A REPEAT OF ELEI SINAI?

LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN), JERUSALEM
Thursday, April 27, 2006


Dear Friends,

In last week's letter from Jerusalem, April 21, 2006, I included an eyewitness report by Pastor Jim Vineyard of the horrific conditions under which the Elei Sinai "Deportees" are forced to live.

Why were the Jewish residents of Elei Sinai deported from their homes and their lands?

According to the book BOOMERANG, Sharon and his sidekick, Attorney Dov Weisglass, hatched the whole Disengagement Plan in order to divert attention from the charge of bribery and influence peddling in the Greek Island Affair and other alleged crimes.

The legal problems of the Sharon family have been manifold, spanning many years.

The most often mentioned legal matter is the Greek Island Affair. What follows is information taken from the Washington Times online:
ttp://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040615-050826-1986r.htm

The Affair dates back to 1998 when Sharon was Minister of National Infrastructure and then Foreign Minister.

A contractor friend, David Appel, wanted to build a multi-billion dollar resort on a barren Greek island, Petrokalo, 32 miles southeast of Athens.

It is a 750-acre island, half a mile from the coast. Appel envisaged a resort of 100,000 rooms, casinos, golf courses, entertainment center, sports centers and a train that would go there from Athens airport in an undersea tunnel.

"It was a grandiose, some say megalomaniacal project," noted Mazuz. Appel's expert estimated it would cost more than $15 billion dollars.

Appel had difficulties obtaining the Greek island and allegedly enlisted Sharon's help. Appel invited Greek officials to Israel and Sharon attended a dinner in their honor.

Appel hired Sharon's son, Gilad, promised him $7,500 dollars a month and two bonuses of $1.5 million dollars each if the project developed. Later Appel and Gilad Sharon signed a contract whereby the contractor would pay Gilad Sharon $20,000 dollars a month and, if the project developed, the two $1.5 million dollar bonuses.

Appel was indicted for bribery, under the assumption that Gilad Sharon's work was not worth that much money and that it was actually an indirect bribe to Sharon.

STATE ATTORNEY EDNA ARBEL RECOMMENDED CHARGES AGAINST ARIEL AND GILAD SHARON, AND PREPARED A PROPOSED INDICTMENT BEFORE LEAVING TO BECOME A SUPREME COURT JUDGE.

Sharon replaced Attorney General Edna Arbel with Menachem Mazuz and had Edna Arbel kicked upstairs to the Supreme Court. Because of his fear of being indicted Sharon decided on the very controversial politically inspired Disengagement Plan to expel 10,000 Jews from their homes, schools, synagogues and communities in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron.

When the news broke that Elei Sinai, located only 15 kilometers south of Ashkelon, was slated to become a Palestinian operated casino, many settlers speculated that Ariel Sharon might have a personal financial interest in the pullout, just as he did in the Greek Island Affair.

Ariel Sharon had learned nothing from the Greek Island Affair. While he was still in the process of expelling the Jews from Gush Katif, he was already negotiating with the new Arab landlords to build a vacation resort including a casino in the Gush Katif community of Elei Sinai. Sharon was planning to work with the following three investors:

Businessman Cyril Kern, along with Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, a former member of the Israel Parliament, reportedly worked on solidifying an agreement with a Saudi millionaire to build a casino in the place of the Elei Sinai community. (Flatto-Sharon moved to Israel after he was indicted for fraud in France in 1972 and avoided extradition to France by running for office in Israel's Parliament in 1977.)

Cyril Kern, a long-time friend of Ariel Sharon, is suspected of having given an illegal $1.5 million dollar loan to Sharon and his sons, a loan for which Ariel Sharon and his sons are still being investigated.

Plans for the casino included requests to leave settlement houses intact to house casino workers, and to leave the settlement synagogue to be used as a house of prayer for casino gamblers who were expected to be mainly Israeli citizens, as Islam does not allow gambling.

Many residents of Elei Sinai had been exiled from their homes once before. They were thrown out of their homes in Yamit in 1982. They built their new homes in Elei Sinai and are now once again homeless.

The former residents of Elei Sinai, living in abject poverty in tent cities, having lost all their possessions and still no signs of compensation from the Israeli government, now believe that they had been marked for eviction from their homes in order for a small group to benefit financially!

Ten thousand Israelis have been made homeless and been added to the ranks of the unemployed. Eight months after the disengagement most of them are still living in temporary quarters with little likelihood of being able to earn a livelihood.

And Qassam rockets are now falling daily onto the outskirts of Ashkelon, dangerously near electrical plants, and oil pipes from Eilat. They are launched from the area from which Israeli settlements, such as Elei Sinai, were removed as part of the Disengagement Plan eight months ago.

Our present acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, openly boasts that he is the one who convinced Ariel Sharon to adopt the Disengagement Plan. Olmert now proposes to take the principle applied to Gaza and apply it to Judea and Samaria, thus putting Israel's central population centers within rocket and missile range.

A hundred thousand Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria now live in fear of having to share the same fate as the 10,000 residents of Gush Katif in the not too distant future.

We can prevent this! If you are an American citizen, advise your Congressmen and Senators that Olmert's planned displacement of another hundred thousand Jews from Judea and Samaria SHOULD NOT BE FUNDED WITH ONE PENNY OF AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS.

With Blessings and Love for Israel,

Ruth Matar

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Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michael@womeningreen.org