For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column
The Elements of Oslo: Drug trafficking & high treason?
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The arrest of former Minister Gonen Segev, on charges of treason, constitute a regrettable vindication of my assessment of the man – over 25 years ago.
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2018/06/into-the-fray-the-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/22346
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-the-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason/https://www.israelrising.com/elements-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason/
JERUSALEM HERALD : https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2018/06/22/INTO-THE-FRAY-The-Elements-Of-Oslo-Drug-Trafficking-and-High-Treason
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/into-the-fray-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason/2018/06/22/
JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason/
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/06/22/into-the-fray-the-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-the-elements-of-oslo-drug-trafficking-high-treason-87302422f6aa
Several short excerpts:
….the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments…. He rots the soul of a nation…he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist…The traitor is the plague—Marcus Tullius Cicero, (106-43 B.C.), on Treason.
It has been an eventful week—and several other topics could well have been the focus of this INTO THE FRAY column—for example, the court decision to quash the confessions extracted under duress from the suspects of the Duma arson; or the ineffective IDF response to the continuing violence emanating from Gaza; or the looming “ultimate deal”, which, it is rumored, is soon to be advanced by the Trump administration.
Tectonic impact
I chose, however , to deal with the announcement on Monday, that former government minister, Gonen Segev, had been arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran and detained on charges of treason involving “espionage, aiding an enemy in war time, as well as providing information to the enemy.” …The reasons for this choice were both personal and substantive: Personal, because of my acquaintance with Segev in the past when I warned of his grave character flaws; and substantive, because of the tectonic (albeit seldom conceded) impact these flaws have had on the fate of the nation since then.
Segev & Oslo: The Ethical Parallels
There are numerous parallels between Gonen Segev and Oslo…Indeed, in many ways, Segev and Oslo are the moral (or rather “immoral”) reflections of each other…While Segev himself represents a mark of shame on Israel’s public life and “point of singularity” in terms of deceit and duplicity; so too the Oslo Accords represent a mark of shame on our national history, a reprehensible nadir of broken promises, public deception and self-delusion…
Almost like Siamese twins
Moreover, in many ways, almost like Siamese twins, neither Segev nor Oslo would exist without the other—without the essential symbiosis between them. … in large measure, Oslo was a point of inflexion in the history of Zionism, after which nothing was as it was before. Everything once a hallowed virtue (such as attachment to the homeland and proactive Jewish settlement throughout it) became a heinous vice.
Oslo’s deadly derivatives
Earlier, I suggested that Segev’s treachery had a “tectonic” impact on events that subsequently unfolded.
Allow me to elaborate—and corroborate—this seemingly far-reaching condemnation.
After all, Oslo was not a stand-alone disaster. To the contrary—it was the harbinger of successive calamities, which inevitably arose from its implementation. In large measure, Segev was their midwife—their indispensable facilitator.
A personal perspective
I first encountered Gonen Segev, in early 1992, when I served as the Secretary-General of the TSOMET movement. He then appeared out of nowhere, after years during which he had not been seen participating in any activities of the movement, to compete for second place in the TSOMET list for the Knesset. (For readers whose political memory does not go back 26 years, TSOMET was a non-observant, hawkish party, which vehemently opposed the “land-for-peace” concept , on which the Oslo Accords were based.
To many—apparently including the TSOMET chairman, former IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt-Gen. Rafael (“Raful”) Eitan—he appeared to be “the salt of the Earth”…
A compulsive liar who gives deceit a bad name
In summation, allow me a brief lapse of modesty and a short personal epilogue.
As opposed to many, I was not deceived by Segev’s ample guiles. On the contrary, I quickly identified him as a compulsive liar, who “gives deceit a bad name”. As proof of this, the moment he was elected—with the support of Raful—to the number two slot on the TSOMET list, in place of the late Yoash Tsiddon, one of the most outstanding parliamentarians the Knesset has ever known, I withdrew my name from the list of contenders for other slots—and resigned from my post of Secretary-General.
The rest is history—and at times I wonder how different that history would have been if others had followed my lead…
