For Uzi Landau, the writing was on the wall
By Mazal Mualem Haaretz 24 August 2006
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/754136.html

A day before the current government was sworn in, on April 17, former
Knesset member Uzi Landau found out he has prostate cancer. This grave news
came on top of the Likud defeat in the elections, his personal failure to
obtain a realistic place in the party's Knesset list and the failure of the
rebellion he had led in the Likud to stop the disengagement.

At age 63, after 22 years in politics as a Knesset member and a minister,
and after two turbulent years as head of the rebel group, Landau suddenly
found himself outside the political game, with a cancerous tumor to fight.
He is an organized man, stubborn and rational; predictably he saw no
symbolism between the newly found tumor and the blow to his political
career.

After consulting several doctors, Landau decided on a treatment strategy,
and he had a successful operation a month ago in Paris. Fortunately the
tumor was discovered at an early stage and had not spread.

Granting a first interview since his illness became public, Landau adamantly
blocks discussing it or how he has coped. He sums up the ordeal with typical
briefness and distance. "Prostate cancer is very common among men", he says.
"I had to treat it. I consulted experts. I treated it. That's it. Now I'm in
after-care."

"Now" is the middle of August 2006. Precisely a year to the Gaza
disengagement, a week from the end of the second Lebanon war, which of
course Landau links to the Gaza withdrawal, eight months from Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon's exit from the political arena. A different era.

He arrives for the interview in sandals, far from the buttoned-up image of
Landau the politician. These days he is looking into a few job offers in the
private sector and academia; he has a doctorate in civil engineering.

He does not miss politics nor most of the politicians. He stays in touch
with Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu, and Knesset members Natan Sharansky
and Moshe Kahlon, but says he has no intention of returning to political
life. A man who was one of the media's most celebrated politicians in the
two years prior to the disengagement has not been seen on televisions
screens for several months. He is forgotten, along with all of his fellow
rebels, who held center stage in the public discourse for a long while.

You probably want to shout out that you were right? Qassams, Katyushas.

Landau: "I have nothing new to say. It doesn't interest me to say I was
right. Nothing came as a surprise. The disengagement caused a terrible split
in the nation, has promoted the radicals and made Hezbollah understand that
the Jews understand only force. We are now in a much worse situation than we
were a month ago. But I was made to look delusional, because part and parcel
of the campaign against the disengagement opposition was a nonsensical
discourse. They said I was a war monger."

Surely you assess the next war to be approaching?

"The odds are much greater today of a war with Syria. The only possibility
to prevent a war is to make clear to everyone that you are ready for it.
Because when you face a terror organization that sees you as cobweb, there
is no way to avoid confrontation. We found ourselves in the current conflict
in Lebanon because we were not ready to take chances, so we paid a heavier
price. If a Palestinian terrorist is released now from prison, we are laying
the foundations for the next kidnapping."

Do you sympathize with those calling for Olmert, Peretz and Halutz to
resign?

"Yes. In any normal country the trio would not be allowed to go on
functioning. You don't have to wait for outsiders to tell you so. This is
our tragedy. I was disappointed. I thought Olmert would behave differently.
I expected him to be firm. I thought we would end this war on a different
note. This is a trio of unworthy people. Olmert is very clever. He knows how
to make decisions, but not regarding policy and war. Peretz has no
understanding whatsoever. He speaks of negotiations with Syria, so the
Syrians are confident that we lost, since they understand only force. And we
have a foreign minister who is doing her internship in foreign policy. All
of this at Israel's most difficult period, with the public paying the
price."

The question of whether a state commission of inquiry should be established
brings him back to the days of Sharon and releases pent-up anger against the
mediad:

"I'm not a lover of inquiry commissions", he says, "but I wish a committee
would be set up to examine the media, which has to ask itself how it was
used as a mouthpiece for the government during the last five years,
particularly during the disengagement. It was one of Israel's greatest
tragedies. The country was run by a gang of media spinners, Sharon's media
consultants were only concerned with Sharon's interest, and not with the
country's interest.

"Journalism in Israel is a cartel. You cannot express yourself, and you
cannot conduct a debate. This journalism has deluded the public and
prevented a serious discussion. For a long time there was a desire to keep
the facade. Even now the same interviewers are inviting the same
commentators and the same consultants and all those who drove us into the
mud. For 13 years the elite has been explaining to us that we are the
occupation and justice is with the Palestinians. We were brainwashed that
the Israel Defense Forces cannot win, that it is all about the occupation.
No real debate took place.

"Oslo does not represent only a physical withdrawal. It was a mental
withdrawal. The entire country was reprogrammed. We escaped from Lebanon.
The Four Mothers model also hurt us. All the rhetoric since has rendered
Israel's rational capacity impotent."

But the public did not go for your proposal. The disengagement happened and
the great revolution failed.

"I don't think that the rebels failed. That period was the height of my
political activity in my 22 years of Knesset membership. We proved that not
everyone in the Likud is for sale."

The disengagement took place, you brought about the splitting of the Likud,
and most of you stayed outside the Knesset. That's a failure.

"The Likud would have split in any case. Maybe we shouldn't have voted
against the appointments of Ministers Ze'ev Boim and Ronnie Bar-On in the
second round. We gave Arik an easy way out. Ruby Rivlin told me, 'Arik is
looking for an excuse to leave the Likud, so even if he intends to appoint a
horse, I am going to vote for it. I will not give him an excuse.' In
retrospect, Ruby was right."

Landau, the leader who contended for the party leadership, was left without
a relevant central message. Without a real opponent. At the end of the day
he also forfeited the dream, withdrew his candidacy and teamed up with
Netanyahu. These were already the days of his political decline. In the
Likud's elections for the Knesset list, he found himself 14th, an
unrealistic place.

Landau believes that the combination of his inexperience at wheeling and
dealing and punishment for spliting the Likud kept him out of the Knesset.
He says he had lost the joy of politics and hoped not to be elected: "On my
way to the trade fairs, while I was listening to the polls on the radio, I
said to myself, 'I wish the Likud would not reach 14 mandates.' I didn't
want to be in this Knesset."

Do you think of Sharon sometimes?

"Of course. I also have had several conversations with Omri. On a personal
level, I am grieving. All the ganging up on Sharon was a very difficult
thing for me. I appreciated him. In 1973 I was part of his force that
crossed the [Suez] canal, and it was a sweet song. All the glory was his.
Sharon's honor is dear to me, but the honor of the country is even dearer.

"To this day it is unclear what he was thinking of with the disengagement.
In 1995 Sharon was asked, 'How did Rabin go to Oslo?' Sharon replied, 'Rabin
is a different man'. I can say the same of Sharon. He was a different man
when he commanded the disengagement. I have no other way to explain it. That
is not the Sharon I knew. To this moment I cannot grasp the disengagement
issue. As far as I am concerned, it's the handiwork of media spin."

Is it like they claim, that Sharon is one of the responsible for the Lebanon
failure?

"When I was the minister in charge of secret services overview, we had a
cabinet meeting on an occasion when Hezbollah attacked our soldiers. 2001 if
I recall correctly. Arik ordered for the first time to respond with an
attack on a Syrian target. We took down a Syrian radar station. For me that
was like breathing clear mountain air. A government that understands that
the real enemy is Syria, and not anyone else. It was one specific operation,
but we held to that guideline. In effect, Arik did not deal with Lebanon. We
did not deal with the Lebanese issue properly. Naturally all the attention
was on the terror."

Landau sees all the processes that Israel has undergone since Oslo as a
consistent weakening, "A slippery slope."

"I look at the Arabs. When they wage their war against us, they are certain
they are right. The Arabs fight for justice, we fight for peace and
security. It has a devastating effect".

According to Landau, the social and leadership conduct since Oslo projects
weakness. He finds another expression to this "in the behavior of the Arab
Knesset members", whom he calls a fifth column. "This is our stupidity", he
says. "We are the only country in the world which allows use of the
democratic instrument to undermine its Jewish democratic nature. It's
another expression of our inner weakness. Ahmad Tibi cannot be a member of
the Israeli Knesset."

Any thoughts of returning to politics?

"I cannot find a reason to come back to politics today, unless it is to a
position from which I have crucial influence. I was already a Knesset member
and a minister. On the personal level I have achieved everything a
politician could aim for."