Why didn't he? It isn't as if the jihadists didn't make their intentions clear -- as if they weren't clear already. This just underscores the willful blindness that afflicts virtually all of the ruling class, all over the West as well as in Israel, and shows how policy blunders follow from an unwillingness to name the enemy properly.
"Peres: I didn't imagine Qassams would be fired from Gaza after pullout," by Lily Galili for Haaretz (thanks to WriterMom):
"Although in '98 everything seemed dark because of Rabin's murder, I believed we could still move the peace process ahead more quickly. I did not think we'd have so many problems. I believed the separation between the West Bank and Gaza would make things easier, not harder. I did not imagine that we would leave Gaza and they would fire Qassams from there; I did not imagine that Hamas would show so strongly in the elections." [...]We asked Peres to name what he thought were his greatest achievements. His response: relations with France, Operation Kadesh, Israel Aerospace Industries, the Dimona nuclear reactor, defense research, Entebbe, rehabilitation of the army after the Yom Kippur War, overcoming the inflation of the 1980s, peace with Jordan, Oslo, and the establishment of cities like Upper Nazareth.
Ruby just smiled and said, "Ah, you know some babies never learn."
Oslo? Wouldn't that also then validate the the peanut farmer? Oy!
The blood of the citizens of the free world are on the hands of the leaders who refuse to secure their respective countries..
I could have told him that. Land for peace never works, appeasement never works.
Has Rabin been consulting with Dhimmi Carter?..
Oslo. O.M.F.G.
Astounding stupidity.
Dumber than a doughnut.
"I did not think we'd have so many problems.."
apparently he has not studied the history of the last 1400 years...especially the history concerning the Muslims with regards to the Jews.
when the Muslims had stones , they threw stones
When the Muslims had swords, they used them
when the Muslims had arrows, they sent arrows flying
when the Muslims had rifles , they sent bullets
when the Muslims had cannons , they fired the cannons
When the Muslims had tanks, they sent the tanks
When the Muslims had jets, they sent the jets
when the Muslims had suicide bombers, they sent them
when the Muslims had RPGs, they used them
Next on the list are chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and no doubt they will send them..
and mush for brains Peres says,:"I did not think we'd have so many problems"
Israel had better do some serious thinking, and do it fast. make a note: Send Peres to the funny farm for a vacation..
Now what is the definition of insanity again?
Peres is a man of peace. It's hard for anyone to imagine that people ie Islamists - are so enamoured of hatred that they would deliberately choose murder over living a good life.
Let's face it, that is perversion and emotionally healthy people cannot understand it.
Unfortunately most Israeli politicians - contrary to the views of much of the world - are trained to regard Palestinians as humans who want to live, not as Islamic automatons who want dead Jews above all else.
And also unfortunately, the Palestinians who do want a life tend to be murdered by the PLO/Hamas types infuriated that life means more to them than dead Jews.
Of course, many Palestinians want a good life on the bodies of dead Jews...
When The Fool of Chelm Is At The Helm, Or, What Peres Did, He Undid
"Although in '98 everything seemed dark because of Rabin's murder, I believed we could still move the peace process ahead more quickly. I did not think we'd have so many problems. I believed the separation between the West Bank and Gaza would make things easier, not harder. I did not imagine that we would leave Gaza and they would fire Qassams from there; I did not imagine that Hamas would show so strongly in the elections."
-- from the inteview with Shimon Peres in Ha'aretz by Lily Galili
Since Ehud Olmert is a bit indisposed, the honors have fallen to Shimon Peres. It is he who as President of Israel has met with foreign journalists to remind them – and they do need reminding – of what Israel has achieved in the sixty years of its existence. Seven hot wars and two intifadas, along with unceasing economic and diplomatic warfare did not prevent Israel from becoming the refuge and hope for Jews, and, despite having no natural resources – no oil, for example, to match the trillions that its mortal enemies pile up thanks not to any industriousness or entrepreneurial flair or inventive genius, but purely to an accident of geology – an example to the rest of the world, of how to build a nation-state. And this building has been achieved not because of, but despite, having a political class unworthy of its citizens, a problem not confined to Israel.
One member of that permanent class is Shimon Peres. For the past three decades Shimon Peres has not only played the fool, but has been the fool. Perhaps now, at long last, after the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, reality has begun to sunk in. At least he has publicly admitted of his surprise – he, Peres, is always being surprised – at what happened in Gaza once the Israelis left, abandoning Jewish towns (not “settlements” but towns), which was, of course, what anyone of sense could, and did, predict. And it is exactly the lesson of Gaza that applies to the “West Bank,” though perhaps Shimon Peres is incapable of drawing that conclusion. He certainly cannot, at this point, begin to ponder the Islamic basis for Arab and Muslim opposition –murderous opposition – to the permanent existence of Israel. It would be too painful. He can’t do it.
Shall we let bygones be bygones? Shall those who care about the survival of Israel pay attention, on this anniverary, in a spirit of untruth and reconciliation, to what Peres did that was right, long ago, when he helped create Israel’s essential, never-to-be-surrendered nuclear deterrent, and ignore the way he has been, the damage he has done, for the past thirty years, ever since Sadat came to Israel to be hailed as Saint Sadat, Prince of Peace?
No, we shouldn’t. Like Ariel Sharon, who founded Unit 101 and successfully suppressed terror from Jordan, and in the 1948 war and 1967 war and 1973 war was a spectacular commander, but who in his last years expelled Jewish villagers, and tore down their villages and towns, and provided the precedent of the Gaza surrender, and Ehud Olmert, and thus did damage that may have outweighed the good he once did. And Shimon Peres, who in the 1950s helped foster the nuclear-weapons project, by his later words and deeds, undid whatever good he may once have done.
In his famous speech (“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water…”) in "Antony and Cleopatra" , Enobarbus ends with an image of those pretty dimpled boys, fanning Cleopatra and her retinue, cooling them down but at the same time heating them up, so that “what they undid, did.”
It’s the same with Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, but in scansion-smashing reverse: “What they did, they undid.”
Those who still don’t know what folly Peres encouraged need to take a look at “Shimon Says,” a compilation, by Rael Jean Isaac and Roger Gerber, of his most self-damning remarks:
"Peres views himself as a visionary (he has stated, "I got a license to become a dreamer")2 and is someone who speaks him mind openly. In view of his central position in Israeli political life, and in the Oslo process especially, we offer a sampling of some characteristically idiosyncratic utterances in recent years.
PEACE PROCESS
This is not a negotiation of give and take because Israel has something to give but has nothing to take.3
I don't think we should judge the process by the performance of Yasir Arafat. We're not negotiating with Yasir Arafat. We're negotiating with ourselves.4
Papers are papers and realities are realities. We cannot judge the PLO and its leader just by what he is saying. Would we do so, we would be completely wrong and we would be in troubles.5
[Responding to an interviewer who asked "Are you saying that what Arafat told you in Oslo is sufficient, that he does not have to sign any new commitments?"] I am not a notary who writes affidavits.6
[Asked about Arab statements that there would be no peace without an Arab Jerusalem]: These are only words. Let them talk.7
[Reacting to an Arab song, "Zionist, your death is in my hands"]: There are those who sing and those who shoot. I'm checking out those who shoot.8
THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
We are going to copy a European example which is called Benelux. I hope the relations between the Jordanians, the Palestinians, and us will be very much of the same nature that exists in Benelux.9
A Middle East where holiness will overcome oiliness . . .10
[In Gaza] a dynamic reconstruction has started. . . . Women are throwing away their veils and are going swimming in the sea.11
STRATEGY
I have always tended to be overly optimistic.12
An army that can occupy knowledge has yet to be built. And that is why armies of occupation are passé.13
It is no wonder that war, as a matter of conducting human affairs, is in its death throes and that the time has come to bury it.14
Anyone who wants peace and security will get neither.15
It was a mistake to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq.16
Between ten bunkers and ten hotels, ten hotels are also defense.17
ECONOMICS
We claim that the United States and Europe became so productive that the only thing you can really produce is unemployment. The more productive you are becoming, the more unemployed people you are having. The time has come to export your unemployment.18
In technology, we have an advantage over the former Soviet Union, because our technology is more advanced. We have an advantage over the United States, because our prices are less capitalistic.19
DEMOCRACY
As a protégé of David Ben-Gurion, I subscribe to his philosophy that "I may not know what the people want; I do know what is good for the people."20
ZIONISM
We are discovering that all the things we are fighting for are not so important.21
The more we give up land, we discover we have more Ph.D.s per kilometer -- so we are going to make a living on the Ph.D.s and not on the mileage.22
We live in a world where markets are more important than countries.23
POLITICS
[To those who disagree with his vision]: It's a changed world and . . . you are out of date.24
[In the Knesset, to Benjamin Netanyahu]: You were in America and you are still in a daze. You have just come back and, believe you me, you have not got a clue what we are talking about.25
THE FUTURE
We are in transition from a world of identifiable enemies to one of unidentifiable problems.26
What we have to do is to economize our policies, and not to politicize our economies, which is so costly and so expensive. Dictatorship, nowadays, is so expensive that only rich countries can afford it. Poor countries can hardly suffer it -- with an outsized secret service, the censorship, the permanent control, the worries, the suspicion, the narrowness, the closeness, the ignorance.27
I have become totally tired of history, because I feel history is a long misunderstanding.28
SHIMON PERES
I feel in some ways the most independent political figure in Israel. Nobody can add to what I have done, and nobody can take away from what I did.29
[Describing his courtship]: Her name was Sonia, and she was eventually to become my wife. I sought to impress her by reading to her, sometimes by the light of the moon, selected passages from Marx's Das Kapital.30
1 Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 170.
2 Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1994.
3 Statement before the 50th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, Feb. 10, 1994.
4 Jewish Week (New York), June 2, 1994.
5 Heritage (Los Angeles), June 3, 1994.
6 Israel Radio, May 23, 1994.
7 Speech in New York City, May 23, 1994.
8 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, Feb. 3, 1996.
9 Address to Council of the Socialist International, Oct. 6, 1993.
10 Remarks to Fourth Business Forum Conference, Jerusalem, Feb. 28, 1994.
11 Die Welt, July 14, 1995.
12 Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993), p. 18.
13 Remarks on acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, Dec. 10, 1994.
14 Ibid.
15 The Jerusalem Post, May 7, 1995.
16 Ha'aretz, Dec. 24, 1995.
17 Ha'aretz, Jan. 29, 1996.
18 Speech to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Feb. 2, 1994.
19 Remarks before the Knesset Economic Committee on the Arab Boycott, Feb. 21, 1994.
20 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, Dec. 23, 1995.
21 Jewish Week, June 2, 1994.
22 Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1994.
23 Ibid.
24 Speech in New York City, May 23, 1994.
25 IBA television, Jerusalem, Aug. 30, 1995.
26 The New Middle East, p. 82.
27 Remarks to Fourth Business Forum Conference, Jerusalem, Feb. 28, 1994.
28 The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 1994.
29 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, July 16, 1994.
30 Battling for Peace, p. 25.
So Shimon Peres when young used to court his wife by reading aloud to her aloud from "Das Kapital." Note to froggies who would a-wooing go: apparently it worked. One would like to know what other texts Peres found particularly useful in his later celebrated womanizing. Possibly Lenin on Renegade Kautsky? Or excerpts from Stalin's "Short Course"?
Physically Shimon Peres reminds one of Chico Marx. Mentally Peres reminds one of the Fool of Chelm. And for too long, in Israel, over the past 30 years when he started to undo what he had done, Shimon Peres has been near – or even at – the helm.
"I did not imagine that we would leave Gaza and they would fire Qassams from there;"
What?!? If he had said, I don’t think the sun will rise tomorrow, I’d say he was less a fool then saying "I did not imagine that we would leave Gaza and they would fire Qassams from there;"
"Ruby just smiled and said, "Ah, you know some babies never learn."
Hahah! Love the reference to Dylan's "Brownsville Girl". Knocked Out Loaded wasn't one of his best albums, but like even his worst albums, there are a few great cuts like Brownsville Girl and Precious Memories.
And yes, some babies never learn!
Of course Peres is surprised at Gazan aggressions, so is Olmert, so is Carter, Condi et al.
Islamic aggression is so disturbing and horrific that the normal mind recoils from it by retreating into ‘denial’ mode. Olmert or Peres is no different from most leaders who do not want to confront the truth about Islam’s aggressions usually cloaked under the banner of ‘self defense’, which makes for a laughable disconnect of logic, since they initiate conditions of aggression in the first. They push with their subtle or overt aggressions until the victim (the real victims of aggression, not the faked ‘victimhood’ Islamic card played) recoils and starts to push back. Then, voila! If the real victim is pushing back, now the Islamic response is ‘self defense’! This can only happen in Islam’s convoluted invert logic, where they are always in ‘self defense’ mode while they aggressively attack others. No wonder normal human beings go into ‘denial’ mode. Islam’s devilishly sleazy evil tactics of attack makes one crazy. A crazy non-religion driving the world into craziness mirror image of Islam’s aggressive ‘victimhood’ is enough to make anyone crazy, just like they are. What normal reason can one expect from the insane? Islam is insane, and there is no peace with such psychopathic aggressions insanity.
Until the leaders of non-dysfunctional countries (non-Islamic) grapple with the fact they are dealing with a regressively primitive 7th century mentality of dysfunctional world conquest imperative bound by a perpetually ‘self defense’ aggression as dictated by their warlord Prophet, which renders all their arguments insane; the only recourse left is to go into ‘denial’ mode to cope with the insanity. Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other pockets of Islamic madness are great case studies in social insanity for future historians, if we survive their ‘self defense’ against us.
Since Ehud Olmert is a bit indisposed, the honors for the 60th Anniversary have fallen to Shimon Peres. It is he who as President of Israel has met with foreign journalists to remind them – and they do need reminding – of what Israel has achieved in the sixty years of its existence. Seven hot wars and two intifadas, along with unceasing economic and diplomatic warfare did not prevent Israel from becoming the refuge and hope for Jews, and, despite having no natural resources – no oil, for example, to match the trillions that its mortal enemies pile up thanks not to any industriousness or entrepreneurial flair or inventive genius, but purely to an accident of geology – an example to the rest of the world, of how to build a nation-state. And this building has been achieved not because of, but despite, having a political class unworthy of its citizens, a problem not confined to Israel.
One member of that permanent class is Shimon Peres. For the past three decades Shimon Peres has not only played the fool, but has been the fool. Perhaps now, at long last, after the thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, reality has begun to sunk in. At least he has publicly admitted of his surprise – he, Peres, is always being surprised – at what happened in Gaza once the Israelis left, abandoning Jewish towns (not “settlements” but towns), which was, of course, what anyone of sense could, and did, predict. And it is exactly the lesson of Gaza that applies to the “West Bank,” though perhaps Shimon Peres is incapable of drawing that conclusion. He certainly cannot, at this point, begin to ponder the Islamic basis for Arab and Muslim opposition –murderous opposition – to the permanent existence of Israel. It would be too painful. He can’t do it.
Shall we let bygones be bygones? Shall we focus on what Peres did that was right, long ago, when he helped create Israel’s essential, never-to-be-surrendered nuclear deterrent? No, we shouldn’t. Like Ariel Sharon who founded Unit 101, which suppressed terror from Jordan, and in the 1948 war and 1967 war and 1973 war was a spectacular commander, but who in his last years expelled Jewish villagers, and tore down their villages and towns, and provided the precedent of the Gaza surrender, and Ehud Olmert, and thus did damage that may have outweighed the good he once did. And Shimon Peres, who in the 1950s helped foster the nuclear-weapons project, by his later words and deeds, undid whatever good he may once have done.
In that famous speech of Enobarbus (“The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water…”), he ends with an image of those pretty smiling boys, fanning Cleopatra and her retinue, cooling them down but at the same time heating them up, so that “what they undid, did.”
It’s the same with Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, but in scansion-smashing reverse: “What they did, they then undid.”
Those who still don’t know what folly Peres encouraged need to take a look at “Shimon Says,” a compilation, by Rael Jean Isaac and Roger Gerber, of his most self-damning remarks:
"Peres views himself as a visionary (he has stated, "I got a license to become a dreamer")2 and is someone who speaks him mind openly. In view of his central position in Israeli political life, and in the Oslo process especially, we offer a sampling of some characteristically idiosyncratic utterances in recent years.
PEACE PROCESS
This is not a negotiation of give and take because Israel has something to give but has nothing to take.3
I don't think we should judge the process by the performance of Yasir Arafat. We're not negotiating with Yasir Arafat. We're negotiating with ourselves.4
Papers are papers and realities are realities. We cannot judge the PLO and its leader just by what he is saying. Would we do so, we would be completely wrong and we would be in troubles.5
[Responding to an interviewer who asked "Are you saying that what Arafat told you in Oslo is sufficient, that he does not have to sign any new commitments?"] I am not a notary who writes affidavits.6
[Asked about Arab statements that there would be no peace without an Arab Jerusalem]: These are only words. Let them talk.7
[Reacting to an Arab song, "Zionist, your death is in my hands"]: There are those who sing and those who shoot. I'm checking out those who shoot.8
THE NEW MIDDLE EAST
We are going to copy a European example which is called Benelux. I hope the relations between the Jordanians, the Palestinians, and us will be very much of the same nature that exists in Benelux.9
A Middle East where holiness will overcome oiliness . . .10
[In Gaza] a dynamic reconstruction has started. . . . Women are throwing away their veils and are going swimming in the sea.11
STRATEGY
I have always tended to be overly optimistic.12
An army that can occupy knowledge has yet to be built. And that is why armies of occupation are passé.13
It is no wonder that war, as a matter of conducting human affairs, is in its death throes and that the time has come to bury it.14
Anyone who wants peace and security will get neither.15
It was a mistake to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq.16
Between ten bunkers and ten hotels, ten hotels are also defense.17
ECONOMICS
We claim that the United States and Europe became so productive that the only thing you can really produce is unemployment. The more productive you are becoming, the more unemployed people you are having. The time has come to export your unemployment.18
In technology, we have an advantage over the former Soviet Union, because our technology is more advanced. We have an advantage over the United States, because our prices are less capitalistic.19
DEMOCRACY
As a protégé of David Ben-Gurion, I subscribe to his philosophy that "I may not know what the people want; I do know what is good for the people."20
ZIONISM
We are discovering that all the things we are fighting for are not so important.21
The more we give up land, we discover we have more Ph.D.s per kilometer -- so we are going to make a living on the Ph.D.s and not on the mileage.22
We live in a world where markets are more important than countries.23
POLITICS
[To those who disagree with his vision]: It's a changed world and . . . you are out of date.24
[In the Knesset, to Benjamin Netanyahu]: You were in America and you are still in a daze. You have just come back and, believe you me, you have not got a clue what we are talking about.25
THE FUTURE
We are in transition from a world of identifiable enemies to one of unidentifiable problems.26
What we have to do is to economize our policies, and not to politicize our economies, which is so costly and so expensive. Dictatorship, nowadays, is so expensive that only rich countries can afford it. Poor countries can hardly suffer it -- with an outsized secret service, the censorship, the permanent control, the worries, the suspicion, the narrowness, the closeness, the ignorance.27
I have become totally tired of history, because I feel history is a long misunderstanding.28
SHIMON PERES
I feel in some ways the most independent political figure in Israel. Nobody can add to what I have done, and nobody can take away from what I did.29
[Describing his courtship]: Her name was Sonia, and she was eventually to become my wife. I sought to impress her by reading to her, sometimes by the light of the moon, selected passages from Marx's Das Kapital.30
1 Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 170.
2 Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1994.
3 Statement before the 50th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Geneva, Feb. 10, 1994.
4 Jewish Week (New York), June 2, 1994.
5 Heritage (Los Angeles), June 3, 1994.
6 Israel Radio, May 23, 1994.
7 Speech in New York City, May 23, 1994.
8 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, Feb. 3, 1996.
9 Address to Council of the Socialist International, Oct. 6, 1993.
10 Remarks to Fourth Business Forum Conference, Jerusalem, Feb. 28, 1994.
11 Die Welt, July 14, 1995.
12 Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1993), p. 18.
13 Remarks on acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, Dec. 10, 1994.
14 Ibid.
15 The Jerusalem Post, May 7, 1995.
16 Ha'aretz, Dec. 24, 1995.
17 Ha'aretz, Jan. 29, 1996.
18 Speech to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Feb. 2, 1994.
19 Remarks before the Knesset Economic Committee on the Arab Boycott, Feb. 21, 1994.
20 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, Dec. 23, 1995.
21 Jewish Week, June 2, 1994.
22 Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1994.
23 Ibid.
24 Speech in New York City, May 23, 1994.
25 IBA television, Jerusalem, Aug. 30, 1995.
26 The New Middle East, p. 82.
27 Remarks to Fourth Business Forum Conference, Jerusalem, Feb. 28, 1994.
28 The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 1994.
29 The Jerusalem Post International Edition, July 16, 1994.
30 Battling for Peace, p. 25.
There's more. Shimon Peres is the man who when young used to have a picture of Marx on his wall, and in courting his wife recalled reading to her aloud from "Das Kapital." Apparently it worked.
Physically he reminds one of Chico Marx. Mentally he reminds one of the Fool of Chelm. And for too long, in Israel, near – or even at – the helm.
The wife must have been something to be wooed over by renditions of 'Das Kapital'. Was his daughter wooed with readings of 'Kommunist Manifesto'?
And of course that is most likely because Mr. Peres personally bought the line that the 'Palestinians' want a sovereign state when in fact in reality what they want is to turn Israel into the ummah along with Lebanon and the remainder of the non-Muslim world.
It is easy for us here to criticize Mr. Peres, nd to some extent he does deserve to be criticized as it is astounding that he hasn't awakened to the "REAL" Islam and its evil shenanigans and skullduggeries by now. But the reality is that the entire world itself is continually buying Islam's lies and brainwashing, more and more with each passing day--if only out of sheer cowardice.
The American people must somehow take the leadership role in countering Islam's spreading reign of terror and propaganda (that is if they truly expect the world's democracies to survive). Israel is so tiny and vulnerable it really isn't altogether fair to expect it to do much more than it already has (which in some ways is an extraordinary amount).
Israel is so tiny and vulnerable it really isn't altogether fair to expect it to do much more than it already has (which in some ways is an extraordinary amount).
Posted by: pythagoras at May 8, 2008 3:30 PM
Indeed, pythagoras, as I am sure you recall how the "civilized world" vilified Israel when they took out Saddam's nuke facility.
I wonder what percentage of the Bush administration is quietly praying Israel does the same thing now to Iran, because GW doesn't have the (resolve, smarts ... take your pic) to do the job that MUST be done.
I have read Das Kapital, in translation, a long time ago.
It was EXCRUCIATINGLY boring. It was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Five to ten pages was the most I could handle at a time - beyond that, one felt an overpowering desire to sleep.
From above: It was EXCRUCIATINGLY boring. It was one of the most boring books I've ever read. Five to ten pages was the most I could handle at a time - beyond that, one felt an overpowering desire to sleep.
I get that reading the Quran. It's a good thing I can read while sleeping, or I would never get through it.
Peres is more empty-headed than the doughnut hole.
Enough knocking doughnuts.
Damn.
Jews are usually known for their fertile imaginations.. call it a positive prejudice if you will.
This Shimon Perez guy is putting all of that to shame.
How do these lame-brains ever get into office?
Even *I* could have told him that they would fire rockets if they could. And worse if their means allowed.
This sudden realization of obviously foreseeable results gives "dhimmi" a whole new meaning.