Free Republic

Natan Sharansky defied Soviet tyranny during the Cold War and thereby earned the gratitude of free people everywhere, including the United States, which in 2006 awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After enduring years of persecution in Russia, Sharansky emigrated to Israel and became a political leader. In his new book, Defending Identity [1], he sets out to defend Jewish national identity by asserting that national identity as such is a good thing. We must belong to cultures and nations, Sharansky asserts, rather than to the insipid soup of global citizenship. The trouble is that some identities are hostile...

Former Israeli cabinet minister and respected international figure Natan Sharansky warned American Jews this week that voting for Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election would risk Israel's future. Speaking on Shalom TV, a Jewish cable network that reaches 18 million American households, Sharansky avoided the rampant conspiracy theories regarding Obama, but did note that his lack of a positive record vis-a-vis Israel should raise concerns. With Obama, said Sharansky, "nobody can know for sure what will be. It can happen to be good. It can happen to be very bad. It's a risk." Also of concern is...

Former Israeli cabinet minister and respected international figure Natan Sharansky warned American Jews this week that voting for Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election would risk Israel’s future. Speaking on Shalom TV, a Jewish cable network that reaches 18 million American households, Sharansky avoided the rampant conspiracy theories regarding Obama, but did note that his lack of a positive record vis-a-vis Israel should raise concerns.

Editor’s Note: Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy is visiting Israel this week and met with Natan Sharansky. The former Soviet dissident spent more than a decade in the communist Gulag. He emigrated to Israel after his release in 1986, became a Knesset member and served in four successive Israeli governments, including time as deputy prime minister. In 2006, he resigned from Israel’s Knesset, but he remains active in the country’s political discourse. He has just authored his latest book “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.” Jerusalem — An Israeli businessman I met described Natan Sharansky as having an “inner...

Some three and a half years ago, former Prisoner of Zion and Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky was George W. Bush's favorite author. Sharansky earned an unexpected boost when the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. invited him and co-author Ron Dermer to the White House and told the world that everyone should read their book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror. While this was not the equivalent of an invitation to Oprah Winfrey's guest couch, Sharansky's tome did make it onto The New York Times bestseller list. After the easy overthrow of Saddam...

It was 25 years ago, on March 8, 1983, that President Ronald Reagan addressed the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Fla., where he characterized the Soviet Union as the "focus of evil in the modern world"—an "evil empire." The president's pronouncement was a shot heard round the world, as were his motivations: "There is sin and evil in the world," said Reagan to his Christian brothers, "and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might." Those who wished to accommodate rather than oppose the USSR, and who were not as troubled by...

In my nine years in Israeli governments, I served as a minister in several different offices. In each case, the coalition negotiations needed to obtain each position were arduous, at times even exhausting. There was only one position that I received as a freebie, for it was uncontested: the role of chairman of the Interministerial Committee on Diaspora Affairs. Indeed, why should there be a struggle over a position with no budget, no appointments, and no political influence or importance? True, the committee deals with an important subject - dialogue and coordination of efforts with Diaspora Jewry. But whom does...

One of the high points at which the drama could have turned into a farce within seconds occurred nine years ago at the Wye Plantation summit. After exhausting and debilitating efforts, we received from Yasser Arafat a promise (even if half-hearted and unwilling) to delete from the Palestinian Charter the sections calling for the destruction of Israel. Upon leaving the conference room, we saw one of the closest advisers of President Bill Clinton and proudly told him about our achievement. "Are you out of your minds?" he shouted. "He's going to be killed because of that. He is too weak...

Sharansky: Dividing Jerusalem 'crisis' Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 20, 2007 Former minister and world-renowned Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky on Tuesday launched a new public campaign against the division of Jerusalem, citing an acute "identity crisis" among Israeli political leaders. The multi-million dollar campaign, which is being launched by the privately funded 'One Jerusalem' organization that was set up in 2000 in order to maintain Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli sovereignty, comes just one week before the planned peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, and as the government is openly discussing the possibility of ceding Arab neighborhoods...

Former minister Natan Sharansky, whose book, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror has inspired US President George W. Bush, gives Bush a "C" grade for implementing his vision. Sharansky, the former Prisoner of Zion who currently chairs the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday: "I have to give Bush credit, because he brought back the agenda of linking security and democracy, which was abandoned by the free world after the defeat of the Soviet Union. [But] what makes it hard for him to...

Iraqis call Ali Hassan al-Majeed "Chemical Ali," and few wept when the notorious former general received five death sentences last month for ordering the use of nerve agents against his government's Kurdish citizens in the late 1980s. His trial came as a reckoning and a reminder -- summoning up the horrors of Saddam Hussein's rule even as it underscored the way today's heated Iraq debates in Washington have left the key issue of human rights on the sidelines. People of goodwill can certainly disagree over how to handle Iraq, but human rights should be part of any responsible calculus. Unfortunately,...

Just over three years ago, at the first-ever global forum on anti-Semitism organized by the State of Israel, the essential task was to define the beast - the new anti-Semitism. Since then, as the fourth such global gathering meets this week, efforts to incorporate the "three-D" distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and the new anti-Semitism - demonization, double standards and delegitimization - have become part of international documents and discourse. These and other accomplishments, as important as they are, have been dwarfed by the quantum leap anti-Semitism itself has taken. It has leapfrogged from isolated attacks against Jews to...

Since Sharansky announced his retirement from politics, abundant praise has been lavished upon him. Indeed, in some quarters his name has been put forth as a candidate to become Israel's next president. Not only has he merited kudos within Israel, but he has also been singled out for praise by US President George W. Bush, who cited his book The Case for Democracy as an important contribution for promoting democratic change throughout the world. Interestingly, Sharansky has derided Israel for not joining forces with the US policy of demanding democratization as the cornerstone of the pursuit of peace and security....

Sharansky Says Bush Will Try to Discourage Olmert on Withdrawals 19:58 May 18, '06 / 20 Iyar 5766 (IsraelNN.com) Knesset member Natan Sharansky said on a radio program Thursday night that American President George W. Bush will try to discourage Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from pushing his plan for more destruction of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The Prime Minister is to fly to Washington next week. Speaking on the Voice of Israel program "From the Left and From the Right," the former Prisoner of Zion explained that the timing of the Olmert's policy is very unfavorable for the...

There are two distinct marks of a dissident. First, dissidents are fired by ideas and stay true to them no matter the consequences. Second, they generally believe that betraying those ideas would constitute the greatest of moral failures. Give up, they say to themselves, and evil will triumph. Stand firm, and they can give hope to others and help change the world. Political leaders make the rarest of dissidents. In a democracy, a leader's lifeline is the electorate's pulse. Failure to be in tune with public sentiment can cripple any administration and undermine any political agenda. Moreover, democratic leaders, for...

THE U.S. AGENDA to promote democracy in the Middle East appears fatally wounded. The results of recent elections in Iraq, Egypt and especially Gaza and the West Bank have led many to conclude that this agenda is terribly misguided: wonderful in theory but disastrous in practice, enabling the most dangerous and antidemocratic elements in the region to gain power through democratic means. If true, this is certainly a worrisome turn of events. Can the skeptics be right? Is it simply too dangerous to promote freedom in the Arab world? Must the United States give up on promoting democracy and go...

By Major Ron Hamilton (Ret)US Army IntelligenceThe writer retired as a Major and Russian linguist from the U.S Army's Military Intelligence Corps on October 31st 2005 to pursue business and academic goals. He has served worldwide in numerous command and staff positions at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. His interests are the applied effects of foreign policy theory and its implementation on the ground - specifically the transitioning Caucasus nations and the roles that the USA and Russia play in their democratic development.Without taking anything away from the fact that Mr. Sharansky is an honorable man who spent nine...

The looming civil war, which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prophesied from the pages of The New York Times, did not materialize. It did not because a civil war requires two opposing camps fighting each other, hating each other, and most importantly, convinced that their survival depends on the annihilation of each other. Over the past two months, I spent a great deal of time in Gush Katif, both with families in the last minutes of their lives there, as well as with the soldiers and officers. What I saw, even at the most trying and tragic moments, was not a...

Although Natan Sharansky recently resigned from his minister's post with the Ariel Sharon government because of his opposition to the Gaza pullout, he remains a busy man. This is because, among other things, he is seen as the informal architect of President Bush's foreign policy that seeks to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East as the best tool for lasting peace. Secure in his role as the world's most consistent advocate of democratization as a basis for foreign policy, the long-time gulag prisoner was in the news in November 2004 when he was invited to the White House...

Woody Allen (liberal) and Natan Sharansky (conservative) are celebrity Jewish intellectuals who offer radically different worldviews for your contemplation. Allen's is more popular with intellectuals worldwide. Sharansky's whole life says that Allen is wrong. Allen recently explained his view of history to the German magazine Der Spiegel. And Sharansky was interviewed by Jay Nordlinger of the National Review. If you understand their disagreement, you will grasp the main spiritual question facing Americans today. Allen, 69, is a filmmaker from Brooklyn, N.Y. Sharansky, 57, was a political prisoner in the Soviet gulag; today he is an Israeli politician. Allen got famous...

I have been searching for a good argument against the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that I could post on this blog, and I have found none better or more eloquent than Natan Sharansky's resignation letter. While I am sympathetic to Mr. Sharon's motives in leaving the disputed territory, I find myself more convinced that it is bad policy for exactly the reasons that Mr. Sharansky outlines in this letter. Lest anyone think that Mr. Sharansky is some right-wing Israeli who hates Arabs, let me suggest you read any number of articles by him or interviews with him. He has long...

Our reporter attends a hearing assessing the ‘Bush Doctrine’. A key participant was the man who the President acknowledges as having significantly influenced his Middle East policy. Will he take his words to heart?

Sharansky to Congressional subcommittee: Support for ‘Palestinian’ leaders should be linked to democratic reforms, protection of dissidents By Heather Robinson Jewish World Review May 19, 2005 / 10 Iyar, 5765 Our reporter attends a hearing assessing the ‘Bush Doctrine’. A key participant was the man who the President acknowledges as having significantly influenced his Middle East policy. Will he take his words to heart? JewishWorldReview.com | WASHINGTON — In a Congressional subcommittee hearing, Natan Sharansky, former Israeli minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs, expressed his belief that any Israeli concessions as part of the U.S. sponsored Roadmap — including the...

To Bush, Sharon represents the old-world hegemonic conservatism, that gives Bill Buckley pride, and Sharansky represents the staunch-Zionist Neo-conservatism, that gives Pat Buchanan the heebee geebees........ Natan Sharansky, former Soviet Political Prisoner turned Israeli Leader and all-around good guy, resigned from his Cabinet position as Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs on Monday...... Bush has been an outspoken supporter of Sharansky in the past, even giving his book, “The Case for Democracy,” perhaps the biggest plug in history during the State of the Union Address. Though President Bush is such a fan, it will not be easy for him to...

The idea that Israel can promote peace by unilaterally withdrawing Jewish settlements from occupied territories is one of the world's great "no-brainers". Like other no-brainers, it shows no brains. The Israeli cabinet is now losing its most intelligent and impressive member — Natan Sharansky — thanks finally to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy of unilaterally pulling the few Israeli settlements out of Gaza. As usual, the headlines are captured by the superficial and irrelevant details. The Israeli newspapers were vexing themselves yesterday over whether the IAF should demolish the settlements after moving their inhabitants (many of the adults now becoming...

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign as Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Jerusalem. As you know, I have opposed the disengagement plan from the beginning on the grounds that I believe any concessions in the peace process must be linked to democratic reforms within Palestinian society. Not only does the disengagement plan ignore such reforms, it will in fact weaken the prospects for building a free Palestinian society and at the same time strengthen the forces of terror. Will our departure from Gaza encourage building a society where freedom of speech...

JERUSALEM -- Cabinet minister Natan Sharansky, a frequent critic of Israel's peace moves with the Palestinians, submitted his resignation Monday in protest over the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident whose imprisonment there made him a hero to world Jewry, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he opposes making unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. Sharansky, the author of "The Case for Democracy," a political study endorsed by President Bush, also wrote that any progress in peace talks should be linked to greater democracy in the Palestinian areas. "I consider the disengagement...

Natan Sharansky's resignation from the government reveals to us a different kind of politician. A person like him stands no chance in political talk shows, as his sharpness of tongue is lacking in comparison to other local politicians. Moreover, personal insults are of no interest to him. Resignation Minister Sharansky quits over pullout / By Attila Somfalvi Minister of Diaspora and Jerusalem Affairs submits his resignation to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; Knesset Member Eitam: Sharansky's resignation a "moral victory" Full Story Israeli media, which is mostly interested in personal battles and the interests behind them, turned Sharansky into a forgotten...

Minister of Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky announced his resignation from the government Monday due in protest over the disengagement plan, Army Radio reported. Sharansky submitted a letter of resignation with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Monday morning. Sharansky has consistently expressed opposition to the prime minister's disengagement plan. He had hinted in the past he would not remain in a government responsible for evacuating Jewish settlements in the West bank and Gaza Strip. Sharansky is the first minister to resign in protest over the disengagement plan. Former senior Mossad official Uzi Arad, who is now director of a diplomacy and...

Natan Sharansky has become the victim of KGB terror that the Left most loves to hate. His sin? He is thought to have influenced President Bush and helped persuade him that the time has come to push democracy as a solution for the problems of terrorism and tyranny. He also, of course, is guilty of thinking that Jews have the right to shoot back. Born in the Ukraine and educated at Moscow's Physical Technical Institute, Sharansky became an advocate for human rights in the Soviet Union. Sharansky worked alongside the great Andrei Sakharov. The communists were not happy with Sharansky's...

Elections haven't quelled the Palestinians' lust for Jewish blood, and Bush shouldn't pretend they have. JERUSALEM -- Last week Israel's minister for Diaspora affairs, Natan Sharansky, sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon requesting that he demand that the Palestinian Authority stop executions of suspected "collaborators" with Israel. Such "collaborators" are generally Palestinians who were "convicted" by the PA's controversial "state security" courts of tipping off Israel about impending terror attacks, or about the whereabouts of terrorists who were planning them. In other words, their "crime" is to assist Israel in preventing the mass murder of civilians. Sharansky's...

Natan Sharansky tells Martin Ivens his time has come as America adopts his strategy for Middle East reformThat a prophet goes without honour in his own land is hardly surprising. But Natan Sharansky has managed to achieve a rarer feat — two homelands have rejected him. His native Soviet Union sent him to the gulag for nine years by way of the torture cells of Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for demanding freedom. His adoptive Israel celebrated his release and arrival in the promised land with a wave of national rejoicing. Then, for demanding freedom for the Arabs, it ignored him. But...

One man's influence over George Bush follows naturally from his experiences in the Soviet gulag To have helped to bring about one revolution, liberating millions, must be considered heroic. To have helped to start a second, with the chance of freeing millions more, is beyond doubt historic. Natan Sharansky spent nine years of his life as a political prisoner in the Soviet Union, accused of high treason because he fought for human rights. He has spent the past nine years as a politician in Israel, dismissed alternately as a dreamer and a die-hard, because of his implacable insistence on standing...

For years Natan Sharansky, the Israeli minister and former Soviet dissident, has been treated as an eccentric nuisance for insisting that only democracy can bring peace and stability to the Middle East. But all of a sudden, his theories have become the policy of George W Bush. “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” the US president declared at his inauguration, “The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” These...

On February 23, 2005, Tel Aviv University hosted a panel on democratization, featuring Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner, who currently serves as the Israeli minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs; Hebrew University political scientist Shlomo Avineri; and Martin Kramer. The panel focused on Sharansky's much-discussed book, The Case for Democracy, which President George Bush has praised as the best argument for his vision of a democratic world order. (Bush also received Sharansky at the White House to discuss the book.) The following are Martin Kramer's remarks, made in response to Sharansky's presentation. I gather that my...

Give people a taste of freedom and they will never tolerate tyranny again. On this belief rests the fate of democracy in the Middle East. A taste of freedom was not enough to woo Iraq's once powerful Sunni Muslims into wider participation in the recent national elections. But Kurds and Shiite Muslims jumped at the chance to shape their nation's future. The world cannot afford to let this historic opportunity to grow robust democracy in the Middle East slip away. If freedom fails, the people of this troubled region will remain enslaved by fear, shut out of a globalized economy,...

As a courageous refusenik in the Soviet Union, Natan Sharansky became a hero to free people everywhere - nowhere more so than in Israel, the country to which he yearned to emigrate. His fight for human rights cost him nine years in the KGB's dungeons, and when, in February 1986, he finally arrived in the land of his forefathers, it was to an ecstatic welcome by thousands of cheering Israelis. As the nation watched on live TV, Sharansky was embraced on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport by Israel's top leaders, including Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir....

Few people can claim to have left as impressive, varied and indelible an imprint on postwar Jewish history as Natan Sharansky. The man who won fame for having stood up to an evil superpower armed with nothing but conviction, poise and resolve has not only endured lengthy years in prison and solitary confinement, but has also become an icon of the West's victory over Soviet totalitarianism. Sharansky's eventual arrival here seemed like a natural continuation of his life before making aliya. First as a private citizen, then as a journalist and finally as a politician, he became an advocate for...

"Sharansky says democracies are peaceful. Israel has fought five major wars since it was established. In three of them, 1956, 1967 and 1982, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes. It has been one of the most warlike countries in the Middle East. You have the king of Morocco, king of Jordan, king of Saudi Arabia and Ariel Sharon. Which of those four has been more warlike?"

The Talk Shows Sunday, February 13th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Israeli Cabinet member Natan Sharansky and commentator Patrick Buchanan. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Richard Durbin, D-Ill. THIS WEEK (ABC): Former Secretary of State James Baker; Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. LATE EDITION (CNN) : South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon; Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Imad...

… by the Palestinan Media Watch. Natan Sharansky's timing was perfect. On January 25, Sharansky, the ex-Soviet dissident and current Israeli cabinet member, presented a detailed report on the Palestinian Authority's promotion of anti-Semitism and genocide in its official media. He did so amidst the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and Israel's National Day Against anti-Semitism. A day later, one of the co-authors of the report, Itamar Marcus, explained his findings to foreign diplomats in the Israeli parliament. The disturbing report compiled by the Palestinian Media Watch, titled "Kill a Jew-Go To Heaven," illuminates what Sharansky calls the...

I have just finished reading Natan Sharansky's "The Case for Democracy" (co-authored by Ron Dermer). This is the best book of its kind I have read in 25 years, and not just because it is a book the President has not only read but that provides the theme for his second Inaugural and State of the Union addresses. Sharansky's theme is simple, which is part of the beauty of this book. There are "fear societies" and "free societies." A free society is one in which a citizen can go into the public square and say what's on his mind without...

JERUSALEM -- It's been a long and lonely road for former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who for years has been ridiculed for his political theories of spreading democracy across the globe to obtain world peace. But the former Soviet refusenik, who is now a Cabinet minister in the Israeli government, no longer walks alone. His companion in his campaign to democratize the world is no less than U.S. President George W. Bush. To have the ear of the most powerful leader in the world after decades of having his political ideology dismissed as naive and eccentric is a pleasant change...

Michael Hirsh Jan. 25 - Natan Sharansky can bestow no higher praise than to call George W. Bush an honorary “dissident.” And the Israeli cabinet minister says he is elated that the U.S. president, in his second inaugural speech last week, appeared to fully embrace Sharansky’s vision of foreign policy. “It’s clear to me that he read my book,” Sharansky, a squat cannonball of a man with a heavy Russian accent, told NEWSWEEK. “I only wish that my mentor, Andrei Sakharov, were alive to see this,” Sharansky added, referring to the Soviet nuclear scientist who risked his life and career...

Sharansky Book a Blueprint for U.S. Foreign Policy WASHINGTON -- The foreign policy keyword in President George W. Bush's second-term inauguration address Friday was "liberty." Bush said he would make the spread of liberty and democracy to "outposts of tyranny" still mired in famine and oppression a core foreign policy goal. Such pronouncements owe much to "The Case for Democracy" by Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, a book many see as a blueprint for U.S. foreign policy under the second Bush administration. It raises the following issues. The "town-square test" and differentiating "fear" and "free" societies Can a person walk into...

To be sure, in our world there remain outposts of tyranny and America stands with oppressed people on every continent ... in Cuba, and Burma, and North Korea, and Iran, and Belarus, and Zimbabwe. The world should apply what Natan Sharansky calls the "town square test": if a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their...

Minister-without-Portfolio Natan Sharansky rained on the nearly universal celebration over the Palestinian Authority election Sunday, saying it was not "truly free." "Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear," Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post. "This is not the case in the Palestinian Authority." He said that while it is likely that the hundreds of international observers who monitored the election will announce Monday that this was a free and open election, what they are really saying is that it was not plagued by fraud. But, he said, there is...

Natan Sharansky is among the world's most consistent advocates of democratization as a basis for foreign policy. Born in Ukraine in 1948, he received a degree in mathematics from Moscow's Physical Technical Institute. A brilliant mathematician and chess master, he entered the limelight as a spokesman for the movement to emancipate Soviet Jewry. Arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1977 for his refusenik activities, he was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. President Ronald Reagan interceded and, in 1986, won Sharansky's release as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. In his 1988 autobiography Fear No Evil,[1] he discussed both his emotional...

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner who is the co- author (with Ron Dermer) of the new book The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. Mr. Sharansky has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal of Freedom for his courageous fight for liberty. He currently serves as Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs. FP: Mr. Sharansky, welcome to Frontpage Interview. It is an honor and privilege to speak with you. Sharansky: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers. I also...

There can be no compromise with the Palestinians until they rid themselves of the corruption and oppression represented by the era of Arafat and the "government" he left behind. The Israelis learned this the hard way. Now the rest of the world is being instructed in the demands of militant Islam that has no hesitancy to kill hundreds and thousands of innocent people to achieve its goals. In his book, The Case for Democracy, Natan Sharansky, a leading member of the Israeli government and former prisoner of the Soviet Union, points out that, "The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was formed...