NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5895

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-18 | 10.4 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!ogicse!uwm.edu!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!daemon
From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: Israeli Election: Rabin's Labor Government = Likud II?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 19 Aug 92 08:00:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: mont.1992Aug19.080015.27130
Sender: [e-mail]
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Organization: ?
Lines: 183
Approved: [e-mail]
Originator: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu

From: [e-mail] (New Liberation News Service)

Included below is an article from the New Liberation News Service
(NLNS) Packet 2.11 -- our autoposter is posting one
article at a time from this 168K file.

To find out more about NLNS, use GET (explained below) on NLNS BROCHURE.

To find out more about the PROG-PUBS (Progressive Publications) email
mailing list, use GET on CAMPUS PROGPUBS, or contact RJ Hinde at
[e-mail]
--Harel B.
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NLNS  Packet 2.11  -  July/August, 1992
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Israeli Election: Rabin's Labor Government = Likud II?
Ranganathan Krishnan, The Thistle

(NLNS)--Some claim that the formation of a Labor government in
Israel led by Yitzhak Rabin, should be interpreted as a victory for the
"Peace Process."   With Rabin saying "We must move now to have a
continuous negotiation. Let's sit down not every four, five or six
weeks,"  one would be hard pressed to contest this claim.  What is
less clear is whether an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights and Lebanese territory is any
closer at hand.  The revival of the media charade of the "Peace
Process" is no indicator that such an outcome is to be expected.  On
the contrary, the term "Peace process" can be an useful tool for
diverting attention from the annexation of the territories as former
Prime Minister Shamir made clear in his post-election statement.  He
said that he would have dragged the "Peace Process" over ten years
to ensure that there would be enough settlers in the occupied
territories to make talk of an independent Palestinian state look
ridiculous.  The issue then is not the continuation of the "Peace
Process" but rather the stance that the Israeli government takes with
regard to the occupation.  In this regard  how much can we expect a
Rabin government to differ from the previous government ?
    Not much is the answer in short.  In the tired language of
hawks and doves, Rabin's views regarding the occupation would
find him squarely in the dovish side of Likud, the hawkish end of
Labor,  and thus in the muddled middle of Israeli "national
consensus."
    Rabin says that the construction of  "security settlements" will
go on whereas "political settlements" will be curbed.  To make
things worse, he has not made clear how settlements will
categorized. Whatever these criteria be, one can be quite confident
that either kind will be equally effective in driving Palestinians off
their land.  This situation is the result of successive dilution of the
Labor platform approved  in the November 1991 Labor Convention.
The party's nearly 3000 delegates voted for a platform that called for
a settlement freeze in all of the occupied territories - the Golan
Heights as well as the West Bank and Gaza.  A month later the Labor
party itself reneged on the freeze in response to heavy pressure from
settlers in the Golan, many of whom are Labor supporters.  The
revised Labor line favored increasing settlements in all the Golan,
rather than just "strengthening existing ones".  Rabin has sought to
dilute this later stance even further resulting in guidelines that call
for "strengthening the settlements along confrontation lines".
    On the issue of pull out from the occupied territories, Rabin's
views are no different from Shamir's. Both are opposed to an
independent Palestinian state and reject withdrawal to pre-1967
borders. The Labor party line, meanwhile calls for "territorial
compromise" -- whatever that means.  It also for the first time refers
to the need to recognize Palestinian "national rights.".  Labor
includes as well people like Lova Eilav, who was expelled from
Labor in the seventies by the late Prime Minister Golda Meir for
calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state.  Furthermore,
polls indicate that more than a third of the Israeli public is willing to
accept  an independent Palestinian state.  Rabin's talk so far instead
has been only about "autonomy" - a word that found its way into
Shamir's vocabulary as well.  For Shamir   "autonomy" meant no
more than the Palestinians managing their own garbage disposal - no
Palestinian police force or judiciary - with control of the land
remaining in the hands of the Israeli military.  Whether Rabin's
definition is any different remains to be seen.
    More than half of Israel's Jews support, under certain
conditions, negotiations with the PLO. Rabin however adheres to the
previous government's policy of not meeting with the PLO.  Within
Labor itself  views on this issue differ from his. In its November
convention the Labor party platform deleted a clause from a
previous platform that ruled out negotiations with the PLO. Not only
are such negotiations not ruled out  there are many in the reformist
wing of the Labor party actively calling for them. Prominent among
these are such people as Avram Burg, who finished 3rd in the Labor
list after Rabin and Peres in the Labor list of candidates for the
Knesset, and Uzi Baraan, Labor's Jerusalem party boss.  A PLO
representative, Bassam Abu Sharif,  meanwhile called for a meeting
with Rabin as soon as possible. When Rabin was asked if he would
cancel the Israeli law making it a crime to meet with PLO
representatives, he said such a proposal is favored by the Labor
Party but it is not a top priority.

The Play of Images
    Given Labor's policy positions, it might appear surprising that
Rabin was chosen over Shimon Peres, whose views are more in line
with the Labor platform.  Electoral politics, unfortunately, is not so
much about programs as about images of candidates.   Peres
"suffered" from a "dovish" image and far worse in Israeli politics the
image of an "Arab lover."  Labor under Peres, many in Labor felt,
would have lost to Shamir,  who could hardly be accused of loving
Arabs.  Hence it was that  even those who thought Peres's policies
were more likely to lead to a settlement switched support to Rabin
to ensure the electability of Labor.  Rabin had, on the other hand, a
strong Hawkish image and was promoted among the Israeli public
as a "Dovish Hawk." Rabin was Chief of Staff of the Army during the
1967 war in which lead to the present Israeli empire. Following the
war he supported the then Labor government's major settlement
drive in the West Bank. As Prime Minister from 1973 - 77 he
nominated his close friend Ariel Sharon - the architect of the present
settlement drive - as a national security adviser.  During the 1982
invasion of Lebanon, he accepted Defence Minister Sharon's
invitation to tour the battlefield, even advising him to cut the water
supply to Beirut which was under siege of the Israeli forces.  As
Defence minister in 1988 - 89, he instituted a policy of "force, might
and beatings" against the Palestinians during the first two years of
the intifada. That Rabin did not shirk from repression provided
confidence to some traditionally Likud voters to switch to Labor in
this election.

Expansion as Security
    The marketing of Israeli expansionism in "security terms"
rather than through appeals to biblical authority is hardly a new
feature of Israeli politics. The initial settlement drive after 1967,
under Golda Meir's Labor Prime Ministership, was always justified in
"security" terms.  Likud's later assent to power in 1977 resulted not
from a promise of change but rather the promise to strengthen the
house that Labor had built. Likud's message to voters was that it
could do a better job than a Labor that had grown wishy washy on
annexation. Labor placed constraints on settlement policy and gave
heed to international public opinion.  With the coming of the Regan
administration, Likud had all the support it need to proceed with its
plans.  International conditions have changed now so that one again
hears murmurs of discontent from those who financed Israeli
expansion in the past. Labor's message to voters in this election was
then  much the same as Likud's in 1977.   Labor claimed it could do
a better job than Likud - i.e  maintain better ties with the US, absorb
immigrants and cut to a minimum the losses involved in an Israeli
compromise over the West Bank.  And so it is that in the future we
will hear more about "security" and less about heeding God's
eleventh commandment: annex territory.

Deceptive images
The Israeli public, having the benefit of a closer view, can see the
talons and beak of a Dovish Hawk - a  white Hawk - while those
farther away see only the color of the feathers.  As a consequence
some Palestinians feel that this will be a regime that will more
successfully market, in the US and Europe, the policies that Likud
has been following until now.  According to this view the Labor
government's facade of moderation confuses the world. It results in a
the dissolution of whatever little international pressure there is on
Israel. With the disappearance of international pressure, the Israelis
who support an end to occupation, will be unable to mobilize the
necessary public support, for stopping settlement construction, and
for the eventual withdrawal of Israel from all the territories it has
occupied since 1967.

This article is based on an article by Leon. T. Hadar's in the Journal
of Palestine Studies, Spring 1992.  Other sources include the Boston
Globe and The Nation.

The Thistle can be reached at 84 Massachucetts Ave., W20-413,
Cambridge, MA 02139; [phone].

--- 30 ---

##################################################################

    ======================================
    To get a file named FILE NAME from the archiver (files are
    two words  separated by a space), send the 1-line message

    GET FILE NAME ACTIV-L

    to: [e-mail]
    [or: [e-mail]]
    ======================================

    Use GET with the file ACTIV-L ARCHIVE for a listing of
    files available with the GET command.

e.g., send GET ACTIV-L ARCHIVE ACTIV-L to [e-mail] to be
emailed the index of archived files.