TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/093091/0930102.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.2 KB | 134 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 26

THE POLITICAL INTEREST

Nobody Does Nothing Better Than Shamir


By Michael Kramer


    "Israel has no foreign policy, only a defense policy."

    -- Moshe Dayan

    "Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic political
system."

    -- Henry Kissinger


    The historian Isaiah Berlin is reported to have said that
Yitzhak Shamir is like a wall and that while walls have uses,
being talked to is not one of them. Listening to Shamir,
however, is revelatory. For in common with several other world
leaders (Saddam Hussein comes quickly to mind), the Israeli
Prime Minister has always said exactly what he thinks and more
often than not has done exactly what he has said he was going
to do.

    Several years ago, I asked Shamir about the Dayan and
Kissinger observations. Both were correct, he said, admitting
that his nation's obvious security needs and geography combined
with an increasingly conservative politics to support his own
heartfelt suspicion of the Arabs in Israel's midst. "But there
is more," he added calmly. "You see, I just don't believe in
trading land for peace. I mean I don't believe in it."

    Since then, and despite his willingness to attend the
peace conference that James Baker has been trying to arrange,
Shamir has not changed his mind. "It is not a religious notion
for him," explains the Israeli philosopher David Hartman, "but
rather a deeper commitment to a historical consciousness that
says a vital people has been too long denied its rightful place
on all of the land of Israel." What is politically significant,
says Hartman, is that "the people trust Shamir to stick to his
guns. They know he is not out to win a Man of the Year award,
that he's not interested in having cocktails with the goyim. The
polls say a majority would favor trading land for peace, but
they know that if it is Shamir who cuts a deal, it will be
because it is smart to do so, not simply expedient."

    A deal? Only dreamers still hope that the Prime Minister's
hard line is a negotiating gambit. Realists know better. Most
skulk away depressed. Some summon the courage to strike back,
as George Bush is doing.

    For Shamir, a territorial compromise that could realize
the hope of most Israelis to live in peace is not a dream at
all, but a nightmare. "Peace for peace" is what Shamir wants,
a pledge of Israeli cooperation with her poorer Arab neighbors
in exchange for an end to the Arab boycott of corporations that
do business with Israel. Beyond that, Shamir is perfectly
satisfied with the status quo. To him, Israel appears blessed:
Saddam is defanged, Syria has been humbled because its longtime
patron, the Soviet Union, is consumed with its own problems, and
the Palestinian intifadeh, while a nuisance, rarely intrudes on
the daily lives of most Israelis.

    Understand Shamir's basic intransigence on the central
question and you can appreciate why Israel precipitated the
latest settlement dust-up. And make no mistake about it: it was
Shamir, not Bush, who started it all -- intentionally. "At some
point, the Issue -- we capitalize it -- will really be joined,"
says a Shamir adviser. "Whenever that time comes, the Prime
Minister's `no' could kill the chance of U.S. aid in the
settling of Soviet Jews. So we decided to try and get the money
first. Given our underlying position, we reasoned it would be
harder later, not easier."

    Buttressed by an assumption articulated long ago by
Defense Minister Moshe Arens -- "It doesn't matter who the
President is as long as we have the Senate" -- Shamir's American
allies began their campaign. The conventional wisdom held that
no American President would risk precious political capital by
vetoing legislation supporting Israel. When Bush threatened just
that, the Israelis were stuck. But even those who call Bush an
anti-Semite must know that the President is merely anti-Shamir,
or more properly that Bush is simply exercising an American
prerogative to quarrel with another government's policies.

    Is there any way out? Creative diplomacy may resolve the
instant crisis. Israel may get the absorption assistance it
seeks in some form, at some time. But the Issue will linger, and
if the logjam is to be broken, the burden of change should be
borne equally by the other side. Too many wars have confirmed
that the Arabs' hard line should be taken as seriously as
Shamir's.

    Many Israelis buoyed by Yasser Arafat's seeming acceptance
of their right to exist in December 1988 have had second
thoughts. "Beyond everything," says the Israeli author Ze'ev
Chafets, "beyond the continuation of terrorist actions, the
Palestine Liberation Organization's refusal to amend its
covenant ((which calls for the destruction of Israel)), the
P.L.O.'s support for Iraq during the gulf war, and the
insistence of West Bank Palestinians that their statements and
actions be cleared by Arafat, there is a single image that will
probably not recede for all of our lives. It was when we were
all huddling with our gas masks hoping the Scuds wouldn't hit
and the Palestinians were on their rooftops cheering. It will
be a long time before anything the Arabs say is trusted."

    David Hartman, who has long favored a two-state solution,
agrees. "Baker needs to spend less time trying to stop the
settlements, which won't happen, and more time convincing the
Palestinians that they must prove to us that they understand
that we are home, that we are equally entitled to live here. If
that ever happens, the hard-line ideologies will fade as
controlling political forces, the settlements question will be
resolved, and we will be as welcoming of the West Bank Arabs,
and perhaps even of the P.L.O., as we were of Anwar Sadat."

    If and when Hartman's dream is realized, the Shamirs will
be thanked for having helped to keep Israel together for almost a
half-century of unending hostility, and then they will be
retired. Until then, the rejectionists will rule -- and half in
frustration, half in admiration, Israelis will continue to say
what they have said for years: Nobody does nothing better than
Yitzhak Shamir.