AN INTERVIEW WITH NATAN SHARANSKY

Sharansky: "One-Sided Concessions to Terror Will Bring More Terror" - Russell Working (Chicago Tribune)

Former Soviet dissident and Israeli Cabinet member Natan Sharansky, who spent nine years in a gulag because of his human-rights activities, spoke to the Tribune on Wednesday:

• With the money of the free world, the Palestinian Authority is producing the most anti-Semitic types of propaganda in history....Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to see who could put the classical anti-Semitic stories into more powerful ways.
• When the Iranian president proclaims that there should be a world without Zionism, he means that he will use nuclear weapons. It is so dangerous because there are too many people that it doesn't frighten....What kind of contribution can this Iranian regime bring to the dialogue for peace when they made it very clear that for them peace means no more Israel?
• Israel again and again and again showed that the moment there was some very small, illusory hope for peace, they were ready to go ahead for all kinds of concessions....But I believe that one-sided concessions to terror will bring more terror.
• It took time for the West to understand that the only way to really force the Soviet Union to cooperate was to make economic and political links to human rights. And that until now hasn't happened with Iran.
• Q. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?
  Sharansky: I am optimistic....Israel is very strong, much stronger than people think. It has a very strong economy, it has a strong democracy and, as this war showed, it has a very strong spirit....The wildest part of my optimism is that I do believe that Palestinians want and can and should and would live in a free society.