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Prime Minister Ehud Barak has once again attempted to don David Ben-Gurion's cloak of greatness. In his speech at the opening session of the Knesset, Barak quoted the founder of the state, describing the efforts to strengthen Israel as "an uphill struggle."

Barak sees himself among the climbers, when in reality he is plummeting downward towards the abyss. It is a pity that Barak has not digested Ben-Gurion's real teaching about the armed struggle against the Arabs: You do not negotiate with the enemy under fire. First of all, you ensure a decision on the battlefield, a clear Israeli victory. A deathly silence. Only afterward do you hold negotiations.

Without any real need, Barak has broken Ben-Gurion's iron rule: He is ready to hold negotiations even under fire, in the midst of Palestinian terrorism and lynchings. Consequently Barak has no choice other than to discuss Israel's surrender terms.

This is real insanity. Actually, he started off by demanding a full cease-fire. But under American pressure and the idiotic advice of "experts," and because of his fundamental stubbornness and weakness, our prime minister gave in and agreed to renew negotiations on condition that there would be "a reduction of violence."

So please, Ehud, stop insulting Ben-Gurion. In the small, poor, country that had only just been established (1948-49), Ben-Gurion first defeated all the Arab countries and then forced them to sign armistice agreements. Ben-Gurion sent the paratroops on reprisal operations for the murder of a small child, after a farmer had his ears cut off, after fishermen were attacked.

In 1956, after continuous terrorism from the Palestinians (the Fedayeen) — mainly from the Gaza Strip, and with the support of an Egyptian army equipped with Soviet arms — Ben-Gurion went to war. At the start of that war, 44 years ago, I had the privilege of jumping, with 380 paratroops of Battalion 890, to the east of the Mitle Pass. Only after a clear Israeli victory throughout Sinai and the Gaza Strip did Ben-Gurion conduct negotiations that guaranteed both the cessation of terrorist activities from Gaza, and the opening of the Tiran Straits, which brought to life the ghost town of Eilat.

In order to embark on the Kadesh campaign, Ben-Gurion did not hesitate to sit down with and win over his bitterest political enemies to his point of view, without conceit or intrigues.

It is therefore obvious what Ben-Gurion would have done in a situation that found a suburb of Jerusalem under fire, terrorism rampant in the streets, and Israel's soldiers and citizens being lynched.

Born in the diaspora, in Plonsk, Poland, having rebelled against the surrender to pogroms and the spirit of the ghetto, the Old Man would certainly never have acted like that kibbutznik from Mishmar Hasharon, that new Israeli, Barak.

Ben-Gurion would not have humiliated himself by paying nighttime visits to gangster chief [Palestinian Authority Chairman] Yasser Arafat in Paris and Sharm el-Sheik, in order to plead with him to sign a cease-fire agreement.

This is the Arafat who turned his back on Barak and sent his Tanzim, his police, and his suicide terrorists to kill the Jews and destroy their state.

This is the same Arafat who, according to Israeli intelligence documents, signed the documents ordering the terrorist group Fatah to murder Jewish women and children, and to kidnap and murder the Jewish sportsmen in Munich.

This is also the Arafat who has now set up the "Arafat Jugend" (youth movement), following the example of his great hero, who founded the Hitler Jugend.

Yes, this is the very same Arafat whose Palestinian Authority pays $2,000 to the family of every shahid who is killed and $300 to every Palestinian youth who is injured in the mad assaults on Israeli soldiers and policemen. These suicide terrorists of Arafat's, motivated by fanatical hatred, are attacking from areas ceded by Israel.

Arafat expected giant demonstrations in Tel Aviv, after — according to his lying spokesmen — Israel killed about 40 children and youths. He was wrong. When the left is in power, and Barak and [Acting Foreign Minister] Shlomo Ben-Ami give the order to open fire, there is no reason in the world for even 400 demonstrators to appear in Rabin Square.

Ben-Gurion would have known exactly what to do with such an enemy — he would have sent Arafat to hell.