Minister for Foreign Affairs on Importance of Begin

Lieberman: Important for Ministry to Study Begin

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and senior officials of the Foreign Ministry are scheduled to visit the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, Monday, to mark the 20th anniversary of the prime minister's passing on the Hebrew calendar. Lieberman said, Sunday, "There's great importance, especially at the Foreign Ministry, to study the legacy of Begin, who was an example of the combination of statesman, politician and fighter."

The deputy prime minister added, in a statment, "Like Begin, Israeli representatives around the world must not be deterred by the delegitimization campaign our enemies are trying to wage against Israel, and must fight for the truth until [we achieve] victory."

^

Begin From the State Archived

Here:

Menachem Begin was the first prime minister to have a formal legal qualification, although he never practiced as a lawyer. His legal education left a deep impression on him. It created one of the important aspects of his world view, and influenced many of his actions in foreign and domestic policy. He ensured that none of his public activities exceeded the limits of the law, and that they conformed to the decisions of the judicial system.

As prime minister, Begin determined that the law and the judicial system always stand above the government. "There are judges in Jerusalem", he declared, after the Supreme Court accepted the state's position on the expropriation of land for the Beit El settlement, in 1978. In addition, he took a great interest in the exact text of the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

In 1977, during the first months of his term of office, Begin also served as the minister of justice. During that time he recommended to President Ephraim Katzir to pardon Yehoshua Ben-Zion, on the grounds of his serious illness. Ben-Zion was the managing director of the Israel-British Bank.  Following the collapse of the bank in July 1974, he was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to 12 years in prison. In view of the public criticism, in September 1977 Begin explained to Yoel Zussman, the president
of the Supreme Court, why he had decided to recommend the pardon (Document
No. 1
http://www.archives.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/529E9FCE-F19B-4E1B-85BF-32844B50D9BA/0/Begin01.pdf%20(in (in Hebrew), ISA/G/9565/1).

Although a fervent supporter of the Greater Israel ideology, as a follower of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the Revisionist Zionist leader, Begin demanded full equality for Arab citizens within the borders of Israel. One of the expressions of that belief was his support for nominating an Arab judge to the Supreme Court. He first raised the idea when serving as minister without portfolio in Levi Eshkol's government, shortly after the Six Day War in 1967. His adviser on Arab affairs, Dr. Moshe Sharon, proposed appointing an Arab judge from one of the District Courts to the Supreme Court, and in
October 1977 Begin replied to his proposal (Document 2
http://www.archives.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/4E01876F-777C-47A9-8277-D30CC8FE729B/0/Begin02.pdf (in Hebrew), ISA/ G9566/9), but the appointment was never made. It was only in 1999 that an Arab judge, Abd er-Rachman a-Zouabi, received a temporary
appointment to the Supreme Court for the first time. In 2004 Salim Joubran was appointed to the Supreme Court (after a temporary term in 2003).

According to the peace treaty with Egypt signed in March 1979, Israel was required to evacuate all of Sinai, including its military and air force bases. Israel built new military bases in the Negev desert, including airfields, with American aid, and land previously held by Israeli Bedouin was expropriated for that purpose. At the beginning of April 1979 heavy equipment owned by the Public Works Department arrived at a location near a-Lagia to construct a road, despite the fact that Bedouin who claimed ownership of the land had earlier appealed to the Supreme Court (sitting as the High Court of Justice), which had issued an injunction against the expropriation and the beginning of construction. In addition, the police summoned the Bedouin leaders in the area to the nearest police station on the morning that construction started, thus preventing them from acting against it.

Prof. Yitzhak Zamir, the attorney-general, took disciplinary measures against the civil servants involved in violating the injunction. Some received a written reprimand and some were summoned to a disciplinary court. Chief among them was the commissioner of the Southern district in the Ministry of the Interior. Several ministers, led by Minister of the Interior Dr. Josef Burg, came to his defence, claiming that he did not know of the Supreme Court injunction.

The government discussed the issue on 29 April. Dr. Burg, who was abroad, was represented by Chaim Kubersky, director-general of the Ministry of the Interior, who read out a letter written by Burg. However, Begin declared:

"The attorney-general in the State of Israel has a special status. I don't believe that this status is based on a specific law. Due to that status, the government does not interfere in the Attorney-General's decisions." The
government would issue a statement that it "espouses the principle of the superiority of the law over all bodies in the executive branch, including the government itself" (Document 3
http://www.archives.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/CC04113E-DFF4-4E36-B729-5B1AE0759919/0/Begin03.pdf (in Hebrew), ISA/A/ 4273/3). It should be noted that the disciplinary court exonerated the commissioner of the Southern district and his colleagues in July 1980.

^

The Video Clip of the Begin Run

The Begin Run took place on Friday, February 24, 2012 with some 1400 partcipants in two lengths: 8 and 16 kilometers:



^

Begin Saves Uri Avnery

Here:

... In his first extensive interview after coming to power in 1977, Menachem Begin disclosed that 20 years earlier, when Isser Harel (nicknamed “little Isser”) was in charge of all Israeli security services, he proposed to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to put me in administrative detention as a Soviet spy. Harel had a pathological hatred for me and later wrote a whole book about it.

The accusation was quite ridiculous, because I have never in my life been a communist, nor even a Marxist. At the same time that Arthur Koestler wrote his ground-breaking book “Darkness at Noon” I, then a teenager, thought that something must be very wrong with a system which condemns almost all its founders as imperialist spies. Later, whenever an Israeli delegation was invited to Soviet Russia, the KGB struck my name out. (Viewers of the excellent British TV series “Spooks” will recognize at once that this is exactly the hallmark of a master spy.)

Ben-Gurion was not one of my greatest fans, or, to put it simply, he hated my guts. Since I attacked him every week, that was quite understandable. However, he was also a shrewd politician and was afraid that my arrest might cause a scandal. Therefore he told Harel that before arresting me, he should enlist the support of Begin, the leader of the largest opposition party.

Begin told him: “If you have evidence, please show it to me. If not, I shall fight against your scheme tooth and nail.” Ben-Gurion dropped the idea, and Begin sent his most trusted lieutenant to warn me.

If Begin had supported my arrest, who would have doubted that the Shabak had solid proof of my treachery? My voice would have been silenced, my magazine destroyed.

^

From the Haaretz Special on Menachem Begin

The Haaretz Magazine Section devoted considerable attention to the 20th anniversary of Menachem Begin's passing:

Timeline

Begin the Compass by Ya'akov Ahimeir

Shlomo Nakdimon on the decision to resign

On aspects of the Mizrachi support

Begin's attutude towards a free press

Yossi Sarid's opinion

On his complexity

The Begin Run Is This Friday - Is The Mufti Referring To It?

*(The Begin Run route is here. So the Mufti is referring to the real marathon, and that route is here.)

Reported

Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem, warned of the political undertones of holding a marathon in the disputed city and accused Israeli occupation of using a sports event to further the Judaization of the occupied territories. “The marathon is one more attempt by Israeli occupation to erase the Arab identity of Jerusalem,” Hussein, who is also the imam of al-Aqsa Mosque, said in a statement. The Jerusalem Marathon, he added, is not a sports event but another political tool to prove Israel’s dominance in the city, especially its predominantly Arab neighborhoods.

“The same will be later applied to all Palestinian territories.”

Hussein called upon Palestinians inside and outside the Occupied Territories as well as all activists who support the Palestinian cause to intervene to end the Israeli Occupation’s policy of devising all possible means to deny the existence of Palestinians.

“Efforts on the official, diplomatic, and sports levels should be made to prevent this from happening.”

...“They use the Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and other holy sites in East Jerusalem as part of the propaganda for the marathon to give the world the impression that all those places belong to Israel.”

Hussein also expressed his reservation to using the name of Jerusalem in the marathon and which makes it officially an Israeli city.  The Popular National Council for Jerusalem also condemned the marathon and objected to its planned route.

The marathon, the council explained in a statement, will go right through the Old City as runners will enter from Jaffa Gate and will exist from Zion Gate.

The marathon, the statement added, will also pass by the Arab neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz and Sheikh Jarah and will reach the borders of the town of al-Issawiya, which Israel wants to seize to build a national park.

The council agreed with the mufti as far as using sports for political gains is concerned and called upon all Arab and foreign activists and rights organizations to declare solidarity with the Palestinian people and to condemn the Judaization of Jerusalem.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

(kippah/tip to D Seidmann)

Former Begin Cabinet Secretary on Future of Egypt-Israerl Peace Treaty

Current Minister for Intelligence Agencies Dan Meridor, a former cabinet secretary during Prime Minister Menachyem Begin's second government, has indicated that if Egypt changes the peace treaty, Israel may rule out future deals.

From the story:-

If Cairo unilaterally decides to alter the peace treaty with Jerusalem, Israel will ask why sign agreements with other neighbors if these accords are not kept, Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor said Monday.

Meridor, speaking at a press conference organized by The Israel Project, said that "objectively" there is no reason for either Israel or Egypt to change the peace agreement that has served both sides for more than 30 years.

"If people are rational and act for the good of their country, both Israel and Egypt should keep the agreement," Meridor said. Meridor added that Israel has had no contact with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the party that won the recent parliamentary elections there.

...Meridor bemoaned the Palestinian Authority's decision to sign a unity agreement with Hamas in Doha. He called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to demonstrate the "courage" to accept a demilitarized Palestinian state, and that if he did not, it would be "another missed
opportunity that will be bad for us, but worse for them."

Meridor repeated his position, which is not the government's policy, that Israel should "harmonize" its settlement policy with the diplomatic process, meaning that it should build in the large settlement blocs that it hopes to retain in any future agreement, but not build everywhere else in Judea and
Samaria.

^