, there is still a lot of anger at the man who was a hero and leader to many of us Settlers. We feel the hurt one feels when betrayed by a family member, and while he saved us, he also caused us tremendous pain. Personally, for many years, he was a hero to me. The time I was part of his security detail at a speaking engagement in Chicago was one of my proudest moments and greatest memories. That all changed on August 15th, 2005.  At that moment he became worse than all those that call for the evacuation of Judea and Samaria, all those that dilute the value of the life of a child just because they are raised over the "Green Line," the Pereses and Livnis and all the other Jewish Israeli politicians who would sell us out for meaningless words on a piece of paper and a Nobel Peace prize.  He became the Benedict Arnold of the Settler movement. Yet at the same time, we can't just erase the hero he once was as well. Many may have wished he would know firsthand the feeling of losing his home as well, but nobody would wish on him the fate he suffered. The irony of all the world leaders and leftist politicians sending condolences was not lost on me as I read the news last Sunday morning. There I saw 2 items in the news that seem connected, yet I haven't seen anyone else mention it.

The first item was the assault by the Arabs of Kusra on a group of Jews.
The second item being the death of former General and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

 The Jews that were attacked claim they were hiking from one Yishuv to another, while the Arabs claim that the Jews were on their way to carry out a price tag attack.  A price tag attack is an act of vandalism that has nationalistic motivations.  It is usually directed at local Arabs, or Israeli Civil Administration, to protest the evacuation of outposts and destruction of Jewish property.  According to CNN and Haaretz, these are acts of terror, on par with shooting and firebombing children.  Regardless of your position on these attacks (personally, I think they are stupid and don't help our cause), there are 3 things to keep in mind.

1. Over 90% of the attacks referred to as "Price Tag" are found to be cases of Arabs or leftists trying to frame the Right.
2.Price Tag didn't start after the Disengagement, it has actually been the policy of the Israeli government in the past.
3. The man that created and ran the original Price tag gang was none other than Ariel Sharon.

If Sharon had died 10 years ago, before he could have instituted the mass expulsion of Jews from their homes, far fewer people both in Israel and Worldwide would have mourned his death. While there would have been no mixed feelings from the right, leftists and even most Western leaders would have joined the Arab world in celebrating his death.  Until 2006, Sharon was best know for miraculous battlefield victories,  supporting the settlers to "conquer every hill," and leading Unit 101 during Israel's formative years.

That's right, since the Disengagement, the left has tried to bury one of Sharon's greatest legacies. From 1953-1955, Unit 101, under the command of Sharon carried out several deadly cross-border raids on both military and civilian targets in response to terror attacks on Israel.  The goal was to make the price of attacking Israelis so high that the Arabs could not afford to continue.  The Unit was so effective, that it was later merged with the Paratroopers, and many of their tactics are still taught to Israeli infantry and special forces today. So basically, Sharon's job, given to him by Ben-Gurion directly, was to run deadly price tag missions whenever there was an attack on Israelis, and it was effective.  For all of the Left's righteous indignation about the "price tag" attacks, it was a leftist Prime Minister, along with the etrog of the Left, Sharon, who put it to it's deadliest use in Israeli history.

Like I said at the beginning, I don't support the current version allegedly done by some of the Jews.  I think that spray-painting cars, cutting trees, and other such acts of vandalism are nothing more than criminal acts and don't discourage terror today. The idea of extracting a high cost, or institutionalizing collective punishment is nothing new in this region.  The seeds of the deterrent power of price tag attacks were sown by none other than Ariel Sharon. So while Obama and the Israeli left are sending their notes of condolence over the death of the man who fulfilled their wishes and dreams in sending Jews from their homes, let's mourn the loss of the real Ariel Sharon, the dedicated protector of Israel, who was willing to do whatever it took, and extract any price from the enemy, in defense of all of us.