Shmuel Katz, Zionist hero, dies at 93

Shmuel Katz, one of the last remaining links to the Zionist Revisionist icon, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and himself a towering figure and a mighty pen of the Zionist Right, died in the early hours of Friday morning, soon after Yom Ha'atzmaut, at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital. He was 93.

Well over a hundred people attended the funeral Sunday afternoon at the Hayarkon Cemetery in Petah Tikva.

Among the mourners were Likud Party chair and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Moshe Arens, former MK Uzi Landau, former Knesset Speaker, MK Ruby Rivlin, Jabotinsky Institute director Yossi Achimeir and MK Gideon Sa`ar.

Katz was born in South Africa in 1914 and first came to Israel in 1936, joining the Irgun.
Jabotinsky sent him to London in 1939 to represent the Revisionist Zionist position. He soon found himself virtually stranded after Jabotinsky died suddenly in upstate New York in 1940. Katz subsequently made a living as a journalist working for a number of London newspapers while also founding a Zionist Revisionist weekly.

In 1946 he managed to return to Palestine and joined the Irgun High Command. He was the movement's de facto foreign minister and its last Jerusalem-area commander prior to statehood.

Katz was elected to the First Knesset on the Herut list. He is believed to have been the last surviving member of that First Knesset. A Knesset honor guard placed a wreathe on his grave.
Highly principled and often uncompromising, he quit politics and established a publishing house.
After the Six Day War he became a leader of the Land of Israel movement.

When the Likud Party won the 1977 elections and broke Labor's stranglehold on Israeli politics, Menachem Begin asked Katz to serve as his adviser on information, tasked with explaining the new government's position to a hostile media and an unfriendly Carter administration.

But Katz soon came to feel that Begin was too accommodating in the face of US pressure and in January 1978 left the premier over his peace negotiations with Egypt.

Katz opposed the notion of land for peace, championing the formula of peace for peace.
A prolific writer, essayist and historian, Katz had a regular column in The Jerusalem Post for many years and continued to publish occasional op-eds until very recently. Among his most important books are Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir Jabotinsky; Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine; and The Aaronsohn Saga about the Nili spy ring, whose English edition was published late last year by Gefen.

Though a fierce ideologue, Katz was soft spoken, with a twinkle in his eye and a winning self-deprecating humor. As recently as several weeks ago, he was planning a new series of short op-eds for the Post in opposition to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's policies.

Katz is survived by his son Yuval who recited the kaddish memorial prayer and nephew Dr. Leonard Bliden who delivered a moving eulogy.

May his memory be for a blessing.

The Olmert scandal

Hizbullah and its allies have just pulled off what may well turn out to be a coup d'état in Lebanon. Large swathes of Beirut have fallen to the forces of Hassan Nasrallah and his Amal allies. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League.
If Hizbullah's triumph is left unchecked by the mostly Sunni Arab world, non-Arab Iran will have moved a step closer toward regional hegemony.

There aren't too many dull news days in the Middle East. On Thursday, Yom Ha'atzma'ut, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad let loose another hateful tirade, calling Israel a "stinking corpse" doomed to disappear. Latest intelligence assessments suggest Teheran could have nuclear weapons (and hard-to-overcome cruise missiles to deliver them) even sooner then originally feared.

Meantime, US President George W. Bush is scheduled to be here on Wednesday and Thursday to help Israel celebrate 60 years of independence, and also to push hard for a "shelf-agreement" between Jerusalem and an enfeebled Palestinian Authority. The next day, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is set to arrive to press the Olmert government to accept Hamas's offer for a Gaza cease-fire. Meanwhile, even as he facilitates the dismemberment of Lebanon, Syrian President Bashar Assad may be growing impatient over the Golan Heights.

CLEARLY, THIS is not a good time for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to be focused on anything but running the country, addressing a vital range of security, foreign policy and (let's not forget) domestic agenda issues. There is also the matter of his cancer that must be attended to.

But realistically speaking, how can he be paying complete attention to his job and his health while under multiple investigations by police and prosecutors? With a gag order over many key aspects of the latest inquiry now lifted, we know that the prime minister is suspected of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes over a period of years from Morris Talansky of New York.

At this point, police say they neither know the source nor the purpose of the money Talansky is said to have handed over.

Police will be interviewing the prime minister again this week in an investigation that is now expected to take, not days or weeks, but months to complete. The premier will no doubt worry whether his long-standing associate and former law partner, Uri Messer, is testifying against him. Olmert will be focused on whether what Talansky is telling the police is really as incriminating as media leaks suggest. He will certainly be anxious about how much longer his former bureau chief, Shula Zaken, can remain loyal in the face of repeated police interrogations.

Olmert insists he did nothing wrong and that when all the facts are known he will be vindicated. Late Thursday night he declared: "I am looking into the eyes of each and every one of you... I have never taken a bribe, I have never taken an agora into my own pocket. [But] if the attorney-general decides to indict me, I shall resign."

He insists that any money Talansky gave him went into his political campaigns or to other bona fide purposes. Plainly, in the back of everyone's mind is the dismal track record that police and prosecutors have established in the handling of previous investigations involving former president Moshe Katsav and ex-premiers Ehud Barak, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon.

GIVEN THE composition of his governing coalition and absent an indictment, Olmert may be able to hang on as prime minister even as the investigation continues. And it must be stressed that he is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.

Nonetheless, the prime minister must be afforded the expedited opportunity to refute the latest charges, must utilize that opportunity, and must urge Uri Messer, Shula Zaken and anyone else involved to testify forthrightly as well. Saying that he will resign if indicted is simply not good enough because the insistent agenda of this country cannot be put on hold while Olmert and his key advisers are distracted.

Israel's governance is simply too challenging a burden for a leader preoccupied with facing down investigators in a complex financial scandal. If the prime minister cannot put this latest scandal to rest without delay, he must hand over the reins of power. The welfare of the country demands it.

The next 60 years

Israel is in a somber mood as we mark Remembrance Day for the nation's 22,437 fallen fighters. Also in our thoughts are the 1,634 men, women and children murdered by terrorists - most of them, paradoxically, since the 1993 Oslo Accord.

Last night we stood in homage, and we stand again this morning, as the wail of the siren sent out its piercing cry. For 24 hours Israel will be riveted by the narratives broadcast on television and radio about the lives cut short by war. Then, as darkness falls Wednesday night, Yom Ha'atzma'ut celebrations will commence.

The sudden emotional switch doesn't come easy, yet it reinforces the truth that freedom comes at a price.

This Independence Day finds some of us in a funk. The prime minister is under intense police scrutiny. Faith in the basic decency of the men and women who lead the nation has waned. The political system has been irresponsibly undermined by elected officials, judges, holy men and the media. Some in the national-religious community still feel alienated by the trauma of disengagement.

AND YET a degree of perspective is in order. From 70 CE, when most Jews were exiled, until 1948, when Jewish sovereignty was regained, this land remained at the epicenter of Jewish aspirations. Absent the collective dream of a return to Zion, the Jewish people would have long ago disappeared from history. And, by the grace of God, we have returned!

The process of state-building remains incomplete - but look how far we've come. The Jewish population in 1948 was 650,000; today it's 6 million. In its first 44 months, while practically bankrupt, Israel absorbed 700,000 Jews. In just 30 years, a million Jews from the former Soviet Union were absorbed. And in the past six years Nefesh B'Nefesh has brought 15,000 olim from affluent countries to Israel.

In 1948 there were two universities, today there are eight. Hebrew is now spoken by millions. In transportation, education, tourism, industry and public health, Israel's progress has been phenomenal. Per capita, our GDP places us in the top tier of nations.

Israel is now the world capital of Torah-learning, at the same time as it leads in hi-tech. We're even producing internationally award-winning cinema.

None of this is to minimize the challenges ahead. With the self-sacrificing founders gone, the way we choose tomorrow's leaders needs reforming. We're divided over how to define our Jewishness. Our non-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox rabbinical courts generate more dissonance than spirituality. They must be replaced by a system that joyfully promotes Judaism. The disparity between rich and poor must be narrowed. Israel's Arab citizens must share fully in the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship, national service included.

And plainly, the quality of our lives will not improve until we learn to treat each other with greater civility.

SIXTY YEARS on, Israel is a regional power, yet still not at peace with all its Arab neighbors. The fight against terrorism demands unrelenting vigilance. Sderot and other southern communities are under intermittent bombardment from the Gaza Strip.

Hizbullah beats the drums of war, while Bashar Assad's intentions remain enigmatic. The greatest strategic threat comes from the fanatical Iranian regime, which threatens to wipe Israel off the map even as it dementedly denies the Holocaust.

The Palestinians mark our achievement of sovereignty as their Nakba, or catastrophe. Mahmoud Abbas has yet to prepare his people for reconciliation.

Sixty years after the Palestinian Arabs first rejected a two-state solution, they appear little closer to accepting a compromise that most Israelis could live with. As Israeli officials speak of "considerable progress" in the post-Annapolis negotiations involving, perhaps, the uprooting of 60,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria and exit from parts of east Jerusalem, the Palestinians adhere to their demand for an Israeli pullback to the narrow boundaries of the 1949 Armistice Lines. They have not abandoned their demand for a "right of return," which would spell the demise of the Jewish state.

That the Jewish people have sovereignty and the chance to enjoy a civilizational renascence in this land after a millennium in exile is - quite literally - a miracle. May God shine His countenance upon us and navigate us safely through the next 60 years, and beyond.

Olmert Investigation -- Find a better way

On Friday two high-ranking police officers interrogated Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at his official Jerusalem residence. We would like to tell you more, but there is a court injunction barring publication of further details.

This newspaper has in the past called on Olmert to resign over his handling of the Second Lebanon War, and we have not stinted on our criticism of the premier over a range of issues. Today, however, we focus our concern on the way the police, Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz, State Attorney Moshe Lador and the legal establishment are conducting themselves.

The State of Israel is about to mark its 60th Independence Day (according to the Hebrew calendar), starting on Thursday and continuing through the May 15 weekend, when world leaders will be arriving to help us mark this extraordinary accomplishment. The decision to authorize the police to pursue a completely new investigation just now embarrasses not just the premier, but the entire nation. Could this probe really not have waited a few more weeks? Police have long been interrogating Olmert's former executive assistant, Shula Zaken, and were reportedly worried that the two might coordinate their testimony. Still, there's got to be a better way.

And if there wasn't a better way, and the timing was unavoidable, isn't it curious that a gag order is preventing this newspaper from fully reporting on the nature of the investigation and keeping Olmert from presenting his side of the story; and yet someone - presumably with police or prosecutor connections - is shamelessly and illegally leaking details to Channel 2 television news and the Yediot Aharonot tabloid?

Buffeted by a drawn-out - and to this day unresolved - investigation of a sitting president (now out of office), many Israelis are starting to lose faith in the effectiveness of the attorney-general and the police to efficiently address wrongdoing among politicians.

Granted, not all cases have ended in failure. MK Shlomo Benizri, for instance, was recently convicted of accepting bribes. But what of Tzahi Hanegbi, whose fraud trial has has been dragging on for months? And what about Ya'acov Edri? The police recommended his indictment for breach of trust in a blaze of publicity, but the case was ultimately, quietly, closed. Then there is Ruhama Avraham-Balila, the minister in charge of the 60th anniversary celebrations, who was questioned by police for taking a trip against the advice of the Knesset Ethics Committee. That case, too, is unresolved. So too are the charges against Yitzhak Ziv, under investigation for alleged sexual harassment.

And it seems like a decade since the police began investigating MK Avigdor Lieberman on charges such as conducting a private business while in the cabinet. There have been endless leaks, but no indictments, let alone a conviction.

WRONGDOING by top officials must be investigated and, as appropriate, prosecuted with all deliberate speed. When police, prosecutors and judges allow cases to meander along for months and years while the prospective defendants are tried in the media, the real loser is the political system's legitimacy. The result: a jaded and alienated public.

More than a year ago, Mazuz approved a criminal investigation into allegations that Olmert received special favors while purchasing his Cremieux Street home in Jerusalem - case pending. Mazuz is investigating Olmert for giving out patronage jobs while he was Industry, Trade and Labor minister - case pending. Mazuz is also probing whether Olmert, again as trade minister, did special favors for a company represented by his former law partner - case pending. And he is looking into whether, as finance minister, Olmert tried to do special favors for Bank Leumi - case pending.

Now, police are looking into an apparently completely new case, and somebody is leaking partial details. That the attorney-general says he is not asking the premier to step down and is promising an "expedited" investigation is small consolation.

Police questioned former prime ministers Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak and Binyamin Netanyahu during their tenures - all cases have been closed.

Patently, no one should be above the law. But neither should anyone, not even an unpopular prime minister, be trampled by it.

An eye on the North

Something odd may be going on in southern Lebanon, and the Israeli security apparatus needs to be watching.

As London's Observer newspaper reported on April 27, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Hizbullah military recruits from the area are actively drilling for war. There is an "unprecedented build-up of men, equipment and bunker-building." Most men of fighting age are training in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Syria or Iran.

With generous Iranian funding, Hizbullah's secretive military wing is intensifying its transformation from a guerrilla and terrorist outfit into a full-fledged army with a well-trained militia.

Of course, UN Security Council Resolution 1701 mandates no military activity anywhere in southern Lebanon save for the 10,000 soldiers of the Lebanese Army deployed there, supported by 13,000 UNIFIL troops and 1,500 personnel of the UNIFIL Maritime Task Force stationed along the coast. These forces are tasked with implementing that cease-fire resolution, which "authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action... to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind." It also forbids any country to bring weapons into Lebanon.

In practice, Hizbullah shamelessly violates the cease-fire. And when UNIFIL forces do stumble upon a Hizbullah violation, they tend to file vague and partial reports given only fleeting attention back at UN headquarters.

Last year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon did say he was "deeply worried" about arms trafficking across the Lebanese-Syrian border. His concerns, well-founded, are unlikely to prompt steps by the Security Council.

The reluctance of UNIFIL forces to "take all necessary action" in confronting Hizbullah is understandable. Twelve "blue helmets" have been killed during the past year. And UNIFIL troops are anyway authorized to open fire only in self-defense. They can't even enter local villages without a Lebanese army escort.

WHAT IS happening in the south must be seen in the context of the overall fragmentation of Lebanon's body politic. "Byzantine" doesn't begin to describe the complexity of Beirut's unraveling political system.

Christian Arabs lost their demographic and political control of Lebanon years ago. The presidency, by custom held by a Maronite Christian, has been vacant since November 2007. The previously disenfranchised Shi'ite Arab majority has overwhelmed the Sunni Arabs, even as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a Sunni, hangs onto power.

Hizbullah has become the major player inside Lebanon. Its roots date back to the 1970s, when a dynamic Iranian-born (Arab) imam, Musa al-Sadr, began mobilizing Lebanon's Shi'ites for social, political and economic equality. The 1979 revolution in (Persian) Iran greatly empowered Lebanon's Shi'ite Arabs.

Initially, the Shi'ites did not oppose the IDF's operations against Palestinian terrorists in south Lebanon, and the PLO was indeed defeated there. But whether because of Israeli blunders or Iranian successes, Hizbullah has long since morphed into a menacing foe of the Jewish state.

THIS BRINGS us back to Hizbullah's military build-up. One would have thought that Hassan Nasrallah would be deterred from launching another unprovoked attack given the millions of dollars in damage Lebanon suffered when Israel struck back after its soldiers were kidnapped in what became the Second Lebanon War. But Iran has deep pockets, and building a global caliphate doesn't come cheap.

Moreover, notwithstanding Israeli assertions that hundreds of Hizbullah fighters were killed in that war, a US military study reportedly places the death toll at "only" 184. That's a "martyr" toll the Hizbullah-supporting Shi'ites appear well able to absorb. Anyway, Nasrallah answers to a higher authority. If Iran is becoming jittery over the possibility that Syria might truly move out of its orbit, there's nothing like a war with Israel to reshuffle the deck.

Hizbullah watcher Guy Bechor, writing at www.gplanet.co.il, does not foresee a Hizbullah assault in the near term. But he doesn't discount the prospect of a large-scale surprise attack down the line. He warns that hundreds of guerrillas could burst through the entire length of the border, seize territory and take hundreds of hostages. Nasrallah could then claim to be the first Arab leader to have successfully invaded "Palestine" since 1948, thus solidifying Hizbullah's hold on the Arab imagination.

With so much attention focused on the Hamas threat and Independence Day security concerns, and given the degree to which Israel was taken by surprise in summer 2006, all we're urging is: Keep an eye on southern Lebanon.