The Press : Arabs See Rabin’s Big Victory in a Cautious Light

Most--though not all--of the Arab world cautiously welcomed last week’s surprisingly lopsided Labor Party victory in Israel’s elections.

Here is a sampling of opinion taken from the Arab press:

“The results of the Israeli elections--which proved that the Israeli voter rejects the extremist right represented in the last few years by Likud and other radicals--represent a step in the right direction.

“This is a substantial change in the Israeli political map regarding the cause of peace and security in this part of the world.”

--Al Quds, Jerusalem

“The Israeli elections open a great door for the chances of peace in the Middle East. This comes at a time when Likud-inspired paralysis had practically sentenced the peace process to a slow death, while the Arabs showed a complete lack of creativity and initiative.

“The renewal of chances for peace . . . is only one of many effects which the election will have. It is likely that (Yitzhak) Rabin’s victory will be the beginning of the long process to extinguish fundamentalism and fanaticism from the region as a whole, and may mark an entry for effecting a greater collaboration between . . . Western and regional policies.”

-- Al Hayat, leading Arabic daily published in London

“The results of the Israeli election may have been a surprise to Yitzhak Shamir and his cronies among the former terrorists who, despite their advanced age, still consider the time when they led their terrorist gangs as a golden age for the Jewish state. . . .

“But the results didn’t surprise many others, whether inside Israel or outside, because they showed a growing trend among Israelis, a trend that believes that the future of the Jewish state cannot be secured by the continuation of a spirit of enmity . . . to every place surrounding Israel. . . .

“This does not mean that we have entered a new age when the success of the peace process is assured--a process which Shamir and his cronies did everything possible to delay and destroy. The danger is still there, no matter which parties and politicians govern Israel. We must not forget what the election campaign revealed by way of . . . a competition for toughness between Labor and Likud over the fate of the territories. . . .

“In addition there is the possibility of a national unity government, or of a coalition with extremist religious parties which could lead to a continuation of the unyielding policies followed by Likud.”

-- Al Akhbar, Cairo

“One can safely say that the results of the Israeli elections to choose the members of the 13th Knesset, which involved a sweeping evident victory by the Labor Party, are similar to a real coup d’etat in the Israeli political scene--similar to a great extent to the coup conducted by the Likud in 1977. . . . “Now, after a 15-year absence, Labor is returning. Certainly there are reasons which go far beyond narrow partisan conflicts which arise by necessity in any country, most likely pertaining in the first place to a strong public feeling that the need exists to check and restrain extremism . . . on the peace issue.

“It has become evident enough that the Likud’s conduct was threatening the loss of Israel’s strongest ally, the United States. . . .

“Political analysts . . . attribute the Likud defeat after 15 years of reigning to its inability to seize the present chance to achieve peace and capitalize on the growing moderate climate in the Arab and Palestinian spheres, which enjoys wide international support and sympathy.

“One believes that the positive changes which took place are a victory for peace trends in the Arab and Palestinian arena.”

--Al Ahram, Cairo

“The will for the current peace process to succeed is now the mainstream of Israeli politics, just as it is the mainstream for Palestinian society and for the Arabs in general. . . .

“I would like to consider this result the beginning of the beginning; that is, as an expression of the first real breach of Israeli intransigence and escapism that has been achieved by the stubborn participation of the Palestinians in the peace talks. . . .”

--Emile Habibi in Al Shark Al Awsat , a Saudi daily published in London

“The Labor Party faces a historical challenge, represented in the Arab-Palestinian desire to reach peace with Israel on the basis of land for peace. The Labor Party’s delight in winning the Israeli election will simply be a happiness for returning to power as long as it is not turned into a happiness for achieving a just peace.”

--An Nahar, Jerusalem

“The inability of Israeli Arabs to play an effective role in the government of a country which has witnessed the most unlikely political alliances is a measure of the reserve with which Israel continues to treat its now three-generation Arab citizens. But it is also the clearest indication that Israel’s largest minority has not mastered the rules of the game.

“While the Likud and Labor did court Israeli Arabs, the election campaigns were dominated by the will to entice the nearly 300,000 new eligible Russian voters, outspoken in their disillusionment with the promised land. Israeli Arabs all but vanished from the political spectrum. . . . Yet, however cold-shouldered by the Establishment, the Israeli Arabs may themselves be answerable for being subjugated to the position of internal political pariah.

“As the country’s largest minority with 750,000 citizens, they could stand to reap the most from Israel’s electoral system. If the 390,000 Israeli Arabs entitled to vote did so in a single bloc, they would have 13 members in the Knesset, that is, just more than Meretz, which will be key in Israel’s new government. . . . Sidelined, it is the Arabs who have failed to exploit their electoral strength.”

--Al Ahram Weekly (in English), Cairo