http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0704280409apr29,1,2685653.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident and Israeli Cabinet member who spent nine years in a gulag because of his human-rights activities. Released in 1986 after worldwide lobbying, he immigrated to Israel, where he eventually founded the Yisrael B’Aliya party and was a minister and deputy prime minister.

Sharansky emerged as a conservative critic of the peace process, and he resigned from Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet in 2005 because of disagreement over withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians say Sharansky has betrayed his human-rights background, but he insists Israel’s concessions have only encouraged further terror and delayed the establishment of a Palestinian state. He has taken on Iran’s nuclear ambitions and what he calls “the new anti-Semitism” directed at Israel and Jews worldwide.

Sharansky, 59, spoke to the Tribune on Wednesday before addressing the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago at a fundraising dinner in the Loop. Below is an edited transcript.

Q. How serious a problem is anti-Semitism today?

A. Very serious. With the money of the free world, the Palestinian Authority is producing the most anti-Semitic types of propaganda in history…. Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to see who could put the classical anti-Semitic stories into more powerful ways.

Israel is constantly compared to Nazi Germany. One of the spiritual leaders of Europe comes and says, “I was in a Palestinian refugee camp, and that is the Auschwitz of today.” Some years ago, the most popular cartoon of the year in Britain was Ariel Sharon eating Palestinian children and the blood dripping from his mouth. And when they complained — not Israel, but British Jews — [Britain’s Political Cartoon Society] proudly gave this the cartoon of the year award and published it as a big one-page cartoon.

When the Iranian president proclaims that there should be a world without Zionism, he means that he will use nuclear weapons. It is so dangerous because there are too many people that it doesn’t frighten.

Q. Does Israel share the blame for the rise in anti-Semitism — however reprehensible — because of its treatment of the Palestinians?

A. Occupation is a bad thing. For people to control the life of other people is a bad thing. But Israel again and again and again showed that the moment there was some very small, illusory hope for peace, they were ready to go ahead for all kinds of concessions.

You know, I resigned from Ariel Sharon’s government because of this. I was calling for a Palestinian state long before Ariel Sharon was ready for this. But I believe that one-sided concessions to terror will bring more terror.

Q. In the United States there is talk of bringing Iran and Syria into the dialogue as a way of settling the conflicts in the Middle East. Do you fear this might decrease pressure on Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

A. I find it absolutely ridiculous. What kind of contribution can this Iranian regime bring to the dialogue for peace when they made it very clear that for them peace means no more Israel?

It took time for the West to understand that the only way to really force the Soviet Union to cooperate was to make economical and political links to human rights. And that until now hasn’t happened with Iran.

Q. You were a critic of the decision to withdraw from Gaza. What’s your assessment of the situation in the past year?

A. Unfortunately, everything that has happened was predicted in my statement of resignation. In my last meeting with Ariel Sharon on the Gaza plan, I said, “I want to be wrong. Because after all, I am interested in the situation of Israel, and not in being right. But because I am absolutely sure that I am right about this disengagement, we will suffer, Palestinians will suffer, and Gaza will turn into a major center of the world’s terror.”

Q. What did you think of Boris Yeltsin?

A. I think he played, whether consciously or unconsciously, a historic role in the dramatic transformation of the Soviet Union into Russia. [Mikhail] Gorbachev is not the one who wanted to make Russia free. He was a loyal communist, but he understood that the system doesn’t work. He wanted to improve communism…. And then along came Yeltsin and said, “Forget about all this. You don’t need it anymore.”

Q. Was there any time during your years in prison when you felt you would prevail?

A. There was some moment when I was in the punishment cell, and in the neighboring cell was a friend of mine who would be released in two months. So I knocked Morse code, if, when he was to be released, he would tell my family that if by Yom Kippur they would not get any letter, then they should know that I will start a hunger strike, and I will continue to the end.

And so he was released, and it was like one month until Yom Kippur, so he had enough time to go from his house in Siberia to Moscow. And I later found out that that very day that I started the hunger strike, my wife held a press conference.

Q. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

A. I am optimistic. First of all, Israel is very strong, much stronger than people think. It has a very strong economy, it has a strong democracy and, as this war showed, it has a very strong spirit. Second, I do believe that the only way to solve this problem is that Israel will stop being the only democratic state in the Middle East.

The wildest part of my optimism is that I do believe that Palestinians want and can and should and would live in a free society.