Democratic Palestine : 4 (ص 18)
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- Democratic Palestine : 4 (ص 18)
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consequent Israeli casualties.) On the other hand, the Labor
Party has always been careful to hide its own terrorist creden-
tials under a cloak of social democracy and state authority.
Thus, it eagerly seized on the question of the «Jewish under-
ground» as ammunition against the Likud.
3. On February 9th, Sharon publicly announced his inten-
tion to be Herut’s candidate for prime minister. Thus, he flag-
rantly disregarded the need for Likud’s unity behind Shamir at
a time when the government's popularity was dropping sharply |
the US, but their numbers have doubled in the past three years,
and the spectre of early elections was already in the air. Actu-
ally, Sharon’s announcement was a signal that he wanted to
regain the defense portofilo, as also indicated by his vocal criti-
cism of Arens’ policy in Lebanon. When it came to a vote in
Herut’s Central Committee, Sharon drew 41% as opposed to
Shamir’s 56%, showing that he is a force to be reckoned with.
The Arens-Sharon rivalry over whose policy is more effec-
tive, could be one reason why investigations began of veterans
of Unit 101, the notorious terror squad formed by Sharon in the
IDF during the fifties. Shamir and Arens eyed a chance to serve
warning to Sharon and his militant followers, while at the same
time whitewashing their own terrorist records. It is noteworthy
that Arens was the only minister to express full support to the
Karp report, which covers a period when Sharon was responsi-
ble for the 1967 occupied territories.
The big terrorists go free
Most important, however, was giving the Likud as a whole
a whitewash before the July 23rd elections. With the
crackdown on a small part of Zionism’s terror squads, the Likud
is competing with Labor for respectability in the eyes of the
world and, more important, in the eyes of those Israelis that
cannot face the fact that Zionism equals terrorism. In this con-
text, we note that the Reagan administration made a statement
on the May indictments, a matter which would normally be con-
sidered an internal Israeli affair not calling for overseas
response. The US affirmed that «the government of Israel and
Shamir is already on record as being opposed to terrorism».
With the above we do not intend to reduce the recent
crackdown to a scenario preplanned for the election campaign;
nor will the question of Zionist terrorism disappear after July
23rd. At the heart of the matter lie much bigger questions. Inas-
much as the foregoing consolidation of the right in Israeli poli-
tics is the logical consequence of the development of the Israeli
state, the crisis for the Likud’s rule is symptomatic of Zionism’s
overall crisis.
In an attempt to hold on to state power, the Likud was
forced to take measures which may put strains on the rightist
alliance and cause friction with its own constituency. A poll
published in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv in February,
showed that fully 19% of Israelis support terror against Arabs.
Likud risks antagonizing the militant settler movement which
provides the vanguard for its pet project: annexation of the
1967 occupied territories.
18
no rights. Unlike the Americans who have immigrated to within
Added US contribution ‘to terror and settle-
ments
Among those indicted for anti-Arab terror are recently
immigrated US citizens. This directs attention to the fact that
«The US has become Israel's principal supplier of immig-
rants», according to Newsweek magazine, June 4th. As of
now only about 10% ofthe settlers inthe West Bank came from
pointing to a significant trend. The increase in US citizens
immigrating to the Zionist state is due to the fact that the Jewish
Agency's immigration program has been reinforced by Gush
Emunim’s direct recruitment to settlements in the name of
‘Eretz Israel’. Like the Likud generally, these settlers rely on
religious pretexts for their colonization and regard the West
Bank as the heart of ‘Greater Israel’, to which non-Jews have |
the pre-67 borders of the Zionist state, the drop-out rate of
these new settlers is very low. They are becoming a significant
component of the settler population and thus constitute a new
form of US aid to Zionist expansionism. It is striking that most
of them retain their US citizenship.
Fascism above and under ground
The other bigger issue is related to what ‘left’ Zionists
have long been warning: the danger of fascism in ‘Israel’ and/.
or a military takeover. Of course, fascist practices have always
been used against Palestinians, and the Israeli state is already
highly militarized. What is new is growing public awareness
that the Zionist right is prepared to violate Israeli law which is
supposedly designed to protect Jews, and even to harm Jews
as well as Palestinians. The February 1983 killing of Emil
Gruenzweig and the injury of ten other Peace Now
demonstrators shocked many Israelis. Those who view ‘Israel’
as an alternative to fascism’s persecution of Jews in Europe,
feel uncomfortable with statements like those of Gush Emunim
leader Levinger: «The Jewish national renaissance is more
important than democracy. The fate of the land of Israel and a
free and whole Jewish life in it are not subject to majority vote. »
The tendency to narrow Israeli pseudodemocracy, even
for Jews, is nowadays often expressed even in the Knesset.
On May 30th, Knesset member Cohen Avidov challenged the
right of Mothers against Silence to demonstrate against the
war in Lebanon. A few days earlier, he had declared at a Gush
Emunim rally: «We have to tear out the eyes and guts of the
Arabs».
The growing fascist tendencies in the Zionist state will not
be halted by the arrest of the so-called underground. On the
contrary, the crackdown on one branch of Zionist terror is a
prelude to incorporating their tasks into the state’s perogatives,
i.e. more institutionalized repression against Palestinians in
particular, but also to be used against ‘troublesome’ Israelis. - هو جزء من
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