Natan Sharansky

From AICbackground

You are Natan Sharanksky

Member of Israel's Likud Party

Quotes

"I am optimistic that peace can be achieved in the region because I believe that every society on earth can be free and that if freedom comes to the Middle East, there can be peace. Thus, the potential for peace is there."

"The battle is not between Israel and the Palestinians or between the United States and Iraq. Rather, the current fight pits the world of freedom against the world of terror."

"I am convinced that all peoples desire to be free. I am convinced that freedom anywhere will make the world safer everywhere. And I am convinced that democratic nations, led by the United States, have a critical role to play in expanding freedom around the globe."

"Oslo failed because the democratic world, including Israel, thought that peace could be made with a dictatorship. The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel."

Early Years and Education

You were born January 20, 1948 in Donetsk, Ukraine to a Jewish family. You graduated with a degree in mathematics from the Physical Technical Institute in Moscow. You worked as an English interpreter for the great Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, and later became a champion of Soviet Jewry and a worker for human rights. In 1973, you applied for an exit visa to Israel, but were refused on “security” grounds. You remained involved in Jewish refusenik activities until your arrest in 1977. In 1978, you were convicted of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, and were sentenced to thirteen years in prison. You spent 16 months in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, frequently in solitary confinement and in a special “torture cell,” before being transferred to a notorious prison camp in the Siberian gulag.

During the years of your imprisonment, you became a symbol for human rights in general and Soviet Jewry in particular. A campaign for your release was waged tirelessly by your wife, Avital, who emigrated to Israel immediately following your wedding. Intense diplomatic efforts and public outcries for your release were unsuccessful until 1986, when you were released as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. You were met on the border of a still-divided Germany by the Israeli ambassador who gave you your new Israeli passport under the Hebrew name of Natan Sharansky. You were given a hero's welcome when you arrived in Israel on February 11, 1986, greeted by leading government officials including then Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

Public Life

In 1988, you were elected President of the newly created Zionist Forum, the umbrella organization of former Soviet activists. You also served as an associate editor of the Jerusalem Report. You wrote frequently about your disappointment with Israel's absorption of the large influx of Soviet Jews, and in 1995 you created a new political party, Yisrael b'Aliyah, dedicated to helping immigrants' professional, economic and social acculturation. In the elections the following year, the party won seven Knesset seats, and you were named Minister of Industry and Trade (June 1996-1999). This political position instantly made you an influential figure in Israeli politics during the 1990s, owing to the massive influx of Soviet Jews into Israel following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Many of these new Jewish immigrants lacked technical training that would enable them to succeed in the Israeli economy, and more importantly, very few of these immigrants were capable of quickly learning enough Hebrew to absorb into the greater Israeli society. This led to the creation of Russian enclaves within the Jewish state, where to this day many Russian Jews keep largely to themselves and do not feel strongly connected to the Hebrew-speaking Middle Eastern society of the state of Israel. As a firm believer in Israel who also kept in touch with Russian roots, you were well suited to bridging the gap between these Russian immigrants and their new adopted culture, though only time will tell how successful your efforts have been.

You served as Minister of the Interior from July 1999 until your resignation from the Ehud Barak Labor government in July 2000. You left this coalition because Barak was toying with the possibility of revoking Israeli control over parts of Jerusalem, which you feel is the eternal capital of the Jewish state. Generally, you opposed Labor after this period because you grew increasingly disenchanted with the Palestinian Authority represented by Yasser Arafat, which you felt condoned terrorism and generally did not present itself as an honest broker in the Oslo/Madrid peace process.

You served as Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime Minister from March 2001 until February 2003 in the first government of Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was elected with a clear mandate to suppress the violence in the Occupied Territories and generally try to secure by force the peace which eluded Israel at the bargaining table. In February 2003, you were appointed Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem social and Diaspora affairs, where you were once again able to use your expertise at negotiating the gaps between Israeli Jews and their coreligionists abroad.

You resigned from the government on May 2, 2005, because of your opposition to Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan in Gaza, which you felt would only serve to turn Gaza into a terrorist state, since in your opinion the Palestinians are not yet ready to peacefully administer a democratic state, a shortcoming which you attribute largely to the misrule of Yasser Arafat, whom you have described as a terrorist and a dictator.

In March 2006, you were re-elected to the Knesset as a member of the Likud Party, now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu and devoted to maintaining the territorial integrity of the rest of Israel, which means resisting the Kadimah-Labor coalition of Ehud Olmert, which you see as the successor-organization to Sharon’s shortsighted philosophy of losing territory without securing peace fist.

Beliefs Pertaining to the Middle East and Roleplaying Notes

You are opposed to Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and resigned from your post in the Knesset (the Israeli governing body) in protest. At the time of your resignation, you were serving as Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs, to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. You believe that one-sided concessions (giving up the Gaza strip) may lead to the development of a terrorist state in that region. In general, you are strongly against the idea of giving up any territory to the Palestinians, because you do not believe that such concessions will matter as long as the Palestinians are not represented by a democratically elected government. This faith in democracy, and more importantly, its application as a sine qua non in international relations, has been powerfully articulated in your influential autobiography, Freedom from Fear.

You wrote another book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, which widely influenced US President George W. Bush, especially at the beginning of his second term. You believe that democratic nations (with the US at the forefront) play a critical role in expanding freedom around the world. As mentioned above, you do not feel that peace in the Middle East is possible until all nations in the region are ruled by democratic governments. Given your past experiences as a citizen of Soviet Russia, however, you have a very nuanced view of democratic expression in authoritarian systems. Unlike many Israelis, who distrust their Arab neighbors with deep suspicion (bordering on racism in the far right), you believe that most Arabs probably want to live under democratic governments, and the media perception of Arabs as zealous Muslim terrorists is probably an over-simplification of the beliefs held by Muslim Arabs living under conditions of repression and dictatorship. This makes belief makes you a strong believer in the administration of George Bush, who you believe is remaking the Middle East into a democratic region the same way America instilled democratic beliefs in the Germans and Japanese following World War II.

This optimism, however, does not come at the expense of Israel, particularly Jerusalem. You are willing to meet the Arabs at the bargaining table as soon as you trust their governments, but until then you believe any concessions to Israel’s enemies will merely add fuel to the fire.

Annotated List of References

Profile: Natan Sharansky http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4506827.stm

Bush's new book for a new term http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4195303.stm The first two links are from BBC news, the first is more of a profile of Sharansky and the second focuses on the publication of his book and American reaction.

Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/sharansky.html

Knesset Members- Natan Sharansky (Likud) http://www.knesset.gov.il/mk/eng/mk_eng.asp?mk_individual_id_t=127 These next two links are biographies of Sharansky. The second, from the official Knesset website, is shorter in scope.

Natan Sharansky: "Peace Will Only Come after Freedom and Democracy" http://www.meforum.org/article/666 This interview is from an article in the Middle East Quarterly, and focuses on publication of his book and American reaction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/sharansky.html

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16319