Democratic Palestine : 30 (ص 24)
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- Democratic Palestine : 30 (ص 24)
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four decades of state terror, massacres, murder, displacement,
annihilation, etc.
The above-mentioned socioeconomic and_6 strategic
achievements of the enemy provided the basis for important
changes at the political level. Great changes took place in the
political thinking, and more important changes took place in
the weight of the different Israeli political forces. Although the
concept of «Greater Israel» is repeatedly referred to as a prac-
tical possibility by the Zionist leaders, the first goal of further
expansion remains to be the full absorption of the territories
occupied in 1967. The difference between the two poles of the
Israeli political spectrum - Likud and the Labor Alignment - on
this point is only differing evaluations of Israeli capability to
enact this absorption, its capability to convert ideology into
policy and actually apply this policy. All this occurs in an in-
ternal political atmosphere which is shifting towards the ex-
treme right, and of actual policies for gradual realization of
«Greater Israel» by building formidable power and fully ab-.
sorbing the Palestinian and Arab territories occupied in 1967.
This leads us to comment briefly on the most salient features
of the current political life in ‘Israel’ and their relation to the
changes that have taken place in the structure of this entity:
First: Splits and mergers have been historical phenomena in
the Israeli political parties. The new thing is that splits occur in
the ranks of the ‘left’ in favor of the right, as seen in the last
electoral lists for the Knesset.
Second: The game of ‘doves’ and ‘hawks’ in the Israeli par-
ties is an old one. The new element is that key positions steadily
shift to the ‘hawks’ at the expense of the ‘doves’.
Third: Political life is increasingly concentrated in the big
blocs; two of the fifteen party lists in the present Knesset oc-
cupy more than two-thirds of the seats. The situation has been
almost the same since 1969.
Fourth: The settler population increasingly takes part in the
elections; 80% of registered Jewish voters voted in the last
elections.
Fifth: The political weight of the right has increased. In the
first years after the establishment of the Israeli state, the right
was weak in comparison to the Zionist ‘left’. Then the gap
began to diminish, reaching equlibrium, and in 1977, the right
won over the ‘left’. In 1984, equilibrium was restored. In spite
of the present equilibrium, the trend is still in favor of the
right, because there is a large reserve of right-wing parties and
extremist religious groups to resort to in times of crisis, as
Shamir has repeatedly threatened to do.
Sixth: The electoral weight of the non-Zionist forces among
Israeli Jews is very small. In the last elections, the Communist
Party (Rakah), which draws the bulk of its votes from Palesti-
nians, got only 5,800 Jewish votes, i.e., 0.3% as against 36%,
34.7% and 1.3% for the Labor Alignment, Likud and Rabbi
Kahana, respectively.
Seventh: The vote for the religious parties rose until reaching
a peak in 1961; then it stabilized in the last two rounds at 11%
of the Jewish vote.
Eighth: The weight of the Oriental Jews in the Knesset has
steadily increased to 31 seats, as compared to eight in 1961.
Two-thirds of the Oriental Jewish members of the Knesset were
on the lists of the Labor Alignment or Likud, not the explicitly
Oriental lists, such as Tami which got only 1.5% of the votes.
Ninth: The representation of Palestinian Arabs is weak,
compared to their real numbers. They constitute 10.5% of the
population but occupy only 5.8% of the Knesset seats, a
percentage which had not increased since 1965.
26
Tenth: In the last five years, the phenomenon of the «peace
camp» has emerged in ‘Israel’ in a noteworthy way, due to the
criminal policies of the Zionist enemy in Lebanon and the oc-
cupied territories, in addition to a number of internal and ex-
ternal factors which cannot be discussed here. Although this
phenomenon is important, it is not a decisive break with the
foundation which governs Israeli policies. At least at present, it
can by no means be considered a solid attitude to be depended
on.
Reviewing the political life of ‘Israel’ shows that the changes
that have occurred go parallel to a series of socioeconomic and
strategic developments. Parallel changes have taken place in
the demographic situation. The separate immigrant groups
which constitute the population have progressively shifted
away from their respective small entities to be integrated in a
broader social entity. This development is due to material fac-
tors provided by the policy of controlling the social and educa-
tional gaps, etc., that separated the different groups of the
Jewish population of ‘Israel’.
The most significant feature of Israeli political life remains
to be the expansion of the social base of the right, in contrast to
that of the Zionist ‘left’ which kept receding. Needless to say,
the terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ in Israeli politics have the same
ideological content. The main difference between them con-
cerns Israeli capacity to convert the ideological slogan into a
political one, and whether to publicly proclaim their real goals.
Long experience has shown how essentially identical the op-
posing poles in Israeli political life are in terms of the strategy
and ultimate aims of the Zionist project. It has also proved that
differences were confined to the immediate political
framework and only concerned the means to be adopted for
achieving common objectives. The typical example which
proves this is that there is a consensus on the invariables of
remaining opposed to Palestine - the name, the people, the
cause, the revolution, the organization (the PLO), the
legitimate rights, etc. This is very clear in the program of the
basic Zionist parties, where Palestine appears as the total
negation of the Zionist concept.
This point is even clearer in the respective foreign policies
pursued by the main poles of Israeli political life against the
forces of liberation, progress, peace and socialism on both the
Arab and international levels. These policies are extensions of
their internal policies which remain based on Zionism in theory
and practice, fitting in with world imperialism in general, and
the latter’s most reactionary and aggressive circles in par-
ticular.
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We have presented a brief picture of the most salient
tendencies and changes in the Zionist entity over the last forty
years. We have tried to point out the more important ones. We
by no means pretend to have covered them all. We have tried to
pay special attention to the sources of strength at the disposal
of this entity, since our intent is to contribute to refutation of
the simplistic, superficial attitude whereby various qualities
and descriptions are attributed to ‘Israel’ with no attempt at
scientific understanding. In our view, refutation of such an at-
titude constitutes the first condition and the prelude to building
a comprehensive Palestinian-Arab-international strategy of
confrontation. @ - هو جزء من
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