A CALMER MOOD IN ISRAEL

...Life in such an enforced marriage was surely bound to resemble that in Sartre's Huis dos where 278 hell is a claustrophobic cohabitation of incompatibles...

...Everybody is obviously against three-figure annual inflation rates, not to talk of the one thousand percent that Israel was approaching in the summer of 1984...

...In the Knesset, Labor is attempting to push through a law against racism...

...I n his novel, Menukha nekhona (A Perfect Peace), published in 1982, Amos Oz includes the figure of Levi Eshkol, Labor's prime minister of twenty years ago...

...It is remarkable that neither 280 Egypt nor Jordan has sought to put the blame on Israel for the open breach between Hussein and Arafat...

...There is a floating vote—albeit of indeterminate dimensions—on the outer peripheries of Likud support...

...More significant is the fact that Peres has been able to present the basic choices in his low-key, common-sense style, without bringing the roof down on his head...

...It is just possible that, by granting the principle of "national self-determination" (meaning, a Palestinian state for the West Bank and Gaza), Peres could have cut the Gordian knot...

...His refusal to return to his onetime comrades (he broke with the Likud leadership in 1980) placed an insuperable stumbling block in Shamir's path...

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...But there are clear signs that the various factions within Orthodoxy which historically were worlds apart, are now more and more sharing a common language of quasi-fundamentalism, and xenophobia...

...the Temple is rebuilt...

...And, in fact, the newly appointed Arab mayor of Nablus, Zaafer alMasri, who replaced an Israeli military official, was assassinated by one of the Palestinian "rejectionist" groups within a couple of months of his taking up the post—even though he had been very careful to gain the assent in advance not only of Hussein but also of Arafat...

...This persistent deadlock goes a long way to explain why neither party has been in any hurry to break up the coalition government...

...but unless Labor wins, the territories will remain occupied indefinitely...

...At the best, it seemed, Peres, with his long history of trimming to the prevailing winds, would be able to do nothing but formulate policies based on the lowest common denominator...

...The four religious parties have twelve Knesset members among them, a mere ten percent of the total...

...nonetheless, as prime minister and defense minister, respectively, they have so far maintained a smooth working relationship...

...IS THIS THE WRITING ON THE WALL FOR LABOR...

...Shamir is thus virtually a hostage to the agreement and Peres, by constantly calling his bluff, has pursued policies anathema to the Likud...

...at the most, if one were quick, one could make huge real profits...

...Past experience suggests that this cannot be more than a passing phase, a lull, a remission, but, then again, it is not totally impossible that the forces of moderation may gain permanent advantage from this moment of public calm...

...But no substantive progress has been made to widen the circle of peace...

...The fact that the government has been able to put an end to the runaway inflation has undoubtedly contributed to this sobering-up...

...Constant infighting and factionalism plagued the party during the last decade of its hegemony, 1967-1977, rendering effective government all but impossible...

...He is in favor of banning soccer matches in the national stadium on the Sabbath...

...So doing, he is trying to follow in the steps of Menahem Begin, who, although not an observant Jew, liked to give the impression that he was...

...It can be safely assumed that there is no love lost between the two men even now...

...It almost came apart in April, and whether it will still be in existence by the time this is published, nobody knows...

...The only office that the Likud was not ready to give him was, it seems, the premiership itself...

...the members of the middle class who find any talk of socialism anathema but might still vote for one of the center parties close to Labor rather than stay with Likud at all costs...

...Add up support for the Likud, Tehiyah, and the religious parties and you have close to a majority...

...On a recent Friday night, only police intervention prevented a crowd of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews from breaking down the gates of my daughter's high school in an effort to put an end to a weekend seminar being held with Arab pupils from the Galilee...

...Only the very large Arab vote (which is also increasing, thanks to yet another powerful demographic trend) maintains a precarious balance...

...The polls suggest that the overall strength of the two main blocs (left and right) has remained remarkably stable since 1984...

...And if Peres had been willing to allow Yitshak Navon (at the time much more popular than he) to lead Labor into the elections, the party probably would have won the few extra seats needed to establish a narrow coalition and to leave the Likud outside...

...Frustrated at grand diplomacy, Peres has started emphasizing the need to increase local Arab participation in administering the West Bank and Gaza...

...There have been much publicized disagreements within Gush Emunim between those leaders, such as Rabbi Moshe Levinger, who see the Jewish terrorist underground as essentially blameless, and those, such as Rabbi Yoel Ben Nun, who condemn it as a major deviation...

...Given any choice, though, those parties all seem almost bound to prefer the Likud...

...How receptive can they be to talk of territorial concessions, of coexistence, of peace not as a trap but as a way to security...

...Now that Peres and the surviving Labor leaders have finally come of age, will their period in office come to be seen, like that of Eshkol before June 1967, as a short interval, to be remembered with nostalgia but of little long-term significance...

...By far the most serious case of internecine war has broken out within the Likud itself...

...The "devolution of powers" will probably continue, but only in slow motion...

...The two chief rabbis, for example, have let it be known that they are opposed to Jews even visiting the Temple Mount—this at a time when other rabbis are demanding that a synagogue be built at its outer edge...

...Meron Benvenisti has long been saying that if Israeli law were extended to the occupied areas, the Arab population would at least be entitled to full political and civil rights...

...This is, after all, a country of constant surprises...

...But in Moshe Arens's year and a half as defense minister in the Likud government, he constantly postponed the decisive step...

...the Israeli Arabs who usually vote for the Communists or another party of the radical left—all these represent a potential reservoir of support for Labor and its small allied parties...

...In not calling on its members to refuse army service in Lebanon during the war, he has written, the movement demonstrated support for "the principle of absolute obedience to the State . . . that major principle of fascism to which Eichmann appealed during his trial...

...But accepted wisdom has it that to break up the coalition and run an election on such an issue would mean political suicide for Labor...

...It also means that Ariel Sharon—now once more on the rise in the Likud—could conceivably end up, after all, as prime minister of Israel within the next few years...

...At the least, this new style of foreign policy has done much to improve Israel's image abroad, especially in Western Europe, and has, at the same time, exposed the hopeless confusion in which the PLO is entangled...

...And, meanwhile, the tone of public discourse in matters pertaining to foreign affairs has become remarkably measured...

...The idea, of course, is that eventually the religious parties will be ready to serve in a narrow coalition under Labor leadership, as they did until 1977...

...OF COURSE, SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES REMAIN...

...In theory, both major parties had concluded by 1983 that Israel should extricate itself fast from the Lebanese quagmire...

...Limited self-government for the West Bank and Gaza as a transitional stage to a final settlement remains the obvious way to bypass insuperable obstacles—so long as the names "Camp David" and "autonomy" (anathema in most of the Arab world) are avoided...

...Hence, we had the angry rejection of the various peace formulae associated with Rogers, Jarring, and Reagan...

...It has been the common assumption of governments here that an unyielding and at times intransigent public posture is clearly in the national interest...

...The degree of normality evident in the last year is in the Israeli context positively abnormal...

...while "professor"—directed against Moshe Arens (who once taught aeronautics at the Haifa Technion)— figured among the words of contempt most favored by David Levy, who, with Ariel Sharon, enjoyed the greatest support among the new generation of delegates (largely of North African origin...

...Until his criticism of Peres goaded the prime minister into demanding his resignation, Finance Minister Yitshak Moda'i, a Likud member, had the support of Peres and the Labor ministers to carry through the economic plan—against the loud opposition of cabinet ministers from his own party...

...The remarkable fact is that he has totally transformed the tactical conduct of Israeli foreign policy as it has been pursued at least since 1967 (and, to a great extent, even since 1949...

...Mass demonstrations, which played so important a part during the Begin period, have gone out of fashion...

...Will demonstrated political success suffice to reverse fundamental social and sociopolitical trends...

...The selection of Eshkol for this role was no random choice, for with the passage of time his reputation has been growing at least among the intelligentsia here...

...Without at least one or two of the religious parties, its chances of putting together a viable coalition even in the next Knesset are almost nil...

...It is now nineteen years since the Six Day War...

...Labor, it is said, cannot win again so long as the occupied territories remain under Israeli rule...

...in the last nine months, despite the continuing Israeli patrols in the "security zone" north of the border six soldiers 279 have been killed and there have been no deaths in Northern Galilee from shellings or terrorist attacks...

...Given the armistice between the two major parties, it is not surprising that we have been witnessing a spate of recriminations pro domo sua within the camps of both doves and hawks...

...The Ministry of Education, headed by Yitshak Navon, has launched a series of programs for the schools designed to explain the meaning of democracy...

...But this does not mean that Labor will benefit from Kahane's rise and fall...

...The slang term for this syndrome is "rosh katan," literally "small head," meaning to keep one's head down...

...I gather, for example, from my children (one in high school, the other doing her army service) that politics are hardly ever discussed among their age groups—not for fear of unleashing intolerable hatreds (as during the Lebanese War), but because for once even here private life has ousted the public domain from the minds of the youth...

...Besides, when all is said and done, the logic of politics may still prove stronger than the laws of social dynamics...

...The retreat from politics, combined with disillusionment caused by the Lebanese Wars, goes a long way to explain the tendency of many young army recruits (eighteen-year-olds) to keep a low profile in the army, meaning for some not to volunteer for the crack combat units and for others not to sign on beyond the compulsory three years as short-service officers...

...Menahem Begin's heirs have turned to fighting each other with a ferocity that to my knowledge has no precedent in the history of intra-party rivalries in this country...

...Despite the high ratings that Meir Kahane enjoyed in the opinion polls during his first year as a Knesset member (at one point he had about ten percent of the possible vote), few observers expect him to make major gains in the next election...

...And the prime minister contrives frequently to have the papers publish photos of him publicly wearing a yarmulke...

...THE SAME STORY REPEATED itself when it came to the withdrawal from Lebanon...

...Zionism as normality rather than as messianism (be it of the Ben Gurion or Begin varieties) is what Eshkol represents...

...The proportion of the young people in the population as a whole is on the rise (because of the relatively high birth rate) and all opinion polls show that support for the right-wing parties is much greater in this age group than in the population as a whole...

...The public feuds between Yitshak Rabin and Peres did much to lose Labor the elections of 1977 and 1981...

...Or, to use a metaphor more appropriate to what is after all largely a sociopsychological phenomenon, it is as though the Israeli public has ceased to follow its usual "manicdepressive" cycle, the rapid transition from collective euphoria to black pessimism...

...When he holds a public rally—and he has never been able to get together more than a couple of hundred of supporters at a time—thousands appear to heckle and harass him...

...After all, the Israeli public has been witness over the last five years to a clear-cut demonstration of the essential difference between total irresponsibility and failure in government, on the one hand, and competent, rational leadership, on the other...

...When the idea of a grand coalition was first raised by Yitshak Shamir before the elections of 1984, it seemed a sure sign that Labor was heading for victory (as the public opinion polls predicted...

...At the least, this prevented one's earnings from disappearing into thin air...

...He seems bereft of all organizational skills and remains very much the lone wolf...

...Alienation from Labor and empathy for the right are deeply imprinted on a large majority within this section of Israeli society...

...Still, Peres's peace initiatives should not be written off as a simple failure...

...Given the basic deadlock built into the very structure of the government finally put together in October 1984, very little, if any, good was expected of it...

...There is much less money available and what there is can be withdrawn by bank cards (allowing the client to escape reprimand about his overdraft...

...As against this, Peres has so far failed to bring about any dramatic improvement in relations between Israel and the neighboring Arab states...

...Even Sharon has had to muzzle his criticism lest he prevent the rotation from taking place...

...After endless buffeting by heavy storms, the ship of state is lying becalmed and the crew is trying to make it seaworthy again...

...Nusseibeh may be saying this with tongue in cheek, because the Israeli democratic system could hardly survive a situation where forty or fifty percent or more of the voting population is Arab...

...I am seen, therefore I am," is perhaps axiomatic for politics in the television era...

...The portrait is warm, showing a large, care-worn man, physically a little clumsy, but endowed with endless patience and a certain homespun common sense, wisdom even...

...It is enough to look at the history of the Deep South between Reconstruction and the civil rights movement to see how the shell of democracy can exist without its spirit...

...Even though the Orthodox population is also growing fast (huge families and a rejection of birth control are the norm in certain circles), this has not so far produced a significant increase in its parliamentary representation...

...Apart from anything else, a series of sharp and controversial military actions (the bombing in Tunis...

...Huge sums from the state budget continue to flow unabated even in these times of fiscal restraint to innumerable yeshivot (many of which still regard the "Zionist State" as totally lacking theological legitimacy...

...to launch trial balloons boldly before the public eye (reopening the issue of the Golan Heights as part of a deal involving the renewal of Soviet Jewish emigration) does not have to mean bringing in a Neville Chamberlain who carves up the country...

...Much of this activity—even perhaps Peres's constant stress on the pursuit of peace as a national value—comes as a reaction to the election of Meir Kahane to the Knesset and to his subsequent meteoric rise in the public opinion polls...

...Today, the banks are never full...

...Then again, the left is up against the rapid transformation of the religious camp in Israeli politics from the malleability that marked it in the pre-1967 era to the militancy of today...

...This trend partly reflects, but is also reinforced by, the growing share of the vote going (again because of long-term demographic factors) to Jewish Israelis of North African origin...

...Even when Begin offered to return all of Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty, he chose to do so secretly while maintaining a characteristically tough stance in public throughout the period of negotiations...

...The antiracism bill and the Education Ministry's plans for joint meetings between children from Arab and Jewish schools have also been received coolly in some religious circles—and with varying degrees of hostility in others...

...Once the election results were known, all that the Likud needed in order to set up a coalition without Labor was the cooperation of Ezer Weizman, whose party had won only three seats...

...Whether a government based on such shaky foundations, harassed by a massive, irresponsible and demagogic opposition, could have tackled the crises facing the country is another matter...

...Indeed, he can be seen as belonging to the generation of the "sons" (both native-born and immigrant) who, as Oz depicts it in his novel, were forced to grow up stunted in the shadow of the founding fathers...

...After the election results of 1984 were announced, Amos Oz was one of the well-known writers (A.B...

...Coalition politics, the necessity to plaster over basic ideological negations, the succession of last-minute compromises after haggling through the night, the fact that the government has somehow, incredibly, been able to function— all have had the effect of reducing tensions to an extent that could hardly have been imagined a year or two ago...

...And the fact is that in his relations with the Orthodox religious parties—there are four in the coalition—he has done almost everything he can to meet their demands...

...As for Hussein, if he were to step too far out of line, it could well cost him his life and even end the Hashemite dynasty...

...Hussein, though, is caught in a complex web of dependencies involving Arafat and the mainstream PLO, the breakaway Palestinian groups (Hawatmeh, Habash, Abu Nidal), Syria, and the Soviet Union...

...THE PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF IDEOLOGICAL by managerial politics has led, among other things, to a dramatic decline in the role of the extra-parliamentary pressure groups...

...Is not Paris worth a mass...

...Increasingly, they speak the same language...

...Today, a year and a half later, the style of government employed by Peres—and its impact on Israeli society—has come to remind one more than anything else of the Eshkol interlude...

...Holding the balance of power, he could have dictated almost any price...

...The truce imposed by the inconclusive election of July 1984 on the two dominant parties of left and right, Labor and Likud, has made its impact felt at every level of life...

...This line of thinking is much facilitated by the fact that virtually no new settlements are being established at the moment...

...A new generation of voters has grown up knowing no frontiers to the east other than those established by the cease-fire of June 1967...

...If the coalition breaks up before October 1986, it is highly improbable that Shamir (an aging and unpopular leader) would be chosen to lead the Likud into the next elections...

...When money was losing its value at the rate of two or three 277 percent a day, the banks were packed with people buying investments linked to the cost-of-living, or the dollar, index...

...Given the solid base of support for "rejectionism" both in Israel and in the Arab world—two extremes that feed on each other—it is not surprising to hear voices on the left calling for the formal annexation of the territories...

...One is reminded of Kutuzov in War and Peace and Samsonov in August 1914, and at one point Oz even compares him to a "good-natured Slavic peasant, full of years...

...Weizmann, who retains an unusual penchant for saying what he actually thinks, has been one of the two heroes in the events of the last year and a half...

...Or are we watching the tide begin to turn...

...and punishment for political failure...

...The one partial exception is Meir Kahane...

...This statement, in turn, has been described as "political pornography" by another well-known Hebrew University philosopher, Avishai Margalit...

...the hijacking of the plane supposedly carrying Habash...

...The long-delayed agreement by the Likud to let the case move on to "arbitration" has loosened the logjam and nowadays high-level negotiating teams are shuttling back and forth between Cairo and Tel Aviv every other week...

...t is easy to forget just how much resistance, both political and psychological, had to be overcome in order for the new government sharply to change course...

...Some of my friends were sure the coalition would fall apart within a month or two...

...What is remarkable is how fast and how far the mood of the country (something quite distinct from the cacophony of conflicting beliefs) has changed under this regime...

...The Israeli occupation, the constant acts of indiscriminate Arab terror, the consequent arrests, imprisonments, expulsions are simply part of the landscape in which they have lived their lives...

...But, paradoxically, it is still very much an open question whether Labor can again win an election and establish an effective government (meaning a narrow coalition) under its leadership...

...But progress has been slow...

...In general, the Labor party is trying to use this interlude to win over the public, particularly the youth, to the basic value-system that it once took more or less for granted but which is now under real threat...

...The middle-aged and the better-educated strata within the North African and other Oriental communities...

...Another key factor which has permitted Peres to act like a prime minister in fact as well as name has been the totally uncustomary behavior of the Labor leadership...

...The Labor ministers these days make the businesslike impression of men who have finally ceased to see power as theirs by right...

...There is much irony in this, of course, because twenty years ago Peres was one of Eshkol's bitterest opponents and, in general, his climb to the top did untold damage to the Labor party...

...He supports a bill that aims to restrict greatly the sale of pork products in the country...

...Certainly, the laws of social dynamics, the structural factors built into the system as a whole, appear to be working powerfully in favor of the annexationist right...

...to make procedural concessions (an "international conference," with a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation including proPLO members...

...Mafia" and "criminals" were among the epithets used by the veteran leadership (primarily of Polish origin) under Yitshak Shamir...

...Only the most foolhardy are ready to bet their hard-earned money (now in "new" and stable shekels) one way or the other...

...when members of the religious Gush Emunim movement are in prison for having plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock which stands at the center of the Mount...

...The fact that the media have systematically deprived him of publicity has done much to erode his support...

...There could just be a reward for political success...

...His years of office before the Six Day War have come to appear as a precious moment of relative 282 stability when the watchword was no longer total mobilization, and when the individual could take pause...

...By ordinary standards of political logic, then, the Labor party in Israel should be looking forward to the next election with the greatest confidence...

...The recent congress of the Herut party (the main constituent of the Likud bloc), the first to be held since 1979, broke up in total chaos after three days of furious turmoil, unable to agree on anything...

...and the Education Corps of the army has taken a similar initiative...

...And when it came to it, most of the Likud ministers in the National Unity Government actually refused to support the withdrawal of the troops in summer 1985...

...The other is Shimon Peres...

...How realistic all this is, only time will tell...

...Yehoshua was another) who at once came out in favor of a National Unity Government as the least of the various evils then available...

...It did not take him long, apparently, to see that the rotation agreement—designating Yitshak Shamir by name as the Likud candidate for the premiership— gives him, Peres, a decisive tactical advantage...

...Left to themselves, the Israeli prime minister and King Hussein of Jordan could surely reach some kind of working agreement...

...Now, quite unexpectedly, Peres has broken out of this pattern and has demonstrated that to talk of peace as an immediate goal...

...Unemployment has risen, but so far on a smaller scale than in the major West European countries...

...A visitor returning to Israel after an absence of a couple of years will notice that wildly dangerous driving is far less prevalent now than then...

...Nonetheless, the four finance ministers in the two Likud governments were never given the political backing without which there was simply no way of cutting profits, government (including defense) expenditures, subsidies, and living standards...

...It is arguable (and it is an argument I often hear) that the forces of liberalism and democracy are caught in a vicious circle...

...To sound too reasonable could be taken for weakness and invite intolerable pressure from the Great Powers for one-sided concessions...

...The rash of teen-age suicides, also a new social phenomenon here, may well be related to the more introspective attitudes of the adolescent generation...

...Such initiatives are essential if the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty is not to atrophy...

...Now he has been joined by a well-known young West Bank intellectual, Sari Nusseibeh, who sees annexation as the key to the "secular and democratic" state which the Palestinian national movement has long advocated...

...True, it is possible, even probable, that before the end of his term, the dispute over the minute area of Taba, and its luxury seaside hotel, will finally have been settled...

...and when a nearby yeshiva is busy preparing the priestly garments for the moment at which somehow (the Messianic Coming...

...The traumas of Munich and of the ignominious withdrawal from Sinai in 1957 reinforced the assumption that a small country threatened on all sides has to demonstrate its abhorrence of appeasement...

...During the three years of our involvement, over 650 Israeli soldiers lost their lives in Lebanon...

...Far from allowing the Likud to dictate policy, he has constantly seized the initiative...

...How totally unexpected almost everything in the development of the National Unity Government has been...

...The Likud has gone down, but the party of the radical right, Tehiyah (which opposed Begin's peace with Egypt), has been the primary beneficiary...

...As against this, though, hundreds of lives a year are being saved on the roads...

...Neither the dovish Peace Now nor the hawkish Gush Emunim can count on supporters to come out to the streets en masse...

...I still remember how soldiers on reserve duty out in the field (even in Lebanon) felt that when they finally reached a telephone they had no choice but to speak to their brokers before their wives...

...the massive search for the two soldiers kidnapped in Southern Lebanon) served to demonstrate that talk of peace was not to be taken for a loss of nerve...

...IN THE MOST CRUCIAL AREAS OF NATIONAL POLICY, though, Peres has acted not only with inexhaustible patience and persistence (the qualities for which he became best known over the years as a party organizer), but also with a dash and vision that have taken everybody, maybe even himself, by surprise...

...By now, the gap in the balance of trade has been cut by over a billion dollars a year and the monthly inflation rate is down to not much more than one percent...

...There is no escaping the fact that the religious parties have been remarkably reluctant to demonstrate publicly and loudly that a clear line runs 281 between them and Meir Kahane who, after all, also claims the mantle of Orthodoxy...

...Rabin, who as Minister of Defense has direct responsibility for the occupied areas, seems to think that any dramatic change in the way they are run is liable to be for the worse...

...At the other end of the spectrum, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz (the famous philosopher) has found this an opportune moment to settle accounts with Peace Now...

...When October comes, will Shimon Peres step down and Yitshak Shamir pick up the crown as envisaged in the "rotation" agreement of 1984...