TRIUMPH OF A SUPERHAWK
"We stand on the land of liberated Israel. There will be many Alon Morehs. There will be many, many settlements in the coming weeks."
The 200 pioneers at Kaddum (now renamed Alon Moreh), in the rolling hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, cheered and sang as their distinguished guest presented a Torah scroll for the settlement's new synagogue. For others, though, these were chilling words in a chilling context. The speaker was Menachem Begin, 63, onetime leader of the anti-British, anti-Arab terrorist group known as Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), who almost certainly will be Israel's next Premier. In a stunning upset victory, Begin's Likud (Unity) coalition last week became the dominant bloc in Israel's parliament, replacing a shattered, scandal-ridden Labor alignment that had governed the Jewish state since its founding in 1948. Likud's superhawkish campaign slogan had been "Israeli sovereignty between the Mediterranean and the Jordan," meaning no surrender of biblical land that Israel has occupied since the heady triumphs of the Six-Day War in 1967. As if to prove his faith in that slogan, Begin made his first post-election public appearance at Alon Moreh (meaning the Oak Landmark), a settlement named after the first place Abraham lived when he arrived in the Promised Land. The modern Alon Moreh, considered illegal because the government did not approve it, is a settlement of nationalist zealots belonging to Gush Emunim (Group of the Faithful) that had braved the hostility of Arab neighbors for 18 months.
Begin's unexpected rise to power not only changed the internal politics of Israel but suddenly raised serious questions about hopes for any new moves toward a peace settlement in the Middle East. Repudiating the Labor Party of Israel's founders--David Ben-Guri-on, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir--Israel's 2.2 million voters gave Begin's Likud 44 seats in the new 120-member Knesset, a gain of five. Labor ended up with 33 seats, a loss of 18 from the previous parliament. The new Democratic Movement for Change, led by Archaeologist and Onetime Chief of Staff Yigael Yadin, won 15 seats, most of them clearly at Labor's expense. Expectations are that Likud will be able to form a fragile, right-wing coalition government with the support of Israel's three religious parties (16 seats in the new Knesset) and of retired general Ariel Sharon, an ally of Begin whose group won two seats in parliament. Begin asked for Labor's help in forming a unity government, but a disappointed Shimon Peres, who replaced former Premier Yitzhak Rabin in mid-campaign (TIME, April 18), said no. "The platform of the Likud does not permit the necessary opening for negotiations," said Peres. "The | Likud offers no alternative for peace."
The election results were almost universally interpreted in Israel as a vote against Labor rather than for Begin, even though the strong-willed little Polish immigrant has long been recognized as one of the country's most dynamic politicians. Begin suffered a heart attack (complicated by pneumonia) at the beginning of the eleven-week campaign, but he displayed surprising vigor when he appeared before hundreds of cheering supporters last week in Tel Aviv at Likud headquarters--known as "the Castle"--to claim victory. He was asked, as Premier-designate, what his plans were for the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza. "What occupied territories?" Begin roared. "If you mean Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, they are liberated territories, part of the land of Israel."
This hard-line attitude is precisely what worries Washington, which was unprepared for Begin's victory. State Department and White House experts had predicted a narrow Labor win; when National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was alerted to an early projection that Labor was out, he could hardly believe it. "No, no," he said. "That's wrong." Solidly committed to a resumption of Geneva peace talks by autumn, the Carter Administration had assumed that it would be dealing with Shimon Peres--who was admittedly a hawk as Defense Minister, but who had expressed in principle his belief that Israel could return occupied territories in exchange for real peace. Begin's determined, possessive attitude toward the West Bank and Gaza--ruling out any possibility of establishing there a Palestinian homeland, which is one of Carter's essential conditions for peace --raises serious questions about how much there is to negotiate. Beyond that, there are questions about how long it will take Begin to form a government and, indeed, how long it might last. "We're just going to have to wait and see," said Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in Geneva. One of his advisers put it more bluntly: "It's a totally confused situation."
The Carter Administration's "worst case" scenario is that a Begin government would mean not just a postponement of Geneva but a substantially escalated possibility of renewed war in the Middle East. The initial Arab reactions reflected both anger at the victory of a man whom Damascus radio called "a racist and a terrorist" and some caution. The Cairo daily al-Akhbar argued that it really did not matter who headed the Jerusalem government since "the liberation of occupied Arab lands is not dependent on who will come to power in Israel but on Arab solidarity and insistence on the realization of Arab goals." Last week Egyptian President Anwar Sadat met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Fahd--who makes his first visit to Washington this week--and Syria's Hafez Assad. The three ledfders found the portents discouraging. If Washington is unable to exert pressure on the new Israeli government for a settlement, one Syrian official said, "any kind of peace conference would be quite useless. The only other way would appear to be to resort to military action."
As the Carter Administration is acutely aware, it may take some time before the U.S. will be able to exert pressure on a Jerusalem government that is an unknown quantity. "I hope that the election of Mr. Begin will not be a step backward toward the achievement of peace," President Carter said last week in a cautious assessment of the changeover. Added the President, "we are now assessing in a private way ... the possible consequences of the election results." Even Israel's citizens still need to sort out the meaning of what was in many ways the most extraordinary election in the country's history. In the past, when the Labor alignment won clear-cut pluralities in the Knesset, it usually took the Premier-designate at least a month--and on one occasion, 14 weeks --to put a working coalition in order and form a Cabinet. Even though no one expects Begin to have much trouble in gaining support for a Likud government from Israel's other right-wing parties, it may take him more time to assemble a Cabinet; most of the Likud deputies have not had government experience. Begin himself has served as a Minister only between 1967 and 1970; and his campaign manager, former Air Force Commander Ezer Weizman, 52, has been a Minister of Transport.
Weizman, nephew of the first President of Israel, will probably be named Minister of Defense, succeeding Peres. Begin could decide to keep the Foreign Ministry portfolio himself--although he may offer it to Yadin, to attract support from the D.M.C. Simcha Erlich, 57, leader of the Liberal Party (one of the six that make up the Likud coalition), is a strong candidate to become Finance Minister. As his price for joining the coalition, Ariel Sharon would like to become chief of staff, a job now held by Lieut. General Mordecai Gur, a longtime ally of Moshe Dayan. Members of the religious parties will undoubtedly demand the Religion and Education ministries. Other possible Cabinet candidates include M.I.T.-educated Moshe
Arens, 51, a former director of Israel Aircraft Industry, and Yuval Ne'eman, 52, a defense expert and a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University.
The anti-Labor voting pattern apparently solidified in the final hours of a dreary campaign that not even the first television debate between the two major candidates could pep up. Late polls indicated that up to 28% of the voters were undecided which of the competing parties they preferred going into election day. They had been unable to resolve a dilemma central to Israeli politics. On the one hand, Labor was the only government that voters had known, and the party could rightly claim to be the standard-bearer of the socialist, egalitarian ideals of Israel's founders. On the other, Labor was showing the frayed edges of a party too long in power.
The previous government of Yitzhak Rabin had proved it could not cope with the country's increasingly serious social and economic problems. Inflation, which peaked in 1974 at 56% annually, is still lingering at a crippling level of 38.8%. Immigration, one of the raisons d'etre of the Jewish state, had slumped from 55,888 in 1972 to about 20,000 in 1976, a year in which the number of emigrants actually equaled the number of new arrivals. Prolonged, bitter strikes, especially among workers in the public sector, reflected widespread unhappiness with both inflation and high taxes and cost the economy millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, for the first time, scandal reached into the highest levels of government. By the time the badly embarrassed Rabin stepped aside last month following the disclosure of illegal overseas bank accounts in his wife's name, one top Labor official was in prison, a Cabinet minister had committed suicide, and several investigations into other questionable activities were under way. Says Shmuel Toledano, a former adviser to Rabin on Arab affairs, who quit Labor to join Yadin's new party: "The main reason for Labor's defeat was that after being in power for so long, it lost its sense of morality."
Author Matti Golan points out that "Israelis want to believe that the country and themselves are special. Without that, the hardships and sacrifices aren't worth the candle." Thus the discovery of corruption in the first government to be headed by a Sabra (native-born Israeli) hit particularly hard. "We are shocked by this," says Novelist Haim Gouri, "because money was not supposed to be a priority with us. What hurts in the case of Rabin is not that he broke the law but .that he took lightly all that we are proud of."
Even today's state of relative peace proved a problem for the Labor Party. After more than three years without war, Israeli voters were--for the moment--primarily concerned with domestic matters. For many, inflation was a more important issue than peace negotiations.
There was also the lingering legacy of October 1973, of a war that Israel might have lost, fought by a Labor government that had, many said, momentarily faltered in handling the one essential issue: Israel's security and survival. Some Labor officials argued after the election that Washington had hurt the party too--in particular, by President Carter's publicized meeting with Hafez Assad and his repeated support for a Palestinian homeland. "Every day a homeland," complained Shimon Peres. "I mean, how many times can you say it?" Such U.S. statements created an anti-Labor backlash and built up a feeling that a Likud government might be less likely to be bullied by Washington. According to a recent poll, 61% of Israelis oppose gradual withdrawal to the 1967 borders; 76.2% feel that there should be a referendum before any decision to surrender the West Bank.
Finally, having changed candidates in midstream, Labor ran a dreary, mistake-ridden, overconfident campaign that only served to remind many voters that the party was offering the electorate more of the same, with a slight shuffling of names and faces.
Whatever their reasons, the voters turned firmly against Labor. In Israel's three major cities--Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa--Yadin's Democratic Movement for Change swept the upper-class vote, a major reason why it won 15 Knesset seats. Likud made unprecedented inroads among young people, blue-collar workers and Sephardic (Oriental) Jews, who represent 52% of Israel's population but who are subjected to subtle forms of discrimination in job opportunities and education. In the predominantly Sephardic development towns, the Labor coalition suffered severe losses. In Kiryat-Shemona, for instance, near the Lebanese border, Labor's vote fell from 45% in the 1974 general election to 25%.
The melancholy outcome was apparent to Labor leaders two hours after the polls closed at 11 p.m. on a warm spring evening. As the returns rolled in at Labor headquarters on Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Street, party counters stopped keeping track; the trend was already apparent from television projections. Watching the returns with ranking party officials in a private room, Peres grew increasingly gloomy. At 2:30 a.m. he announced that it was time to concede. "Well, that's it," he told newsmen. "The voters have spoken."
Likud leaders were almost as nonplused as Peres by the outcome. Shortly before the campaign ended, a private poll showed that the Likud slate was likely to win its biggest vote in history. Unbelieving party workers hastily put the survey aside so as not to raise false hopes. Even on election night, as the returns began to indicate a Likud victory. Campaign Manager Weizman refused to open a bottle of champagne that had been secured for a victory toast. Instead Weizman, who had earlier predicted a Likud triumph, nursed a Cutty Sark. Not until the trend was unmistakable did he grin and accept a glass of Israeli-made Carmel bubbly. Shortly afterward, Begin fought his way through Tel Aviv traffic to greet riotous campaign workers at party headquarters. His followers listened happily as their leader quoted from Abraham Lincoln's second Inaugural Address, promising that he would bind the wounds of Israel after the hard campaign.
It was this theme that Begin picked up in his post-victory visit to Kaddum last week. "We want to live with our neighbors in peace, mutual respect and prosperity," he declared expansively. "There is room for all Arabs on their land and for the many Jews who will come to make the land bloom." The key test of Begin's--and Israel's--intentions to live in peace with the Arabs is what happens in the West Bank, 2,270 square miles of desert, coastal lowlands and sere hills. The West Bank is home to 650,000 Palestinians, as well as to 1,500 Israelis who live in more than 40 settlements (legal and illegal) set up since the area was occupied during the Six-Day War by swift-moving Israeli forces.
Israelis used to claim that their occupation of the West Bank was "the most benign in history." They would point out that West Bank Arabs were still allowed to carry Jordanian passports, that Muslim courts determined the law in most of the area's 500 cities and hamlets, and that municipal elections have been held in accordance with Jordanian law. All that is still true, but some Israelis now concede that their military .rule over the Palestinians is not only deeply resented but in many ways quite cruel. Last March the U.S. State Department cited Israel's administration of the occupied territories on its list of human rights violations by U.S. clients and allies.
Some of the irritants of the occupation are relatively mild. West Bank Arabs must have special blue license plates on their cars, carry special identity cards that list their religion, and notify local police if they remain in Israel overnight. They are singled out for close questioning at the numerous floating roadblocks that Israeli authorities have set up in the West Bank.
For understandable reasons, Israel has cracked down hard on potential terrorists and on P.L.O. sympathizers in the West Bank. The means are not gentle. For example, it has long been government policy to impose communal punishments for individual crimes to discourage terrorist activity. Thus when one member of a family has been caught as a security risk, the house where he lives, perhaps with a mother, father, brother or sister, has been either blown up or, in more recent years, sealed up. Last year seven houses were cemented shut in this fashion. Sometimes curfews are imposed on whole towns for the offenses of a few. In retaliation for mass demonstrations and rock throwing by a group of angry Arab youths last year, the entire city of Ramallah (pop. 20,000) was shut down for eleven days. Its citizens were allowed out of their houses for only one to three hours.
A more serious Arab charge is that arrested suspects are maltreated and even tortured. Israel admits to holding more than 2,000 Palestinians as security risks--in overcrowded prisons where ten or more people are jammed into cells measuring 13 ft. by 13 ft. and kept there for 23 hours a day. Jewish prisoners normally have beds to sleep on; Arab prisoners have only mats. When asked why this was so, one prison official explained that the Arabs would use the metal to make weapons. Last winter more than 200 Arab prisoners at Ashkelon went on a hunger strike to protest conditions. Israeli officials concede that there have been occasional cases of prisoners being maltreated. The Arabs insist that torture is systematic.
Israel's friends--most notably, many in Washington--are also worried about the government's secret settlement policy, which seems likely to become more overt in a Begin regime. New Israeli settlements--most of them on land that was once owned by Palestinians--surround Jerusalem and separate the major Arab population centers from Jordan. Sewer systems, water lines, and roads clearly indicate that these communities are being built to last and that they will be linked to other ones still in the planning stage. The Palestinians are offered payment for the land, although most refuse it, complaining of unfairly low prices. The growth of these new communities--whether authorized by the government or not--is seen by many Arabs as further proof that Zionism means colonial expansion and that the only way Israel can be ousted from the territories is by force.
Pondering a host of seemingly unpromising policy alternatives last week, some U.S. diplomats raised the prospect of an ominous Middle East chain of events: 1) a Begin government would announce the annexation to Israel of occupied territory, thereby triggering an Arab mobilization, or 2) the Arabs would desperately mount a pre-emptive strike to prevent Begin from carrying out annexation.
Although another Middle East war is far from inevitable, it cannot be ruled out if Begin sticks to his uncompromising stance on negotiations (particularly over the future of the West Bank and Gaza) and if the Arabs give up hope that the U.S. can maneuver the next Israeli government into meaningful concessions.
Anew war, in this most dangerous of the world's potential trouble spots, would be far more deadly than all the previous ones combined. About 2,600 Israelis were killed in the three-week October War of 1973. Next time around, according to Washington military estimates, Israel would lose 8,000 and suffer about 24,000 wounded in a war of the same duration; the Arab loss could be 40,000 killed.
Both Israel and its Arab neighbors collectively are far stronger militarily than they were before the October War, not only in numbers but also in the sophistication of their weaponry. This month the Israelis unveiled a new tank so uniquely protective of its crew that Israeli tankers have already dubbed it "the Jewish Mother." Known as the Merkava (Hebrew for chariot), this 58-ton multipurpose armored battle vehicle can also be used as a personnel carrier. It carries a 105-mm. main gun and two machine guns. The crew is protected against incoming fire not merely by armor plate but also by the arrangement of the tank's front-mounted engine and other equipment, and its thin silhouette presents a more difficult target.
Meanwhile, on the Arab side, the Syrians have added new squadrons of advanced Russian-made MiG-23 fighters, and even the Egyptians--despite the loss of Soviet supplies since Cairo-Moscow relations cooled--have managed to get quantities of the highly mobile SA-7 Strela, one of the world's most effective antiaircraft missiles.
One further ill omen: troops on both sides may be getting trigger-happy. U.S. observers monitoring the disengagement in the Sinai buffer zone have reported to Washington that Israeli and Egyptian units have fired at each other during the course of maneuvers over the past two months.
In an effort to ease tensions, the White House last week began passing the word to friends of Begin that it hoped to work out a good relationship with Israel's prospective Premier. (Begin will be invited to Washington once he forms a government.) Among other things, the Administration was suggesting that Israel should not quickly start building more West Bank settlements. At the same time, U.S. ambassadors in the
Middle East were urging Arab leaders to try to tone down the most vitriolic press reaction to Begin's victory on the ground that it is an unnecessary provocation. During an interlude in their negotiations on SALT, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko discussed the Middle East and agreed that despite the uncertainties created by the Israeli election, a Geneva conference should be reconvened this year. They decided to initiate monthly consultations at the ambassadorial level in Washington and Moscow to underscore the two superpowers' shared commitment to a negotiated Middle East settlement.
Before that can be achieved, all parties need to know how much negotiation can and will be done by a seemingly unrepentant former underground fighter who believes deeply that Israel should not surrender any part of the Jewish people's ancient landed heritage. ''The new government is going to be composed of a group of people who are religious nationalists imbued with mysticism and a belief in force," said one Jerusalem official. "I worry as much about their theocratic tendencies at home as I do about their getting us into a war."
At week's end Israeli voters were still recovering from the shock of the election; some were having second thoughts about ousting from power a party that was almost a father image to the country. "I did not want Begin as Premier," said Yehudit Chen, 19, a female soldier. "I wanted Peres. I never thought that this would be the outcome of my vote." Avraham Aharanson, head of a Tel Aviv private investigating company and a lifelong Labor supporter, confessed that "I haven't been able to work for three days. I feel this is a very dangerous development. I am too shocked to understand it."
Some anti-Likud Israelis were worried about the domestic policies of the new government. It will certainly be more favorable to private enterprise than another Labor regime would be, with its pronounced socialist policies, but secular Jews feared that the religious parties might try to extend the influence of Orthodox rabbis over Israeli life--for example, by making Torah lessons compulsory in schools.
The biggest worry of the voters was whether or not the Likud state of mind might provoke another war with the Arabs. Said one woman, who lost a brother in the Six-Day War and her husband in the October War: "All I can see is a long line of husbands whose wives will become widows." Warned an alarmed trade-union leader: "The Likud will force us into another war. Begin relies on God, but we will have to rely on our divisions. The workers will suffer, and a new left will rise from the ruins."
Similar concerns are voiced by the American Jewish community, which was surprised by the Likud victory and somewhat apprehensive about having to deal with an Israeli leader who is not a member of the Labor Establishment. In their public statements, however, prominent U.S. Jewish leaders simply noted that Likud's victory was a democratic expression of the will of the people of Israel. Rabbi Alexander Schindler, head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, insisted that Begin "is not really a wild-eyed radical. He is a patriot." He added, however, that organized American Jewry will act as a moderating influence on his government.
In Congress, there were mixed feelings among Israel's traditional supporters. "You can cut the gloom up here with a knife," said Illinois Senator Charles Percy. "There is great skepticism about this new Premier." Percy felt that concern would translate into greater senatorial support for moves by Carter to put pressure on Israel to go to Geneva. Washington does have a number of exploitable pressure points --most notably, the outstanding Israeli requests for military aid. Jerusalem wants American assistance in building its new Chariot tanks, and it wants F-16 fighters as eventual replacements for its Phantoms. On the nonmilitary front there are also some U.S. options. Washington, for instance, could end the current U.S. tax credit on contributions to Israel by American Jews.
Begin, however, won in Israel partly because he was seen as a man who would stand up to American pressure. Is he as intransigent as his statements sound? In Israel, Begin's detractors contend that his stand against surrendering the West Bank has been too consistent and unambiguous to make credible the belief that he might substantially change his view. Even if he wanted to, it is possible that too many of his supporters have such a passionate commitment to holding all of ancient Eretz Israel that he could not survive if he betrayed his pledges.
The counterargument is that Begin, in emerging from opposition to leadership, may be drawn to what Walter Lippmann once called "the suction of the center." Campaign Manager Weizman puts it another way: "There is a great difference between the behavior of the main opposition party and the major political power which has to lead the country." As for Begin's supposed intransigence, Weizman insists: "Believe me, give him time and he will behave as the head of a government. He will negotiate more than all the Premiers before him. You will see him becoming more flexible than anybody believes."
Israel's supporters, and perhaps also its Arab antagonists, have ample reason to hope that Weizman's judgment will prove correct. For if a Begin government is unwilling or unable to negotiate reasonably with those Arab leaders who seem ready to move toward peace, the fearful alternative is another era of turmoil--and perhaps bloodshed --in the Middle East.
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