In Jerusalem, tense and visibly unhappy Israelis and Palestinians brace themselves for the inevitable disaster, and the sane minority on both sides is feebly waiting for a miracle, which is very unlikely to occur. It is relatively easy for outsiders, Americans, Europeans and others, to pass a moral judgement or simply to stay aloof from the sordid reality in the region. But it is different story altogether for the inhabitants of Israel, the territories and at least some of the Arab countries. The scenario will soon be turned into stark reality, and good television for the bored Western viewers will be a living hell for us. It hardly matters anymore whether one is an ardent peace-seeker who has dedicated his entire life to the persuit of justice and understanding, or a habitual militarist and warmonger. The price for bigotry, greed, misguided nationalism, racism, false sense of superiority and ancient legacy of collective paranoia, will be paid by the guilty in the innocent alike.
Palestinian independence will not be granted peacefully, because the Israeli leaders failed to deliver the goods at the crucial moments. Most intelligent people in Israel know the price for peace, but they lack the courage to face the surging wave of expansionism. The ugly coalition between the national religious parties, the orthodox and the secular hawks is now being fully-formed and finalised by Ehud Barak, the undertaker of the Labour movement and the instigator of the most dangerous partnership with Ariel Sharon.
We should not attach an inflated importance to the rebillion against Barak in his own cabinet. The attempted coup by the minister of justice Yossi Beilin is courageous and honourable to a certain degree, but the other doves in the government, Haim Ramon, Shlomo Ben-Amy and even Shimon Peres, are powerless stop the alliance with Sharon. Only a clear warning from Washington, that the “time-out” in the peace process declared by Barak on 20 October and the admission of Sharon to the cabinet will cost Israel dearly, may turn the table on Barak. The voices from America are too timid and forlorn, and Barak’s lack of support in the Knesset is becoming a major threat to his political survival. It is indeed possible that the internal political map here will be transformed for the foreseeable future: The New Centre-Right, comprising the powerful Pragmatic expansionists (Barak loyalists, Likud, most of the religious parties and the Russian MKs, Shinui and the Centre Paty) will take over in a new, sinister form; The Lunatic Right will support the Centre in its anti-Palestinian measures, but will urge harsher policies; the Doves, shrunk and discredited, will be cast into futile parliamentary opposition, uneasily co-existing with the increasingly disillusioned Arab MKs.
This process, which actually began even before 20 October, will set Israel and the region back to disastrous Golda Meir era (1969-1973). A strong, uncompromising centre, backed by most of the mass media (including very many ex-doves), rendering the extreme right virtually superfluous and isolating the peaceniks. The prolonged emergency wills necessitare a relative austerity, and the harnessing of Israel’s resources to the needs of a new Sparta. Educated Israelis, who can afford the option, may decide to leave, and to abandon the nasty new entity to its fate. The Israeli political and journalistic elite has collapsed, or sold out to the establishment. I warned the readers of MEI several times, that Barak would be the Ramsay Macdonald of the Israeli Labour party. This is now an established fact rather than mere speculation.
If Bill Clinton does not intervene at once, the American-cultivated ruling school of doves in Israel will finally collapse, and then vanish from the political arena as a significant and influential force for a very long time. Barak will lead the Israeli middle-class into the vile wadlock with Sharon, disregarding international opinion and the feeling of one million Israeli Arabs and several thousands of Jewish peace-lovers. Clinton has built his diplomatic machine around mild Zionists or pro-Israelis, which have managed to create a bond of interests between the Israeli doves and White House. The Barak-Sharon axis can not be a partner for Europe or for the US, and the former harmony will be turn into a troublesome and wary relationship. In theory, this development will benefit the Arabs, and president Hosni Mubark is now emerging as the most reliable ally of the west in the region. But this theory will not matter much for the immediate victims of the new situation, ordinary Israeli and Palestinians.
The doves in the labour party have rallied too late, and most of them are not hardened leftists, and therefore incapable of confronting the hostility of the general public during a national emergency. Yaser Arafat and his colleagues are now depicted once again as assassins and zealots by the Israeli media. Some journalists have soberd-up during the last two weeks of October, but the majority will accept Barak and his policies, despite their traditional loathing of Sharon. Even the surprising moderation of the summit in Cairo has not changed the public mood, influenced by the tendentious reporting in the media. However reomote it is from the actual facts, it is undenianly true that most Israelis conceive themselves as victims of violence and even anti-semitism. The objective observers can laugh it off, but there is nothing funny about the prevailng mood here: False and contrived paranoia can lead to the same results as a justified sense of danger to our survival here.
The average pro-Barak Israeli thinks that Israel under him went almost too far in its generosity to Arafat. They consider the Palestinian leader as conniving and dishonest politician, whose policies are aimed at the total destruction of Israel. Many of them have abandoned their old animosity towards the settlers, and regard leftists who still urge Israel to evacuate the settlements as misguided idealists at best and traitors at worst. This revived self-righteousness is what Barak was seeking all along: the notion that the Arabs are to be blamed for the gathering storm will divide the all important Zionist peace camp and will enable the New Centre to mobilise the Israeli intelligensia for war. The sincere doves among the Zionists (part of Meretz, Peace Now and labour moderates) can not stop this trend. Some of them will join forces with the Barak-Sharon New Cenrtists once the die is cast. Others will watch sullenly but passively the deterioraton towards a regional war.
This article may please some dogmatic enemies of Israel, but the danger of an all-out war, of possible nuclear disaster, and the consequences to the entire world are too serious to be callously dismissed. Israel will not vanish peacefully from the face of the earth, Mubarak seems to be the only real statesman in the region who understands the implications of the new situation here, and unless the departing Clinton makes his move during this very week, the calamity will be total.
ירושלמי אדום 