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Natan Sharansky ( , born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky () on 20 January 1948) is a notable former Soviet dissident, Human rights activist, former Prisoner of Zion, Israeli politician and author.
Sharansky is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center. 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).
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Quotations
A lack of moral clarity is also the tragedy that has befallen efforts to advance peace and security in the world. Promoting peace and security is fundamentally connected to promoting freedom and democracy.
Preface, page xix.
The conviction that freedom is a universal desire is not the property of any political camp. ... Yet those who hold it remain a precious few, outnumbered many times over by the skeptics who don't.
Pages 18-19.
Freedom's skeptics must understand that the democracy that hates you is less dangerous than the dictator who loves you. Indeed, it is the absence of democracy that represents the real threat to peace.
Page 95.
The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.
Encyclopedia
Natan Sharansky ( , born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky () on 20 January 1948) is a notable former Soviet dissident, Human rights activist, former Prisoner of Zion, Israeli politician and author.
Sharansky is chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center. 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 settlements from the Gaza Strip. He was re-elected to the Knesset in March 2006 as a member of the Likud Party. On 20 November 2006 he resigned from the Knesset to form the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies.
Since 18 June 2007, Sharansky serves as the Chairman of the Board of Beit Hatefutsot, the Jewish diaspora museum.
Biography
Born in Donetsk, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine) to a Jewish family, he graduated with a degree in applied mathematics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy—something highly valued in the U.S.S.R. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against adults. When incarcerated in solitary confinement, he claims to have played chess against himself in his mind. (See Fear No Evil). Sharansky beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition that was held in Israel (see List of people who have beaten Garry Kasparov in chess).
After being denied an exit visa to Israel on the grounds of national security in 1973, he became an activist in the human rights movement led by prominent physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, and became internationally known as the spokesperson for the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group.
Sharansky was one of the founders of, and spokesmen for, the Jewish and Refusenik movements in Moscow.
In March 1977, he was arrested, and in July 1978 convicted on charges of treason and spying for the United States, and sentenced to 13 years of forced labor.
After 16 months of incarceration in Lefortovo prison, he was sent to Perm 35, a Siberian labor camp, where he served for nine years. The fate of Sharansky and other political prisoners in the USSR, repeatedly brought to international attention by Western human rights groups and diplomats, was a cause of embarrassment and irritation for the Soviet authorities. As a result of increasing pressure of a mounting international campaign led by his wife, Avital Sharansky, in 1986, he was released to East Germany and led across the Glienicke Bridge to West Berlin where he was exchanged for a pair of Soviet spies: Karl Koecher and his wife, Hana Koecher. Famed for his resistance in the Gulag, he was told upon his release to walk straight towards his freedom; Sharansky instead walked in a zigzag in a final act of defiance. Sharansky then emigrated to Israel, adopting a Hebrew given name, Natan.
In 1988, Sharansky founded and became the first President of the Zionist Forum, an umbrella organization of Jewish activists from the former Soviet Union groups dedicated to helping new Israelis and educating the public about absorption issues. Sharansky also served as a contributing editor to The Jerusalem Report and as a Board member of Peace Watch.
In 1986, Congress granted him the Congressional Gold Medal. In 2006 US President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. On 17 September 2008, Sharansky was awarded the 2008 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, by former U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan. Those present at the ceremony included Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Cindy McCain.
Sharansky was the chairman and founder (in 1995) of the political party Yisrael BaAliyah ("Israel for aliya", or a pun, "Israel on the rise") promoting the absorption of the Soviet Jews into Israeli society. With another ex-Soviet dissident, Yuli Edelstein, as a co-founder and a slogan stating that their political party is different: its leaders first go to prison and only then go into politics, the party won seven Knesset seats in 1996.
From 2003 to 2005, Sharansky was a member of the Israeli cabinet (the second Ariel Sharon government). He resigned on 2 May 2005 in protest of the ruling Likud party's plan to withdraw Israeli communities from the contested Gaza Strip.
In 2005, Sharansky participated in "They Chose Freedom", a four-part television documentary on the history of the Soviet dissident movement.
He was number eleven on the list of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people of 2005 in the "Scientists and thinkers" category.
Sharansky and Avital live in Jerusalem and have two married daughters, Rachel and Hannah. In the Soviet Union, his marriage application to Avital was denied by the authorities. In spite of this rejection, they were married in a Moscow synagogue in a ceremony not recognized by the government.
Books
Sharansky has penned three books. The first is the autobiographical Fear No Evil, which dealt with his trial and imprisonment.
His second book, The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, co-written with Ron Dermer, became a "must read" on Embassy Row. It had a major influence on United States president, George W. Bush, and other government officials, who urged their subordinates to read the book:
"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy... For government, particularly — for opinion makers, I would put it on your recommended reading list. It's short and it's good. This guy is a heroic figure, as you know. It's a great book."
In it, Sharansky argues that freedom is essential for security and prosperity, and every people and nation deserve to live free in a democratic society. Suggesting his "town square test", Sharansky argues that human rights, safety, and stability can only be assured by releasing people from their oppressors and turning them into free societies where each would have the freedom to express his opinion. Therefore, he concludes, the free world must insist on promoting democracy for oppressed people, instead of appeasing dictatorships and doing business with tyrant regimes,
I then explained why democracy was so crucial to international stability and security, why linkage had been so successful during the Cold War, and why the free world had betrayed its democratic principles at Oslo. I outlined my plan to help the Palestinians build a free society and help Israelis and Palestinians forge a lasting peace.
Sharansky takes what many of his critics call a hardline position towards the Palestinians, arguing that there can never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians until the latter rid their society of terrorist groups like Hamas and of anti-Semitism. His critics see an incompatibility between his ardent Zionism and his commitment to the struggle for universal human rights and democracy.
In a recent Ha’aretz interview, he maintained the “Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.”
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy is a defense of the value of national and religious identity in building democracy.
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Fear No Evil: The Classic Memoir of One Man's Triumph over a Police State, Public Affairs: 1998. ISBN 1-891620-02-9.
- The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, Public Affairs: 2004. ISBN 1-58648-261-0.
- Defending Identity: Its Indisputable Role in Protecting Democracy, Public Affairs: 2008. ISBN 1-58648-513-X.
- , September 2008.
- , essay in Azure magazine.
- , essay in Azure magazine.
- , January 2009
See also
External links
- * Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Jewish Virtual Library
- Autobiographical article about his time in the GULAG October 2008.
- , by Martin Kramer
- by Michael C. Desch, The American Conservative, 28 March 2005.
- (Jerusalem Post) 23 February 2004
- Right Web Profile
- Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies
- February, 2009.
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