February 1992, Page 15, 16

To Tell the Truth

Can Israel's Labor Make Peace?

By Leon T. Hadar

The conventional wisdom among American analysts is that the only serious alternative to the right-wing Likud coalition in power in Israel today is the political bloc led by Israel's Labor party. Labor's leaders, including both the party's chairman and candidate for prime minister, Shimon Peres, and his predecessor as prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, are portrayed in the American media as moderate, pragmatic figures.

Unlike Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his colleagues, according to this argument, Peres and Rabin are committed to the land-for-peace formula and are sincerely interested in solving Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. If only Labor and its satellites can win a clear majority in 1992 elections for the Israeli parliament (Knesset), the argument goes, Israel can move on the road to peace with its neighbors.

Some Arab observers, however, including Palestinians who have met with Labor activists, express skepticism with regard to the Labor-the-peacemaker scenario. They note that the party is still opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and that it was the ruthless policies of Rabin as defense minister in the "national unity government" that fanned the flames of the intifada.

More Effective Marketing

Indeed, some critics, including members of the Israeli peace camp, suggest that Labor is just a faded carbon copy of the Likud and that the only differences between Peres and Shamir lie in the arena of public relations. They suggest that if and when Labor comes to power it will probably market Israel's expansionist policies more effectively in the West, as it did when it was in power after the 1967 war.

Some Palestinian activists contend that they prefer to see the militant Shamir, "who doesn't beat around the bush," in power. "The Labor leaders are wolves in sheep's clothing whose facade of moderation confuses us and the Americans."

Rather than idealistic peaceniks, the Labor leaders might be characterized as "security hawks" who back a strong projection of Israel's military power, including nuclear weapons. They have strong ties to the Israeli defense establishment, including the Mossad (Peres and some of his close colleagues were deeply involved in the Iran-Contra affair), and to the Labor party settlement movement, which dominates the Jewish settlement drive in the Golan Heights.

Peres was one of the architects of Israel's national security policies in the first three decades of the state. A protege of David Ben-Gurion, the country's first prime minister, Peres and Moshe Dayan, another member of the defense establishment, were responsible for creating during the 1950s the diplomatic and military ties with France which led to the 1956 Suez Campaign and later to the development of Israel's nuclear military power. Peres and Dayan sabotaged the efforts of Moshe Sharett, a dovish Labor leader, during his short tenure as prime minister in the early 1950s, to initiate peace overtures toward Egypt.

"The Labor leaders are wolves in sheep's clothing."

In the 1960s, Peres and Dayan joined Ben-Gurion in splitting the ruling social-democratic Mapai party. They accused then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol of succumbing to American pressures and weakening Israel's national security. They advocated, instead, a "European orientation" based on an alliance with some of the most right-wing elements in the defense ministries of France and West Germany. The three Israeli leaders eventually formed a hawkish party, Rafi, which in 1967 pressured Eshkol to launch the pre-emptive strike against Egypt and got Dayan installed as defense minister.

After the 1967 war, Rafi, led by Peres and Dayan, rejoined Mapai and, together with another socialist party, Achdut Haavodah, established the Labor party. As cabinet members, Peres and Dayan allied themselves closely with Gush Emunim, the religious-nationalist movement, and helped it establish the first Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Sinai.

Rabin, on the other hand, had close ties to the Achdut Haavodah wing of Labor, whose leaders, like those of the Likud, had been proponents of the vision of Greater Israel and supported the settlement drive in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Rabin himself was a protege of one of the more moderate leaders of the group, Yigal Allon, whose famous plan called for some form of political autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank, preferably as part of a confederal arrangement in Jordan, Allon, like Peres, helped the Gush Emunim settlers.

Shifting Positions

Peres' Rafi and Rabin's Achdut Haavodah were responsible for weakening more dovish Mapai leaders such as Abba Eban. Such actions shifted the party to the right, preventing serious moves toward peace in the 1960s and early 1970s. As a result, they helped maintain the status quo in the occupied territories, a situation that eventually led to the 1973 war. Ironically, Rabin, who became prime minister after that war, dismissed peace feelers from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, leaving to the first Likud prime minister, Menacham Begin, the task of making peace with Egypt.

Unlike the Likud leaders, however, Peres, Rabin and other Labor figures are not ideologically committed to the Greater Israel dogma. Hence their willingness to relinquish Israeli control over most of the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace and security.

Moreover, Labor has undergone a major political-ideological transformation. This is reflected in the platform it adopted last November at its convention. The debate within the party has pitted Peres, and its younger and more dovish wing, against Rabin, who is backed by more hawkish figures and by settler groups.

The Peres-Rabin leadership struggle reflects a personal conflict between the two veteran statesmen that broke into the open in 1977 when Rabin accused Peres, the then-defense minister, of conspiring to undermine his leadership as prime minister.

There are important ideological aspects of their personal infighting. Peres, according to his close aides, has in recent years gone through a major intellectual and political metamorphosis, moderating his one-time hawkish position and adopting a "vision of peace" which he presents to foreign officials who meet with him. He argues that Israel has no chance of survival unless it reaches a peace agreement with the Arabs and proposes regional political and economic integration, such as a Middle Eastern common market.

The "New Peres"

Some observers attribute the emergence of the "New Peres" to the influence of such young aides as Knesset members Yousef Beilin and Haim Ramon. They have called for negotiations between Israel and the PLO and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, as well as for reforming the party's socialist agenda. Unlike Labor hawks, Ramon and Beilin contend that only by accentuating a more dovish position and distinguishing the party from the Likud can Labor expect to win converts to its position.

Whereas Rabin has supported forming coalitions with the Likud, Peres and his aides were responsible for the collapse of the most recent unity government and are adamantly opposed to any revival of a Labor-Likud coalition. Rabin argues that by working with the Likud, Labor could counter extremists in the current government and might even manipulate an Israeli government move toward more flexible positions on the peace issue. Peres and his colleagues counter by saying: Let the Likud follow its own path and drown in its own swamp! Only then will the voters support the agenda we propose.

Ramon and Beilin, together with other members of the party's Young Guard, were able to defeat resistance from Rabin and his more hawkish supporters and convince the party to adopt relatively revolutionary election positions for 1992. Labor, for example, referred for the first time to the need to recognize Palestinian "national rights," and it deleted a clause from a previous platform that ruled out negotiations with the PLO. Moreover, Labor called for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, and backed the concept of a territorial compromise in all the occupied territories except Jerusalem. (At a subsequent meeting, pressure from Labor settlers in the Golan Heights resulted in some backsliding from this position. See "Focus on Jews and Israel," page 66 of this issue.)

It is this newly proclaimed willingness to divide Palestine between Israeli and Arab sovereignty that leads some of the Palestinian leaders to regard Labor as the lesser of two evils. The Palestinians recognize that Labor's return to the prime minister's office could halt the annexationist policies of the Likud and possibly produce momentum for a land-for-peace solution to the conflict. Peres if elected as Israel's prime minister, might, like South Africa's De Klerk, turn into a nationalist leader willing to take major risks in a search for peace.

At this point, however, the chances of Labor being able to win enough votes to form a coalition are slim. Polls indicate that the Likud and the hard-right parties have gained strength. In the 1988 Knesset election, the Likud received 34 percent of the vote compared to 31.5 percent for Labor. According to a recent poll conducted by the Hanoch Smith group, results today would be 37 percent to 22 percent in favor of Likud. Margins of the right-wing bloc over the left-wing bloc have also widened from 41 versus 40 percent in 1988 to 47 versus 34 percent today. Moreover, in head-to-head matchups, Shamir is favored over Rabin 44 to 39 percent and over Peres 53 to 26 percent.

Some Palestinian leaders regard Labor as the lesser of two evils.

A major part of Labor's problem has nothing to do with foreign policy. Sephardic (Oriental) Jews today outnumber the more well-to-do and liberal Ashkenazi (European) Jews by 60 percent to 40 percent. The Sephardic rank-and-file continue to support the Likud and reject Labor leaders, whom they perceive to be an arrogant elite-an Israeli version of the "East Coast establishment." Sephardic voters are attracted to the populist and nationalist messages of the Likud, although their commitment to the Greater Israel concept is questionable. (The settlement leaders are mainly Ashkenazis.)

Moreover, Peres is one of Israel's least popular political figures, regarded by many Israelis as having the charisma of a Walter Mondale and the personal integrity of a Spiro Agnew. Rabin has a better image but, as almost everyone in Israel knows, the former prime minister suffers from heavy drinking and depression. (As chief of staff during the 1967 war he suffered a mental breakdown.) Israeli insiders question his fitness for the job of leading Israeli again.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, there is optimism at Labor party headquarters. Warning against obsession with polls in the volatile Israeli political system, Labor leaders suggest that external forces could energize the moderate forces. Israelis, after all, by a margin of 2 to 1, support the land-for-peace formula. A third of Israelis even back the idea of an independent Palestinian state, although both major political blocs oppose the idea.

Discrediting the Likud Argument

The combination of a peace process in which the Palestinians project a moderate agenda and of strong American pressure on the Shamir government is expected, in the long run, to strengthen Labor. They discredit the Likud argument that "there is no one to talk with," and suggests that Shamir's policies are endangering Israeli ties with the US. As a result, Israeli voters have incentives to move toward Labor's more accommodating position.

While Israelis did not wave Syrian and Palestinian flags during the Madrid peace conference, the event transformed Israeli perceptions of Palestinians as human beings and as members of a national community.

"In Madrid the Palestinians presented us with the proof that our own peace 'refusesniks' cannot count anymore on a Palestinian refusal," wrote political columnist Yeshayau Ben-Porat in Yediot Aharonot. "In Madrid the myth of the eternal Palestinian 'refusenik' died. At the same time, another myth that 'there is no one to talk with,' finally collapsed."

Linkage Welcomed

Labor activists, publicly or privately, welcome Bush's efforts to link the $10 billion dollar loan guarantee to an Israeli freeze on the settlements. Labor leaders suggest that Shamir's goal in the peace talks is to stall and buy time. He hopes that as the US presidential election campaign begins, a politically weakened Bush, facing staunchly pro-Israel Democratic candidates, will agree to release the guarantees and let the peace process fizzle out.

Israeli Labor party leaders argue that if the loan is approved without such linkage, Shamir could then approach the 1992 Knesset elections with an attractive message for the Israeli electorate: "Contrary to what the Labor leaders tell you, we can continue to maintain our control over 'Judea and Samaria' and at the same time continue to count on US diplomatic and financial support."

A Likud victory would then be inevitable. That could produce more expansionism and lead to the final collapse of the peace talks. It would be ironic and sad if presidential election-year political calculations would discourage Bush from continuing his tough stand with Shamir, and as a result help the Likud to remain in power.

Leon T. Hadar is a former Jerusalem Post correspondent. His book From Cold War to the Gulf War: Romancing the Middle East Paradigm will be published in March by the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

 

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