Deep Divisions to Be Probed : Vote Forcing Israel to Face Territories Issue

When politicians say that upcoming elections are among the most important in a country’s history, it’s occasionally true.

Take Israel, 1988, for example.

After almost nine months of Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, it’s clear that what to do about those territories and their 1.5 million Arab inhabitants will be the central issue in parliamentary elections scheduled here for Nov. 1.

The occupation has gone on for a generation, yet “this is the first time that Israel has had to confront the issue squarely,” concluded a fact-finding mission of the Washington Institute think tank’s study group on U.S. policy in the Middle East earlier this year. “The central question of what to do about the Palestinians cannot be avoided.”

It’s an issue that probes some of the deepest and most explosive divisions in this always passionate nation. As a result, many analysts say they fear a violent campaign.

Certainly, Israel’s policies in the occupied territories are a persistent irritant in its relations with the United States, which is by far its most important ally. That’s all the more true in the face of harsh Israeli measures to quell the Palestinian uprising, which have triggered several protests from Washington. And with both countries slated to elect new governments in November, foreign policy experts here look for a period of even greater strain on the relationship in the months ahead.

Focus of Tension

Meanwhile, with an apparent resolution of the eight-year-old Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, the Palestinian issue has become perhaps the primary focus of tension in the Middle East, which is one of the most strategically significant regions on the globe. It’s also an area where lack of any political movement to resolve conflict has a habit of turning quickly into military confrontation.

“You don’t have to be very smart to see that the chance for another war in this region in the next four years is pretty significant,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Samuel W. Lewis.

Interviewed during a recent return visit to Israel, Lewis pointed to a burgeoning missile race in the area and the spread of chemical warfare capability. Under the circumstances, he said, “the choice that the electorate here will make will cast a long shadow over the chances for more war in the next period.”

No matter what happens, it seems clear that the 1988 electoral campaign will mark the last hurrah for at least one of the country’s two top political leaders, and very possibly for both, triggering generational changes that will thrust new personalities into the forefront of national policy. Many political analysts foresee election scenarios releasing centrifugal forces in the major parties that could reshape the Israeli political map for years.

While the choice facing Israeli voters is important, it is not as clear cut as many would like. That’s particularly true since late last month, when Jordan’s King Hussein announced his new policy of “disengagement” from the territories. (The Hashemite monarch had ruled the West Bank of the Jordan River from 1948 until Israeli troops captured it in the 1967 Middle East War, and he has supported the officially stateless Gazans as well.)

Derailed U.S.-Backed Plan

Hussein’s move derailed a U.S.-backed peace initiative that had clearly polarized Israeli politics. Now the debate here rages over principles and personalities rather than specific plans.

Rightist parties, headed by the Likud Bloc of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, argue that with the so-called Jordanian option off the agenda, there is no available Arab partner with whom to negotiate. Ideologically opposed to the left’s program of offering “land for peace” anyway, the right now says that it would be particularly senseless for Israel to dangle dangerous concessions before a nonexistent audience.

The far right wants to annex the territories outright. Likud’s answer is to hold out until an Arab interlocutor appears who is willing to negotiate the terms of an autonomy arrangement for West Bank and Gaza Strip Palestinians under Israeli sovereignty.

There is no such interlocutor, counters the left, headed by the Labor Alignment of Foreign Minister and alternate Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Meanwhile, it is in Israel’s own interest to rid itself of a large portion of the occupied territories to preserve its Jewish, democratic character, says the left. The alternative, in this view, is either a binational Israel or one that practices South Africa-style apartheid.

The problem is not an Arab negotiating partner, Labor says, but a clear Israeli decision for peace. If there’s an Israeli option, the left argues, then the Arab negotiating partner will emerge. The far left says the partner already exists: the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The real campaign is only beginning now. The knives will come out in September, quipped Peres election adviser Moshe Theumim, president of Tel Aviv’s Gitam Image Promotion Systems. By early October, he added, “the machine guns will appear.”

‘Fear Quotient’ Raised

Public opinion polls make it clear that Labor has been hurt by the unrest in the territories. Using the Arabic word for the uprising, a senior Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity commented: “The intifada has raised the fear quotient.” And that always means a boost for Israel’s political right.

Large numbers of Israelis apparently see the continuing unrest as evidence that the status quo in the territories won’t work. But while some have been converted to Labor’s position that Israel must relinquish control over large parts of the West Bank and Gaza, even more now talk openly of keeping the territories and “transferring” the Palestinian inhabitants to surrounding Arab countries.

“You would probably get 90% for ‘transfer’ if you could convince everybody it would be painless for Arabs and Jews alike,” commented Ido Dissentchik, editor of the Hebrew-language Maariv newspaper. “But this is all nonsense.”

While it may be the underdog as the campaign opens, however, Labor and its allies may not be nearly as badly off as is sometimes suggested. Before the intifada began last December, the left held a significant lead over Likud and its allies in the polls.

Most recent polls, including one commissioned by the Los Angeles Times, show the two blocs now at a virtual standoff. Moreover, they reveal the electorate to be deeply ambivalent about the key issues.

The polls show that most Israelis think Peres is better prime minister material than Shamir, for example, and that they are ready by a significant majority to trade some occupied territory for real peace. But asked how they intend to vote, at least half opt for the political right, and a solid majority cheers an even tougher line against the unrest in the West Bank and Gaza.

Peres’ vision of the future seems to include too many uncertainties for many Israelis, while Shamir’s appears overly simplistic.

Political cartoonist Avshalom Aharon satirized the dilemma for the weekly Haolam Haze (This World), depicting the leaders of the two camps as teachers presenting their respective political messages in a classroom. At one side, Peres points to a blackboard crammed so full of numbers and mathematical symbols it would make Einstein’s head spin. Opposite is Shamir offering “2+2=5.”

Despite Hussein’s move and potentially far-reaching changes in PLO policy, complained columnist Yoel Marcus of the newspaper Haaretz, “the political parties have so far failed to come up with solutions . . . so as to make it possible for the voter to know precisely to whom he is going to entrust the country for the next four years.”

On the contrary, both big blocs are scrambling so aggressively for an estimated 250,000 “floating” voters that each is further blurring its basic message to attract waverers inclined toward the other side.

Political Messages

Thus, Labor stresses the role of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, its No. 2 man in government, in applying an “iron fist” to quell the Palestinian uprising. And Peres, in a campaign kickoff television interview, echoed right-wing slurs that the Arabs, in contrast to Jewish values, were sending their women and children into the streets to do their fighting for them.

Likud, on the other hand, hints broadly that it, too, would make concessions if a real opportunity for peace came along. And for all his rhetoric about never giving up “one inch” of the occupied territories, Shamir, in a companion television appearance to Peres’, specifically rejected an interviewer’s suggestion that he is ready to talk only about conditions of Israeli rule there.

Barring new developments, political pundits here increasingly say there is at least an even chance, and maybe more than that, that neither bloc will win a decisive victory in November. The result, they predict, may well be another “national unity government” like the one that has joined Labor and Likud in a broad, but uneasy, coalition for the last four years.

Chances that either side can win a clear mandate are “very low,” opined Daniel Elazar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Public Affairs, in an interview. “The country is honestly divided. Unless something dramatic happens between now and (Nov. 1), I don’t think the chances are one in five that anyone can form a stable government” outside a broad coalition.

Either a loss or a repeat of the 1984 electoral standoff could have far-reaching implications within both big parties. Shamir, 73, is already under enormous pressure from rivals within Likud. And for Peres, 65, it would mark the fourth campaign in a row that he either lost or tied while heading a party which before his stewardship had an unblemished record of victories.

Some analysts speculate that the prospect of another national unity government could split one or both parties, with Labor’s doves and Likud’s hawks both reluctant to share power for another four years with “the enemy.”

1st Chance to Form Government

The most either party can reasonably expect from Israel’s complex electoral system is enough of a plurality at the polls to earn it the first chance to try to form a government. No single party has ever won an outright majority here.

Israelis vote not for individual candidates, but for a party list, and seats in the 120-member Knesset, or Parliament, are assigned in proportion to each party’s share of the national vote. Any party with more than 1% of the vote is entitled to at least one seat.

In the last elections, in July, 1984, 26 parties ran, and 15 got more than the approximately 20,000 votes necessary to claim a Knesset seat.

This time, more than 30 parties have indicated their intention to run.