[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

It is simple math. At the very same time that Meretz MKs Oron and Zucker
were eating hummus with their "peace partner" "moderate" Marwan Barghouti,
Barghouti was directing the murder of Israelis.

Now Oron and others are pushing for Israel to release "peace partner"
"moderate" Marwan Barghouti, without ever actually explaining why today is
any different than the Oslo days of 2001 and 2002.

Na'ama Lanski reports: "Fares began meeting with Oron more than 10 years
ago, together with his colleague, Marwan Barghouti, who is now serving five
life terms in an Israeli prison for terrorist activity. Since then, close
relations of full trust have existed between Oron and the two Palestinian
activists. "Jumes never bought the monster image that Israel tried to forge
for Marwan," Fares says. "I swear on the Koran that if Jumes were prime
minister and Marwan head of the Palestinian Authority, we would achieve
peace here within six months."

Oron: "I have known Marwan since long before he entered prison. There was a
lengthy period when, if things got boring in the Knesset, [former Meretz MK]
Dedi Zucker and I would go to Ramallah to eat hummus with Marwan and Fares."

Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti is serving five consecutive life sentences and
40 additional years in prison for:

+ involvement in:
- the murder of Yula Hen, shot dead at a Givat Ze'ev gas station in 15
January 2002
- the murder of a Greek Orthodox priest near Ma'aleh Adumim in Jun 12, 2001

+ direct responsibility for the murders of Yosef Havi, Eliyahu Dahan and
police officer Selim Barichat, in the shooting attack at the Sea Food Market
restaurant in Tel Aviv in Mar 5, 2002 .

+ responsibility for the attempt by suicide bombers to detonate an
explosives-laden vehicle at Jerusalem's Malcha Mall 26 March 2002

===============
The candidate
By Na'ama Lanski Haaretz Mazagine section 11 January 2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943961.html

Last week, a few of MK Haim Oron's backers in the race for leadership of the
Meretz party informed him that they had decided to underwrite a chauffeur
for him. For years, Oron has driven by himself every day from Kibbutz Lahav,
in the northern Negev, to the Knesset in Jerusalem or to Meretz headquarters
in Tel Aviv. Even when his workday ends close to midnight he insists on
driving the gray Ford Mondeo home to Nili, his wife. Oron reacted to the
news with a burst of laughter and a jolt of embarrassment: "Why in the world
a driver? Me? A chauffeur? Are you off your rockers? Out of the question."
"It's a matter of life and death," explains Prof. Danny Jacobson, from Tel
Aviv University's Department of Labor Studies, a fervent believer in Oron's
candidacy. "It's true our campaign isn't flowing with money, but if
anything, heaven forbid, were to happen to him, even something small, what
would the whole campaign we are toiling over be worth? Yes, he objected
strenuously, because he lives and breathes the ethos of the kibbutz and
Hashomer Hatza'ir [a left-wing youth movement], which holds that no one has
privileges and that pampering is wrong, but I think we managed to persuade
him how important this is."

Oron will soon be 68. Until he announced his candidacy, a month ago, he had
intended this to be his last Knesset term. He had hoped to go back to being
more involved in the kibbutz - on the economic committee and in the plastics
plant - to spend more time with Nili and with their eight grandchildren, to
travel and to study. Oron has no formal education beyond a high school
diploma from the 1950s, after which he chose to go to the Negev to fulfill
the principles of the youth movement in which he was active.

"My plan was to audit courses, to pick up a bit of Jewish philosophy and
history," he relates over lunch in the kibbutz dining hall. "I felt it was
right for me to lower the volume. I had a feeling of having had enough. How
long can one be a member of the [Knesset] Finance Committee? How many
budgets can one pass? Things repeat themselves, there is less of a
challenge, and I have no one to pick a quarrel with. On the substantive
issues, the discourse has become rather shallow, at the level of yesterday's
headlines. There is no one in the Knesset today who espouses a comprehensive
ideological approach different from mine with whom I can truly argue."

Just as he used to claim that he had no ambitions to be an MK and did not
push to become the executive secretary of the Kibbutz Ha'artzi movement,
this time, too, he was pushed into the race, acceding to the heavy pressure
exerted on him or accepting the "movement's decision" - a term he is
especially fond of.
"The word 'push' is very appropriate in this context," says the writer Amos
Oz, who has been one of Oron's closest friends for the past 30 years, since
the beginnings of the Peace Now movement. "Jumes was not eager to run for
the Meretz leadership," Oz continues, using Oron's nickname. "In previous
rounds he rebuffed requests, including mine, to run, but today, in light of
the circumstances in the party, on the left and in Israeli society, he
decided that it would be right. He accepted the movement's decision - and
that is not just an empty phrase. I don't think he has a burning ambition to
be number one. He is less ambitious than most politicians, and therein lies
strength, not weakness. It is devotion to the cause that drives him. He
excels in human relations, is a team player and has an extraordinary ability
to read the political situation correctly and make an accurate situation
assessment. I have had the feeling for a very long time that Jumes should
lead Meretz and strengthen it."

How can Meretz be strengthened in its present condition?

"By creating drama around its policy positions."

Is Oron a man of dramas?

"It will be done with the help of others. So I am happy in the knowledge
that he is a leader who will share the work with everyone."

Here to work

In addition to Oz and Jacobson, Oron's ardent supporters include activists
and intellectuals like Yair Tsaban, Elazar Granot, Nissim Kalderon, Avishai
Grossman, Danny Filk, Aliza Amir and Yossi Proust. All of them, with the
exception of Amos Oz, met about a month ago at the home of Meretz founder
Shulamit Aloni, a former MK and cabinet minister, in the affluent community
of Kfar Shmaryahu for the critical stage of the campaign to persuade Oron to
run.

"Jumes continued to refuse, but we kept badgering him. We told him he could
not be an evader," Aloni relates. "There is no one who does not hold Jumes
in high regard. You will not find anyone. It's true that he is not famous
and does not spur his assistants to get his name into the gossip columns.
That is not the kind of people we are, like the current speaker of the
Knesset, people who are concerned about their hairdos and the styling of
their clothes. Jumes is a truth-speaker, is not ashamed of ideology, and
little by little, he will also learn how to stand out and sell himself.
It'll be fine."

Oron agonized after the meeting, his friends say, mainly because of a
scenario that was presented according to which Meretz will be wiped out in
the next elections, without enough votes to enter the Knesset. After he
declared his candidacy for the party leadership, compliments poured in from
every direction. Publicists, public figures and Knesset colleagues extolled
his virtues as a diligent, upright, probing parliamentarian, an authentic
personality who is also affable and liked by everyone in the legislature
(with the possible exception of a few members of Meretz). Others, though -
albeit fewer in number - alleged that he is a compromiser, seeks consensus,
is naive, lacks talons, is totally without the color, wit and linguistic
fireworks of Shulamit Aloni and former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid - and on
top of it all is a kibbutz member, which in this context makes him sectoral.

"So people say 'compromiser,'" Oron retorts. "In what way am I a
compromiser? I was one of the leaders of the Geneva Initiative. Does anyone
have a more radical and far-reaching idea than the Geneva Initiative? On
social issues, I don't think anyone will claim that any member of the
Finance Committee espouses more radical positions in their essence. Style is
something else. I don't have to gouge someone's eye out in order to say that
I disagree with him. I can treat his approach respectfully while telling him
the most radical things.

"I do not deny that the least developed part of me is my elbows, and that I
have no intention of sharpening them, even if some people view that as a
defect."

And naivete?

"That is my tendency to listen to people's positions and try to understand
them. Maybe it comes from self-confidence, sometimes excessive, that I have
a position of my own. I am not afraid to listen to or confront other
positions. I am aware of all kinds of allegations against me. There is the
allegation of Jumes the state-oriented, or Jumes whose public will get
screwed because he will not look after his kibbutz the way he will look
after a neighboring kibbutz. And finally, I am accused of being sectoral."

The most convenient place for Oron is number two. There he can flourish as
the highly successful nondescript official. The one who is knowledgeable
about the small print in the budget, who stands out above all the members of
the Finance Committee, whose credibility landed him the position of chairman
of the Knesset's Ethics Committee a second time, and who is the tenacious
head of the parliament's public health lobby.

You said you have had your fill of this kind of activity, so why should
people now vote for you as party leader?

"I am aware of a claim that even though I was number two, nothing happened
without me. In the Knesset I viewed myself as someone who simply came to
work. It's my job. I arrive at 8 or 8:30 in the morning and start to work,
whether on legislation or in the Finance Committee or dealing with requests
from the public. I try to be ready, to read relevant material, to make an
effort. But I made a wholehearted decision to run, and if I win - and let it
be clear that no one has yet crowned me - I will not put on a one-man show.
I believe in the model of a shared leadership, which will give expression to
everyone."

Implicit in this remark is criticism of the party's outgoing chairman, MK
Yossi Beilin. "There was no such thing as 'Beilin's leadership,'" people in
Meretz say, "because he tended not to consult or share things with others,
but to do as he pleased." Oron, who has decided to run a positive campaign
and not badmouth his party colleagues, chooses his words carefully: "Yossi
chose a certain pattern of leadership which was not appropriate for Meretz,"
he says. "The assumption that one can speak in a number of voices in such a
small party and that things will work out, is mistaken. We had arguments
over this. In a party of the Meretz type, there is no way that five MKs will
speak in five different voices."

You and MK Ran Cohen are veteran rivals. Will cooperation be possible after
he accused you, among other things, of representing the old Ashkenazi elite
and as being responsible, along with Beilin, for driving away voters?

"Of course it will be possible. In a campaign there is a certain aggravation
of relations. I am not one to hold a grudge. Even if sometimes people say
things that were better left unsaid, we can go on. I prefer to hold my
tongue. After the next leader is elected, we need to adopt a more restrained
culture. There is no need to shout out a different stand in order to acquire
status in the party. I do not intend to shirk responsibility for everything
that happened in Meretz. What happened, for good and for ill, was my
responsibility, too. But if I made voters leave, then so did Ran Cohen and
[MK] Zahava Gal-On" - who is also running for the party leadership.

Shunning the extremes

In the Ramat Gan neighborhood where he grew up and in the youth movement,
Oron was called "jamus" - a water buffalo - because he was "big and black,"
and this later morphed into "jumes," a sycamore fruit.

Oron's parents immigrated to Palestine from Poland before the Second World
War. The father was a textile worker, the mother a housewife, and to
supplement their income they both made curtains on commission. Haim Oron met
his wife, Nili, in the youth movement, and they have been together ever
since. In Kibbutz Lahav, which they joined after military service in the
Nahal brigade, Nili became involved in education and Haim taught in high
school and was active in various kibbutz industries: poultry, field crops
and the sausage factory (pork products). In addition, he was a member of
every kibbutz committee, a worker in the plastics plant - and at one stage
its manager, served as the kibbutz executive secretary and held the same
position in the Hashomer Hatza'ir movement, was twice the national secretary
of Hakibbutz Ha'artzi and was among the founders of Peace Now. He was first
elected to the Knesset in 1988, on behalf of the Mapam party (the political
branch of Hakibbutz Ha'artzi, the party became one of the components of
Meretz). In 1994 he was appointed treasurer of the Histadrut labor
federation, under the organization's chairman at the time, Haim Ramon, and
in 1999 was minister of agriculture for 10 months in the government of Ehud
Barak.

Haim Oron is intimately acquainted with the northern Negev. He loves driving
through the area and telling about the expanses that surround Kibbutz Lahav,
the wheat fields, the fields of carrots and onions, where the earth is now
being turned over before being seeded anew, because the rains were late in
coming. Of the settlement of Eshkolot, which lies east of Lahav, across the
Green Line, he speaks in other tones. When the settlement was first
established, he used to "spit out a curse" whenever he passed it, "even
though the people who live there are relatively moderate."

According to the Geneva Initiative - Oron has no doubt that it will be
implemented in full in a political agreement with the Palestinians - the
border of the state of Palestine will pass 800 meters from his home. When
that day comes, no one will be happier than he.

Legend has it that Oron's hair turned white in one day, 32 years ago. He
took his 4-year-old son, Yaniv, with him to work in the kibbutz fields. The
boy fell off the tractor and was critically hurt. With his son in his arms,
Oron ran several kilometers to the kibbutz, but the boy died. Yaniv was the
Orons' third child. Their eldest, Irit, lives with her family in Matan, a
community in the Sharon area; their son, Uri, is a colonel in the air force.
Another son, Assaf, an economist living in Tel Aviv, was an infant when the
tragedy occurred. Two years after the accident, another son, Oded, was born,
and is now also in the air force. Oron remains reticent about the incident.

"Even after all these years, it is something I am unable to talk about. A
few years ago, Nili and I went to visit the grave. The pain is still
intolerable, and so is the guilt." Nili Oron's grief was channeled into a
children's book she wrote. Published two years after her son's death, it
contained stories that Yaniv especially liked. Hanging in Oron's study (he
still calls his home "the room," despite its spaciousness) hang four
original illustrations by the writer Alona Frankel, which appeared in the
book. A few months ago, several dozen copies of the book - which has long
been out of print - were found by chance in the publisher's warehouse, and
Nili, overjoyed, bought them all.

For years she has been working in ceramics, creating decorative walls, such
as the one that greets those entering the dining hall of Kibbutz Lahav. Her
workshop, in which she gives courses in ceramics and pottery making,
contains many of her own works, which are optimistic and pleasing to the
eye. But in a hidden corner are a few works she describes as "hard and
frightening, which are impossible to love." One of them is a sculpture of a
woman holding a seemingly comatose infant.

Oron says they were supposed to move to the neighborhood of the kibbutz
veterans, but prefer to stay in their longtime home with the broad garden in
which they planted a tree in honor of each of their eight grandchildren and
in which Oron also built a swing. He is devoted to the kibbutz and has no
qualms at all, he says, about the fact that his entire salary from the
Knesset goes into the collective treasury or that his pension will not be as
good as that of the other MKs.

His perception of the kibbutz project reflects the compromiser's approach
attributed to him. In Oron's words, "Life is not lived at the extremes; that
does not mean it can be totally pragmatic. Reality is multifaceted and
complex, and you have to struggle for your views, but also to compromise -
up to the point where the core of your ideology is in danger."

Your notion that "life is not lived at the extremes" is reflected in other
areas, too. For example, in the green sphere, which Meretz advocates: you
did not oppose the building of the Trans-Israel Highway, you are not against
the establishment of the army's training camps complex at Ramat Hovav [a
site where toxic waste products are stored and processed], and an institute
in your kibbutz performs experiments on live pigs.

"The green issue was always part of Meretz's agenda, and is now more
important than ever. I think we have to limit unnecessary cruel experiments
on animals, but we also have to ask where the point of equilibrium lies. We
were involved in developing valves for the heart and in examining a drug for
leukemia. Are people ready to give up these achievements? I am not an expert
in the field, but I have heard many experts state that there are many areas
in which it is not yet possible to forgo experiments on animals.

"I did not oppose the Trans-Israel Highway, because of the route's
importance for those who live at its extremities. This world would look
green and delightful if there were no people here, but people do live here
and we have to make life easier for them. Along with my support for the
building of the highway, I worked, for example, to reduce the interchanges
when possible. And I am definitely not against the training camps complex.
If there is a problem with Ramat Hovav, it is equally valid with regard to
Be'er Sheva, which is the same distance from Ramat Hovav as the army complex
will be from the site. There is a great deal the state can do to ensure that
Ramat Hovav will not pollute the training camps or Be'er Sheva or the
Bedouin settlements, which are just a few kilometers from the site and are
scandalously neglected. I have been involved in that story for 15 years
now."

The Barghouti connection

Oron was always attentive to the plight of the Bedouin population in the
Negev, even before he entered the Knesset. On a visit to the "unrecognized"
village of Umm Batin, he points across the road, where the villas of Omer,
an upscale Be'er Sheva suburb, are visible between the trees. "The largest
socio-economic gap in the country exists here, within an area of less than
one kilometer," he says.

The village, which consists mainly of tin huts, is not connected to the
power grid and has no running water; what does run through it is Hebron
Creek, now reduced to a conduit of stinking toxic sewage originating in
Hebron and in Jewish and Bedouin settlements. Salameh Abu Kaf, a Meretz
activist, relates that beyond the unbearable stench and the horrific look of
the place, all manner of insects that are drawn to the sludge in the summer
often bite the local children, some of whom have ended up in hospital in
serious condition.

With Oron's aid, a sewage purification facility will be built that will
produce water fit for irrigation which, by chance, will be used by Kibbutz
Lahav. He also helped get a clinic established, as well as nursery schools,
with the considerable assistance of Yossi Sarid when he was minister of
education. A few years ago, says Ali Abu Kaf, the principal of the regional
school, a village child was hospitalized in Soroka Medical Center in Be'er
Sheva, and his parents could not afford to pay the bill of NIS 67,000. MK
Talab al-Sana (United Arab List) tried for a month to help "but with no
success. Then I turned to Jumes. I wrote him a letter, and the next day I
already had a meeting with the director of Soroka, and two days later we
were asked to pay only a third of the bill."

"And then what happened?" Oron asks with a smile. "Talab al-Sana got the
credit," Ali Abu Kaf says.

And with all the help, do the village residents vote Meretz?

"Very few of them," Salameh Abu Kaf says.

This story reflects two of Oron's problems. One, well-known and tragic for
Meretz, is that Oron and his colleagues work to benefit people who do not
repay them in the form of votes, and the party has not been able to find a
way to avoid this trap. The second is that Oron allows others to take the
credit that is his due. A salient example is the Geneva Initiative, which is
identified above all with Yossi Beilin.

According to a source who was very much involved in the process, Oron "was
the driving force in Geneva, the industrious ant who put everything together
but remained in the background while others enjoyed the credit. There were
serious arguments during the process, and he was the compromise force. The
effort nearly fell apart at least twice. I remember that there was a
tremendous crisis with the Palestinians over the issue of the refugees and
the prisoners, and Jumes, in his biblical sandals, stood up in front of
everyone and said, 'Listen, do you know what the implications will be if we
don't succeed in reaching understandings here, between the people of
peace?'" He bridged everything in a businesslike way, with no tricks and no
backbiting."

Kadoura Fares, a senior Fatah figure, who describes Oron as "a loyal friend
of mine," relates: "He was very dominant and encouraged us to make progress
all along. He didn't care what the newspapers and the history books would
write about him. He treated the agreement as though it were going to be
implemented tomorrow. He is loyal to Zionism and to his country, but on the
other hand he is attentive to all our problems. He is consistent in his
approach and doesn't speak in different tongues. He was the most influential
person on the Israeli side, and he never fell into the despair that seized
some of us. I do not want to belittle Beilin's skill in marketing the idea
internationally, but without Jumes the Geneva Initiative would not have
happened."

Fares began meeting with Oron more than 10 years ago, together with his
colleague, Marwan Barghouti, who is now serving five life terms in an
Israeli prison for terrorist activity. Since then, close relations of full
trust have existed between Oron and the two Palestinian activists. "Jumes
never bought the monster image that Israel tried to forge for Marwan," Fares
says. "I swear on the Koran that if Jumes were prime minister and Marwan
head of the Palestinian Authority, we would achieve peace here within six
months."

Oron: "I have known Marwan since long before he entered prison. There was a
lengthy period when, if things got boring in the Knesset, [former Meretz MK]
Dedi Zucker and I would go to Ramallah to eat hummus with Marwan and Fares.

"At a certain point after his imprisonment," Oron continues, "I asked to
visit him, while he was still in solitary confinement. Since then, for more
than three years, I have visited him regularly once every week or two.
That's more than his wife sees him. Maybe only his lawyer sees him more than
I do. At the personal level, close relations have definitely been formed
between us. We talk a lot about his family, about what he is going through."

According to some media reports, Oron is the mediator or liaison between
Barghouti and the Israeli government. Predictably, Oron denies this: "I am
not a mediator and I don't have a mandate to be a mediator. From my
opposition perch I am trying to maintain the central track of dialogue with
a responsible and important individual in the Palestinian leadership, whom I
know wants to reach a peace agreement with us quickly and whose basic policy
lines are more or less on the table.

"We are making a big mistake in delaying his release. I understand the
political difficulties, but I also understand well the significance of this
person. People like [cabinet ministers] Fuad [Benjamin Ben-Eliezer], Ami
Ayalon and Gideon Ezra already agree with him openly, and if I have
contributed to that, it makes me very happy. According to everyone who is
informed about developments at the grassroots level, he has by far the
highest public and political status in Fatah. Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad
[referring to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his prime
minister] are partners for dialogue but are too weak, while the strong
dialogue partner is sitting in jail, and could do a great deal to advance
the process."

In addition to Barghouti's release, Oron would like to see steps taken that
would bolster the moderates in the Palestinian camp; if that route is not
taken, Israel will reach a "no exit" situation, he says. "Negotiations must
be held on the core issues, which everyone - Olmert, Livni, Defense Minister
Ehud Barak - knows are on the table and also knows that there is no better
proposal than the existing one. The second necessity is to implement changes
on the ground, such as removing checkpoints and dismantling settlements, as
well as releasing security prisoners. Alongside the list of Hamas prisoners
who will be freed to recover the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, a list of
prisoners to be freed for Abu Mazen must also be drawn up. This is so the
Palestinian nation will understand that we release prisoners not only when a
soldier is abducted but as part of negotiations. And that second list has to
be no less meaningful than the Hamas list. We are holding 11,000 prisoners,
which is a mass that the Palestinian government cannot countenance. There
are thousands of families coping with this situation."

How do these sharp stands sit with the support that you and Meretz gave
Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement and Olmert's Annapolis conference -
neither of which reflected your principles?

"What do you suppose our voters expected from us when Sharon decided on the
disengagement? For us to oppose it and thwart it? Am I supposed to stand by
the side in a situation in which settlements are evacuated? People had
better not play games with me. We checked, and I can tell you that the
majority of our voters expected us to side with the disengagement, despite
the harsh criticism we voiced because it was not done in coordination with
Abu Mazen. From the moment it became clear to us that Sharon would not talk
to Abu Mazen, what were we supposed to do?

"As for Olmert, it's true that after the publication of the first report by
the Winograd Committee" - which examined the management of the Second
Lebanon War - "I called on him to resign, but then you have to ask what you
do when it turns out that he is not resigning. He is still the prime
minister. So is he barred from attending a conference at Annapolis? What am
I supposed to do when the conference is on the agenda and might bring
progress?

"I do not accept the approach that all you have to do is shout 'Olmert go
home' and do nothing until he does. Meretz should not adopt that approach.
In every situation we have to ask how we can help influence a change of
direction."

What is your view of Ehud Barak's return to politics?

"Barak is not saying anything and, regrettably, in a great many areas he is
doing the opposite of what needs to be done. I don't know what he wants, and
many members of his own party, including senior figures and cabinet
ministers, have not succeeded in explaining his policy to me. He is cloaking
himself in the mantle of head of the peace camp, but there is no content to
that title. He ran in internal elections, said nothing about what he thinks,
and won, so apparently there are large segments of the public who think it's
not necessary to know what the party leader thinks. After the big
disappointment in Barak as prime minister, we were sold a different Barak, a
changed Barak. I find no change.

"Putting aside the personal aspects, I am against the positions Barak is
adopting on a daily basis as defense minister. Checkpoints have not been
removed - in fact, new ones have been added - prisoners are not being
released, and nothing has been done to ease the situation at the crossing
points or in commerce. Everything is stuck. From authorization to open a
hospital ward to the supply of electricity and water. Nothing has changed
[regarding the territories], and these are matters for which Barak bears the
main responsibility. He has not made a turnabout in the Defense Ministry."

New blood

Oron is apprehensive about those who say he will win the leadership race,
scheduled for March, in a cakewalk. According to a recent survey by Israel
Radio, Oron has the support of 59 percent of Meretz voters, compared to 18
percent for Zahava Gal-On and 6 percent for Ran Cohen. "At the same time,"
he says, "and without crowning myself chairman prematurely, with all due
modesty and seriousness, I am already thinking about the day after. About
attracting groups of voters to Meretz. The party also needs new blood."

What is your opinion of Beilin's remark, after he withdrew from he
leadership race, that the Meretz label has worn itself out?

"With all my support and closeness to Beilin, I think the Meretz label has
not worn itself out at all. I do not read Beilin's texts like Scripture. So
he said what he said."

If you are not elected Meretz chairman, will you carry out your original
plan to retire from the Knesset at the end of this term?

"Possibly. I don't want to commit myself to anything just now. I made a
decision in order to win, not lose. I do not share the fears that Meretz
will diminish or will not get enough votes to enter the Knesset. I have my
masochistic aspects, but not to the point where I would enter this race in
order to be, heaven forbid, the undertaker."