Democratic Palestine : 5 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 5 (ص 21)
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slogans did not argue powerfully for
stopping settlements or exchanging ter-
ritory for peace, the points on which
Labor distinguishes itself from the Likud.
Rather its slogans were designed to
compete with the Likud’s maximalism:
«The Alignment says no! No to a return
to the 1967 borders. No to the uprooting:
of settlements. No to negotiations with
the PLO. No to a Palestinian state. Yes!
Yes to a democratic Jewish state. Yes to
defensible borders. Yes to responsible
Zionism. Yes to peace and security. The
Alignment is the only hope. »
Likud, for its part, conducted its
main campaign on the ground, taking
advantage of its governmental power to
demonstrate its policies. Ten new settle-
ments were officially inaugurated in the
week before the elections, in addition to
other outposts created by energetic
settlers with IDF collaboration. In the
month prior to the elections, there was
a massive military build up along the
frontlines in the Beqaa, tripling the
number of Israeli soldiers, bringing in
more tanks and other armed vehicles
and building new fortifications. In the
same period, ‘Israel’ conducted a sea
war against Lebanon: bombing an island
off the northern coast, highjacking a
Cypriot passenger ferry bound for Beirut
and later a Lebanese freighter, and bloc-
kading Lebanon’s southern coast for a
week. While these acts are in line with
Zionism’s aggressive aims in Lebanon,
they were also used to justify continuing
occupation, telling the Israeli public that
there is indeed a threat from Syria and
the «terrorists» but this can be dealt with
without risking Israeli lives too much.
Unity through aggression
Labor's fight against the extreme
right was only sharp on the question of
democracy (for Jews of course). Yet this
is not without connections to Israeli
policies towards the Palestinian ques-
tion where the underlying unity between
Zionism’s main factions emerges. As is
known, Labor’s main objection to annex-
ing the West Bank is that this would mar
the Jewish state’s demographic purity,
i.e., the problem is not that ‘Israel’ is an
occupier, for after all Labor initiated the
1967 war and occupation; the problem is
the steadfastness of the Palestinians on
their land. We can compare this with
Tehiya’s more straightforward platform:
annexation of the 1967 occupied ter-
ritories with second class citizenship for
Arabs in the future expanded state. On
behalf of Likud, War Minister Arens
suggested another version of the same:
if the territories should be annexed, the
inhabitants could be offered Israeli
citizenship without voting _ rights.
Kahane’s KACH has the answer for
resolving these different possibilities:
forcible expulsion of the Palestinians.
Given the past experience, it is not
totally hypothetical to imagine a new
assault on the Palestinians of the West
Bank, or some other new military adven-
ture. Such a move might be
spearheaded by the extreme right to
provoke a new regional situation and
internal balance of power in ‘Israel’ to
consolidate the Zionist right and its
state. It is not unknown for Labor to
capitalize on the extreme right’s terror.
There are many historical examples:
The first Labor government presided
over an ‘Israel’ larger than allotted by the
UN partition plan, for which much credit
goes to the extreme right’s terror,as at
Deir Yassin. Labor’s support to the inva-
sion of Lebanon provides a more recent
example. Israeli history is a cycle of
crises resolved through aggression. The
deep right-wing tendency in the settler
population supports such an option in
the present situation. A recent poll
revealed .that 54% of Israelis would pre-
fer no Arabs in their country; another
revealed that 30% view with favor
replacing the parliamentary system with
something that works better.
Also in view of historical experi-
ence, imperialist support can be
expected for Zionist military adventures.
With the talk of a military defense pact to
be concluded between ‘Israel’ and the
US after the elections, a new green light
may already be in the offing.
®
Socio-economic Base
of the Right's Strength
On June 23rd, as Israelis were going to the polls, an article
appeared in the Lebanese daily Al Safir entitled «Whatever the
results, the transformation is deep in the Zionist society». The author,
Hussein Abu Nimal did not aim to predict the election outcome, but to
give a picture of the Israeli socio-economic structure which would
determine the political results. His main thesis is that the consolida-
tion of the right in ‘Israel’ is an abiding phenomenon with deep mate-
rial roots. The following is a synopsis.
Much of the media focuses on polit-
ical,social and ethnic divisions in ‘Israel’,
giving an impression that there are
sharp class and ethnic contradictions.
The term civil war has become com-
monplace in Arab circles when referring
to ‘Israel’. Unfortunately the ‘Israel’ that
iS going to the polls has nothing to do
with this. Many ideas presented about
the enemy do not stand up to serious sci-
entific scrutiny. One cannot question the
existence of problems in ‘Israel’, but are
their nature and extent as has been
depicted? Concerning divisions bet-
ween Jews of eastern and western ori-
gin for example, it is known that eastern
Jews constitute 60% of the Israeli popu-
lation. But does that mean that the size
of the problem equals 60%? Similarly,
does the culmination of economic and
social problems in ‘Israel’ mean the cul-
mination of social struggle?
Much of the talk about the problems
in ‘Israel’ overlooks the reality of the
deep transformation of Israeli society
over the last quarter of a century and
especially the last ten years. The politi-
cal changes that have occurred are not
without an objective base.
Setting aside the objections to
applying the terms /eft and right within
Zionism, we can examine the causes of
the Zionist right’s having attained power
and the overall rightwards shift of Israeli
political life. A corollary of this was the
Zionist left moving towards the positions
of the right. Accordingly, Begin’s 1977
victory was no coincidence. Many of the
reasons given for this victory at the time
were related to subjective rather than
objective factors. It is a great mistake to
view the surface phonemena without
evaluating the underlying causes.
Ethnic and/or class divisions?
The extent of the problem of east-
ern and western Jews has been
examined in terms of its political expres-
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