Steve Plaut's Open Letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Dear Prime Minister Olmert:

I am writing this to you to beg that you NOT stop the katushas from falling on me and my family in Haifa by means of the proposed ceasefire.

I and my family, including my children, live in Haifa, which has been hit by hundreds of rockets, out of the 4000 missiles fired into Israel these past five weeks. The proposed ceasefire you evidently are considering agreeing to is an Israeli capitulation. We do not believe it will lead to the dismemberment of Hezbollah terrorism and arrest of terrorists. And, in particular, it would cease the hostilities *without* the immediate return of the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Hezbollah terrorists.

Mr. Prime Minister, if I have to choose between the proposed ceasefire, which would leave the two kidnapped soldiers in Hezbollah captivity to become two new Ron Arads, disappearing forever into the bowels of the terror netherworld, or to continue being the recipient of hundreds more katyushas over coming weeks until the soldiers are released, then Mister Prime Minister I CHOOSE THE LATTER!

Do NOT stop the katyushas falling on me and my family by abandoning the soldiers to such a fate. Do not be concerned about me and my children, we will cope. Our upper lips are as stiff as they come. Like the British in the 40s, we will grin and bear the blitz that the Israeli Labor Party, led by Ehud Barak, is raining down upon us from Lebanon. So just let the blitz continue, only do NOT agree to any ceasefire capitulations!

Do NOT abandon the two soldiers on OUR account! In fact, if anything, we demand other preconditions for a ceasefire not included in what the UN has brokered. Refraining from firing rockets at us is NOT ENOUGH!

We prefer to be targeted to kayushas to abandoning Ron Arad himself. Do not agree to a ceasefire unless he is turned over to us. Do not agree to a ceasefire until Nasrallah himself is turned over to Israel, or at least his head is. And should he be turned over, then you must summarily execute him at once and bury him in a pig skin. The Lebanese do not agree to those conditions? Fine, then let the katyushas on Haifa continue, the important thing being that the military operations against the Hezbollah continue!

We in Haifa deny you permission to trade our safety for a premature end to the fighting! If you choose the path of cowardice, like all your political predecessors in Israel did these past two decades, then do NOT say you are doing so on OUR behalf! You do so on your own and in your own name, not in ours. We choose more katyushas to capitulation and appeasement!

Israel has been given a choice between capitulations and more katyushas; we choose the missiles!

Sincerely yours,


On behalf of the Plaut Family and all Zionists in Haifa