Sharon's Speech: Decoded Version: " He read out the written text of his speech, word for word, without raising his eyes from the page. It was vital for him to stick to the exact wording, since it was an encoded text. It is impossible to decipher it without breaking the code. And it is impossible to break the code without knowing Ariel Sharon very well indeed.... In his speech, Sharon outlined a whole, detailed - and extremely dangerous - plan. Those who did not understand - Israelis, Palestinians and foreign diplomats - will be unable to react effectively."

"But beneath the road to the implementation of the Sharon Plan there lie two big landmines: the settlers and the Palestinians. The inhabitants of the settlements that are supposed to be "relocated" include some of the most extreme elements of the settlement movement. There is no chance that these will go away peacefully. They will have to be removed by force. That will require a huge military effort."

"If Sharon succeeds in executing his plan, a new chapter in the 100-year old Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be opened. The Palestinians will be crowded into territories that will constitute about 10% of the original territory of Palestine before 1948. They will have no chance of enlarging this territory. On the contrary: they will be afraid of Sharon and his successors trying to remove them from what is left, completing the ethnic cleansing of Eretz Israel.

"Therefore, the Palestinians will fight against this plan, and their struggle will intensify the more it progresses. All possible means will be employed: firing missiles and mortar shells over the separation barrier, sending suicide bombers into Israel, and so on. Probably, the violent fight will spill over into many other countries around the world, both on the ground and in the air. There will be no peace, no security. In the end, the basic factors will be decisive: the endurance of the two peoples, their readiness to continue the bloody fight, with all its economic and social implications, as well as the willingness of the world to look on passively.

"The idea of "unilateral peace" is strikingly original. "Peace without the other side" is a contradiction in terms. Learned people will call it an oxymoron, a Greek term meaning, literally, a sharp folly. Eventually, the fate of this plan will be the same as the fate of all the other grandiose plans put forward by Sharon in his long career. One need only think of the Lebanon war and its price."

Sometime ago the remark was made "not to have read Chomsky is to court real ignorance". The same applies to Uri Avnery. To pay the slightest attention to the likes of Shimon Peres, Barak, Peace Now, New York Times and the like is mere foolishness. The key to understanding is simple enough: distinguish between those who are servants of power, and those who are dissidents.

Avnery also makes some withering comments on the military, intelligence and politics: "Did the analysts lie or did they believe what they said? Each possibility is worse than the other. If the experts lied, they did nothing unusual. It can be said that they did what intelligence people do all over the world: supply their bosses with the information they want to hear. Bush wants to attack Iraq? The CIA provides information about Saddam's WMD. Sharon wants to destroy UNRWA? Army intelligence provides photos of Hansen's rocket launchers.

"Fifty years ago, when foreign correspondents asked me about the credibility of official IDF statements, I used to answer that our army does not lie. One should believe its communiques, without a good reason to the contrary. Those days are long past. When I am asked the same question nowadays, I advise not to believe a single word of army announcements, without good reason to the contrary."

Sharon's Speech: Decoded Version: " He read out the written text of his speech, word for word, without raising his eyes from the page. It was vital for him to stick to the exact wording, since it was an encoded text. It is impossible to decipher it without breaking the code. And it is impossible to break the code without knowing Ariel Sharon very well indeed.... In his speech, Sharon outlined a whole, detailed - and extremely dangerous - plan. Those who did not understand - Israelis, Palestinians and foreign diplomats - will be unable to react effectively."

"But beneath the road to the implementation of the Sharon Plan there lie two big landmines: the settlers and the Palestinians. The inhabitants of the settlements that are supposed to be "relocated" include some of the most extreme elements of the settlement movement. There is no chance that these will go away peacefully. They will have to be removed by force. That will require a huge military effort."

"If Sharon succeeds in executing his plan, a new chapter in the 100-year old Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be opened. The Palestinians will be crowded into territories that will constitute about 10% of the original territory of Palestine before 1948. They will have no chance of enlarging this territory. On the contrary: they will be afraid of Sharon and his successors trying to remove them from what is left, completing the ethnic cleansing of Eretz Israel.

"Therefore, the Palestinians will fight against this plan, and their struggle will intensify the more it progresses. All possible means will be employed: firing missiles and mortar shells over the separation barrier, sending suicide bombers into Israel, and so on. Probably, the violent fight will spill over into many other countries around the world, both on the ground and in the air. There will be no peace, no security. In the end, the basic factors will be decisive: the endurance of the two peoples, their readiness to continue the bloody fight, with all its economic and social implications, as well as the willingness of the world to look on passively.

"The idea of "unilateral peace" is strikingly original. "Peace without the other side" is a contradiction in terms. Learned people will call it an oxymoron, a Greek term meaning, literally, a sharp folly. Eventually, the fate of this plan will be the same as the fate of all the other grandiose plans put forward by Sharon in his long career. One need only think of the Lebanon war and its price."

Sometime ago the remark was made "not to have read Chomsky is to court real ignorance". The same applies to Uri Avnery. To pay the slightest attention to the likes of Shimon Peres, Barak, Peace Now, New York Times and the like is mere foolishness. The key to understanding is simple enough: distinguish between those who are servants of power, and those who are dissidents.

Avnery also makes some withering comments on the military, intelligence and politics: "Did the analysts lie or did they believe what they said? Each possibility is worse than the other. If the experts lied, they did nothing unusual. It can be said that they did what intelligence people do all over the world: supply their bosses with the information they want to hear. Bush wants to attack Iraq? The CIA provides information about Saddam's WMD. Sharon wants to destroy UNRWA? Army intelligence provides photos of Hansen's rocket launchers.

"Fifty years ago, when foreign correspondents asked me about the credibility of official IDF statements, I used to answer that our army does not lie. One should believe its communiques, without a good reason to the contrary. Those days are long past. When I am asked the same question nowadays, I advise not to believe a single word of army announcements, without good reason to the contrary."