On Friday, Natan Sharansky will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, joining Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II, as the only non-Americans to be honored with both the Congressional and Presidential Medals of Freedom.
The award recognizes individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
Who is Natan Sharansky and why is he being so honored?
Sharansky to receive top US honor
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Former Israeli minister and statesman and world-renowned Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky will be awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony this week, becoming only the fourth non-American citizen to receive the two top civilian honors in the United States, the White House announced this weekend.
Sharansky, 58, who stepped down from Israeli politics last month and now serves as a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center, a conservative Jerusalem research institute, joins Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II as the only non-American citizens to receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Medal of Honor.
"Natan Sharansky's life is the story of good conquering evil. He remains a powerful champion of the principles that all people deserve to live in freedom and that the advancement of liberty is critical to peace and security around the world," the White House statement read. "The United States honors Natan Sharansky for his contributions to the cause of democracy and freedom."
The Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian award in the United States, will be awarded by US President George W. Bush to 10 individuals, including Sharansky, at a White House ceremony on Friday.
Sharansky to receive top US honor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky(Hebrew: נתן שרנסקי, Russian: Натан Щаранский; born January 20, 1948) is a notable former Soviet dissident, anticommunist, Zionist, Israeli politician and writer.
He is a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center and heads its strategic studies institute. From March 2003 until May 2005, he was a Minister without portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, social and Jewish diaspora affairs. Previously he served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, Minister of Housing and Construction since March 2001, Interior Minister of Israel (July 1999 - resigned in July 2000), Minister of Industry and Trade (1996-1999). He resigned from the cabinet in April 2005 to protest plans to withdraw Israeli settlers from the contested Gaza Strip. He was re-elected to the Knesset in March 2006 as a member of the Likud Party. In October 2006, it was announced that he plans to resign from politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Inside Bush's Brain:
Natan Sharansky's 2004 book The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror has had a profound influence on George W Bush's manichean political philosophy in his second term. In it you will find the basic argument that the world can be divided into Democracies (good) and Tyrannies (evil). Democracy is the preferred and natural state, and tyrannies should be isolated, marginalized and democracies encouraged.
The idea of the town-square test appears on Page 40 of Mr. Sharansky's book. By this point, he has developed the arguments that are repeated in various guises through the remaining 263 pages. These may be summarized as follows: Freedom is attainable for every person on earth. It is the best guarantee of global security, because democratic societies are nonbelligerent. Totalitarian or, as he puts it, fear societies are dangerous because they always seek external enemies as a means of self-preservation.
Books of the Times
To act on the above requires "moral clarity." This phrase is repeated with bludgeoning insistence. By moral clarity, Mr. Sharansky means the courage to bring down autocracy wherever it may exist, including the Middle East. "We must recapture moral clarity," he writes, "by recognizing that the great divide between the world of fear and the world of freedom is far more important than the divisions within the free world."
A glimpse into Bush's brain:
"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy," Bush said. "It's a great book." Then, two days before his second inaugural address, Bush told CNN that the book "summarizes how I feel. I would urge people to read it." Soon, the former Soviet dissident began getting more credit than Michael Gerson for Bush's rhetoric about the relationship between democracy and peace. Newsweek called The Case for Democracy Bush's "own manifesto in the Middle East—a tome he recommends to all comers in the Oval Office."
Ok, fair enough. George liked the book, becuase it was simple, repetetive and short.
But what's up with this extra-ordinary award?
Is it for Sharansky's support of US sponsored peace processes? AS housing minister:
Bush's 2005 inaugural address is replete with references to Sharansky's simplistic formulations, and Condi Rice's confirmation hearing speech was also heavily influenced by Sharansky's thinking, including the famous "town square" test. "Moral clarity" is also a verbal touchstone we frequently hear, and GWB claims to have it.
But how does this explain the award? Sharansky is on the far right of Israeli politics, the founder of the Russian immigrant party with Avigdor Lieberman, and has held a succession of cabinet posts. He is known for his resistance to any "land for peace".
As housing minister he continued to expand the settlements in defiance of Un resolutions, and the Sharm el Sheik conference
The housing minister and former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, told the Guardian he had approved tenders for more than 700 houses at Maale Adumim - by far the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, with more than 23,000 residents - and Alfei Menashe.
The move gives the lie to assurances by the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, on Sunday, that Israel accepts a central condition of a report on the Palestinian uprising by the former US senator, George Mitchell, which calls for a freeze on Jewish settlements.
Mr Sharansky said: "I don't think we should give any concession or prize for terrorist activity and that is what happens when we are asked to stop housing projects."
In his 32-page report, Mr Mitchell singled out the 145 Jewish settlements, considered illegal under international law, as one of the greatest obstacles to finding an escape from eight months of bloodshed.
That point was underlined yesterday when two Palestinian suicide bombers struck an Israeli army position and gunmen from both sides launched deadly attacks, casting a shadow over US-brokered talks. One man with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up at a checkpoint in the Gaza Strip, wounding two soldiers but killing only himself, the Israeli military said. Soldiers shot dead a second bomber who threw grenades but failed to detonate his load of explosives during his attack near a cluster of Jewish settlements.
The Palestinians insist that Israel must accept the Mitchell report - and freeze settlements - before a ceasefire.
Mr Sharansky shrugged off charges that he was imperilling peace efforts. Instead, he argued that the new houses were approved by the then Labour prime minister, Ehud Barak, last December, and the construction tenders were issued on April 5, well before Mr Mitchell called for a freeze.
Israel Defies U.S. With Settlement Expansion Plans
Is it for his compassion and Human rights advocacy?
Page xix: Sharansky sharply criticizes the way human rights "has come to mean sympathy for the poor, the weak, and the suffering," because "sympathy can also be placed in the service of evil."
Is it for his committment to peace?
Faced with the choice of trading land for peace, Sharansky advocates keeping all the land and continuing the fight with the Arabs. In a 2003 Jerusalem Post opinion piece entitled "Temple Mount Is More Important Than Peace," Sharansky baldly stated, "It was not for the sake of peace that the State of Israel was established, and it was not because of peace that millions of Jews gathered here. Nor was it peace for which the Jewish people prayed for thousands of years. The Jewish people prayed for Jerusalem."
Sharansky’s Double StandardSlate
Is it for his contributions to civil discourse and bridging between peoples?
Sharansky is a proponent of identifying New-Antisemitism", in which to criticise the policies of the government of Israel is tautologically a new form af anti-semitism, if ithe criticism can be shown to be one-sided, selective, without also elucidating Israel's side of the story, if the criticism evokes any comparative relationship to Israel's policies and fascist oppression, and if it questions the legitimacy of the Jewish state.
Is it because of his enlightened service in the Iraeli government?
Uri Avnery says:
First he established a party of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, achieved a respectable election result and joined a coalition headed by the Labor Party. But after some time his party started falling apart. He tried to save it by resigning from the government of Ehud Barak, on the grounds that it had made too many concessions to the Palestinians over Jerusalem.
Finally, in an admission of political bankruptcy, he joined the Likud. He is now a quite unimportant member of the government, calling himself grandly "Minister for Jerusalem", but serving actually as a Minister without Portfolio, who has been put, pro forma, in charge of Jerusalem affairs.
In the meantime, he has suffered some unpleasantness. Another famous immigrant from Russia published an extremely critical book about him, alleging that he had never been a prominent dissident, but that his importance had been deliberately inflated by the KGB in order to exchange him for its genuinely important agent in the American prison. Also, the book insinuates that his role behind bars was considerably less heroic than advertised.
For years now, he has peddled the idea that peace with the Arabs is impossible until they become democratic. In Israel, this was dismissed as just another propaganda gimmick serving the Israeli government's opposition to any peace that would mean an end to the occupation. Since Sharansky is totally ignorant of Arab affairs and has probably never had a serious conversation with an Arab, it is hard for Israelis to take him seriously. As far as I know, nobody does, not even among Rightists.
His highly unoriginal contention that "democracies do not make war against other democracies" is a perfect alibi for the United States to attack Iraq, Syria and Iran, which are, after all, no democracies (while dictatorships like Pakistan and Turkmenistan remain good friends).
The idea that the teachings of this particular political philosopher are the guiding star of the mightiest leader in the world, the commander of the biggest military machine in history, is rather frightening.
Avnery
More about what Michael C. Desch at the Robert M. Gates Chair in Intelligence and National Security Decision-making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University thinks.
American Conservative magazine
Why do you think Sharansky is being honored?