June 30,1981: Israel Votes
A june 30,1981: Israel Votes On June 30, Israelis will go to the polls to elect the members of the Tenth Knesset (parliament), and, thereby, the next government as well. Herewith, a report on how...
...Giving all that away is like committing suicide...
...First of all, we have to believe in ourselves...
...Or it is possible that the larger of the two would not be able to build a coalition, in which case the President would be required to invite the leader of the next largest party to try his luck...
...Polls taken in early May show a 41-41 split in seats...
...Second, I think the Sinai is very important for the mere existence of Israel as an independent state...
...At a time when many Israelis are choosing to leave Israel, a consistent policy of economic austerity has other serious implications as well...
...You remember that half a year ago— almost a year now—the Jerusalem law was passed...
...In order to achieve a situation in which the West Bank will create its leadership and will be able later on to think clearly and not be under the terror of the PLO, we should give them all the possibilities to develop as an autonomous state—except in military matters and foreign affairs...
...And T'chiyah, as far as I can read the Israeli political map today, is the only party that is talking truth, is saying real things that I really believe in...
...But now the NRP has become deeply involved in foreign affairs, since Israel's principal "foreign affair" is the West Bank, an area regarding which the NRP is hardly indifferent...
...We are not ready to go back to the '67 borders, but we are ready for concessions...
...The narrower the coalition, the more any Knesset member of a coalition party can threaten to defect, thereby cutting coalition support...
...That doesn't mean, however, that I'm simply voting against the Likud...
...More than 100,000 color television sets were sold in one month...
...Many geologists believe that if we go down deep enough here, there's oil underneath the gas...
...Actually, you remember that T'chiyah was started because members of Likud and the Ma'arach and other parties were very disappointed with what was going on with regard to Camp David and the so-called peace documents...
...This is just another strategic phase in the plan to conquer Israel and push us into the sea and drown there...
...And they were not very much interested in having a clean house...
...I go with the people who, I feel, do and feel and say the truth...
...My reasons are national reasons...
...Although the present government has done very little in this direction, at least it is the direction they are trying to move in...
...I am quite rational about the world of politics...
...If I believed it were, my whole feeling would be different...
...The NRP has been a member of every government since the first, working from 1949 to 1977 with Labor and since then with the Likud...
...I've been to the polls in Israeli elections a total of seven times...
...Now, the Labor party says we should settle in Judea and the Jordan Valley...
...So the distribution of seats by the end of the Knesset's four-year term is sometimes quite different from what it was at the beginning of the term...
...We are not socialists...
...In short, those who over the course of his four years in office have not yet found sufficient reason to reject Mr...
...it's more like a supermarket...
...Even if you don't like the idea of voting for the Alignment, then maybe you should simply call it a non-Likud vote...
...And by doing that, it helped the government to do tremendous international harm...
...The key point here is that the governing of Israel is the product of two distinct political events...
...One of the most important things that ousted the Ma'arach in 1977 was that people were fed up with the corruption that was so strong in government and in the political leadership in Israel...
...About external matters, first of all, we support the Camp David agreements and the peace treaty...
...As to foreign policy, I think there is less difference between the two parties than most people think...
...strength is also economic independence...
...We want to give the autonomy plan a chance to be worked out...
...Strength also means having a certain character, and a good economy, and a strong army...
...More: depending on the arithmetic, it could turn out that the government is unable to respond to initiatives taken elsewhere...
...That in itself is OK, but not in itself very persuasive or convincing, and what has clinched it for me is the fact that some people from Shalom Achshav—Peace Now— have joined her and will be represented on her list...
...It never was a part of Egypt, and they have no claim—no legal claim and no moral claim—to sovereignty over it...
...2. The candidates are not people— they are parties...
...That's not an outrageous thing to do, because all the top candidates on the list have had Alignment connections in the past, and because it will be announced formally...
...Peres and Labor will win the traditional Labor vote and the votes of many of those who oppose Begin...
...It's absurd, but that's the way it is...
...Now Dash has disappeared, and we are running in the next election...
...There's a real gap between the two, .a profound gap in their view of life...
...In general, we are much more interested in internal matters—change in the electoral system, a constitution for Israel, law and order—and we are much more anti-clerical than the Ma'arach...
...Not the Begin autonomy plan, but a real, almost full autonomy, that would give the Palestinians on the West Bank control over most of the problems affecting their own lives...
...He is now ending his first term in the Knesset and is number two on the Shinui list...
...It might be neater to support Shinui or Shulamit Aloni...
...And if the Jews abroad don't see it, that's too bad...
...I believe that a country is run not only by a prime minister and a minister of finance but by a whole elite—and I do support this elite...
...I'm not the kind of person who goes only with the winners...
...The real problem is one that very many of the people who agree with the party have: whether it isn't a luxury now to vote for a tiny party, whether it is not the time for all the non-Likud forces to join and vote non-Likud...
...Begin or Shimon Peres, the leaders of the two main lists—is best able to govern...
...But we are not dependent...
...If you are asking about the details in foreign policy or even internal policy, there we are a normal political party where everyone has his own viewpoint...
...If there is to be a solution, it must begin with a real decline in the standard of living of the Israeli citizen...
...But there are at least two weighty answers...
...The narrower its majority, the more it must court each individual supporter...
...We are a dovish party, while the Labor party had both dovish and hawkish members...
...If there will not be good administration, good citizenship, good leadership in Israel, dealing with the economy and our tremendous social problems, that is going to cause us much more harm than the enemy without...
...It is possible that neither of the two large parties could stitch together a governing majority, in which case there would have to be new elections...
...But, important though that issue be, most Israeli voters are likely to be more influenced by their perceptions of the parties' competence at managing the Israeli economy...
...We accuse the Ma'arach of actually having kept the religious parties in power...
...The Ma'arach is formally committed to resolving the Palestinian problem through partition—that is, through relinquishing Israel's claim to sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank and Gaza, while the Likud is committed to pressing that claim...
...I don't know of any other sovereign country in the 1980s that gives away such fantastic resources of energy...
...It can make new deals, whether with its erstwhile coalition partners or with parties that have been in opposition...
...On foreign policy matters, the right wing of the Ma'arach is probably a bit more hawkish than the left wing of the Likud...
...We think that the solution of the Palestinian problem should be achieved within a Jordanian state...
...And there are economic reasons...
...And the introduction of Syrian missiles into Lebanon has, for the time being (at this writing, the Habib mission is still underway) given Mr...
...I believe that what they say they will also do if they are members of the Knesset or have even higher jobs...
...From the voters' perspective, the question is not so much which policy is more likely to do the job as it is which party is more likely to have the courage to implement its policy...
...Perhaps I should first say why I support the Movement for Peace and Civil Rights, and then say why I don't support the Ma'arach—the Alignment...
...Of these, by far the most important is the National Religious Party, which has traditionally controlled about nine seats...
...The Ma'arach includes groupings that were once at least four different and distinct parties—Mapai, Mapam, Achdut Avodah and Rafi—and the Likud includes not only Herut, Menachem Begin's party, but also the old Liberals, the Progressives, the General Zionists, Free Center and diverse others...
...Hence even without the problem of government-by-coalition, the major parties would not find it easy to articulate and pursue a precise policy on the most complex questions Israel faces...
...Shinui was opposed to this law, not because we are opposed to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but because we felt that this is an unnecessary law that will create difficulty for Israel...
...The first is a highly visible public event with precise results...
...A party wins just about the exact proportion of seats in the Knesset it has won of the vote...
...But that is the direction for us to go, and that is what the Likud wants to do...
...I don't expect overnight change or instant results...
...No party ever has...
...But the first strength is the mental strength and that we have lost...
...The Issues To outsiders, of course, the overriding issue is the Israel-Arab confrontation...
...And that means that if the Likud must turn to T'chiyah in order to win the needed majority in the Knesset, T'chiyah will exact a very heavy price for its support...
...And strength is also territory...
...Begin to Washington, the Haig visit—and Washington's subsequent apparent endorsement of Israel's raids into and over Lebanon—was interpreted as a vote of confidence in the Begin administration by its most important ally...
...Things in politics are never black and white...
...In addition, we've spoken with several Israeli voters with diverse views who have shared some of their pre-election thoughts with us...
...3. The voter cannot pick some candidates from one party's list and some from another...
...9. If a government falls—that is, if it loses the support of a majority of Knesset members—the largest party can try to form a new government without calling new elections...
...Everyone there wants to be Prime Minister and Foreign Minister...
...The first is the election of the Knesset...
...And I think it is a disaster for us to retreat, or withdraw, from Sinai...
...See box...
...Another important point: we say that politics has to be clean, has to be moral, has to be on the basis of personal example...
...its managers, however, have been prevented from carrying out their policies...
...Now I understand that the Jews abroad see everything differently...
...Nobody is ready to accept such an option...
...A large party can't be expected to have a simple and coherent position...
...What happens to Mafdal after the election depends on what will be offered it to join the coalition, what will be the political agreement between the parties so that they can live together for the next four years...
...I may not be voting for the first ten people on the Ma'arach list, but I am comfortable with the next 50...
...My reasons for not supporting the Camp David agreements and the so-called peace are not personal, even though I live in Sinai...
...This time, I will vote for the Ma'arach, although not with great enthusiasm—but with some hope and some faith...
...But its three seats may be critical to a Likud-led government...
...Specifically, I believe that Israel moved too far to the left during the time of the Labor government...
...the second is the development of a governing coalition...
...Nor would another major shift between now and June 30...
...While the NRP includes many doves in its ranks, it is also the political home of those who support the Gush Emunim on religious grounds—and the Gush Emunim is at the forefront of Israel's hardliners on West Bank issues...
...I believe that the most important thing for Israel is aliyah, and that there won't be much aliyah unless our internal system adjusts to middle class people— I mean not just the tax system, but the structure of the ecomony...
...Begin and the Likud...
...Begin's extraordinary remarks concerning West Germany's Helmut Schmidt in early May...
...We are opposed to a Palestinian state within the West Bank...
...I think the Camp David agreements and the so-called peace agreements are, if they are fulfilled, going to be a disaster for Israel...
...The unsavory situation of politics in Israel and the economic situation— if these continue, the country is going to deteriorate...
...7. Over the lifetime of a Knesset, there is usually considerable movement in and out of the original parties...
...But there was a very large undecided vote back then, and most of it has swung to the Likud...
...I am in favor of private enterprise...
...Moreover, the Likud Minister of Finance dramatically lowered taxes on important consumer items—notably color television sets and automobiles—back in the late winter, encouraging a wild spree of buying...
...But Peres needs, as well, to attract significant support from the floating vote...
...After the elections are over, the complexity sets in: 5. The leader of the largest party is asked to "form" a government...
...I am in favor of the list and what it stands for...
...That is why I support the Mafdal...
...So he must start negotiating A Moment report on the how, who and why of Israel's forthcoming election...
...We have neighbors with a very big appetite, as everybody knows...
...Suppose that each wins about 40 seats, and that the remaining 40 seats are divided among seven or eight small parties...
...So a freer economy than we have is the right thing to try to develop...
...Accordingly, many voters will cast their ballots not on the basis of policy, foreign or economic, but on the basis of personality...
...But the way I see it, this so-called peace is definitely not peace...
...All you have to do is read the daily papers...
...So if we speak about reality, and not slogans, the difference is relatively small...
...Herewith, a report on how the Israeli political system works, why this election matters, who's who among the parties and the candidates, and a prediction or two regarding the outcome...
...As to the economy, all sides agree that Israel's inflation is a crippling disease that must be dealt with severely...
...There was too much involvement of the government in the economy, and that resulted in inefficiency, in too much security for workers, in a decrease in workers' morale...
...My basic view is that the Jewish people today is, by and large, a middle class people...
...4. But unlike the American system, where the candidate who wins ends up with everything and the candidate who loses ends up with nothing, Israel has a system (widely used around the world) of proportional representation...
...Sinai is the part we can talk about today, because the agreement on autonomy for Judea and Samaria has not been concluded...
...These are the people with whom I have been involved over the past two or three years, and that's been clinching...
...Where do we differ from Labor...
...But my reasons are not personal: a house—four walls and a few windows—you can build anywhere in Eretz Yisrael or even abroad...
...But policies that would lead to such a decline are necessarily unpopular, hence politically dangerous...
...If we put the Jewish mind and the Jewish heart to work, we can overcome...
...After all, the Likud platform of 1977 promised that Israel would return no territory—and months later, the Likud was signing the Sinai away...
...To vote for the Alignment in toto means that you're either voting for somebody who is a hawk or for somebody who is a nonentity or for somebody who is both...
...In internal affairs, only we matter, and we can overcome...
...My husband has fought in the front lines in two wars, and, thank God, he came home without a scratch, and I am not a person who is looking for another war...
...Rabbi Moshe Edelman, age 42, was born in Copenhagen...
...Those reasons are good enough for me to support them with my whole heart...
...And having this group of people, this party called Mafdal, is a way to strengthen our viewpoints on what the Jewish State is all about and what it is that we want...
...they wanted to have power...
...The Labor party always kept them in a coalition government, and actually conceded many things to them so long as the religious parties gave support to the Labor coalition...
...Its economic miracle—an astonishingly high real growth in the gross national product—has brought with it an extraordinarily rapid rise in consumerism, despite the high levels of taxation...
...I'm not interested only in electoral success...
...Since it seems highly unlikely that either the Likud or the Ma'arach will win more than, say, 50 seats—if that many—the balance of power will still lie in the hands of the smaller parties...
...T'chiyah was founded by people who broke away from Likud because they opposed the Camp David accords...
...From its birth, I saw myself belonging to such a party...
...For some time, it has seemed to me that Shulamit Aloni is an attractive candidate and that her party is attractive because of her record in the Knesset...
...That's the main reason I will vote for Likud...
...They will' judge which of the candidates— principally, Mr...
...Second, it seems to me that the marginal vote of a single voter is better cast for a clear faction—in this case, what the dovish part of the Labor party stands for rather than for a 42- or 46-member bloc, rather than for the disastrous Alignment list...
...Israel's economy over the last several years has not suffered from a dearth of sound ideas for reform...
...It is possible to overcome these conditions...
...Even smaller parties can, if the arithmetic is right, enjoy significant power...
...There are many differences...
...First of all, I believe Sinai is part of Israel...
...I want my vote to strengthen a particular perspective, and the forthcoming announcement insures that by doing that, I will not become politically ineffective...
...The System, If You Can Call It That Political scientists used to classify all democratic party systems as either two-party or multi-party, as either working or non-working systems...
...Accordingly, today's NRP would likely find the Likud a more congenial partner than the Ma'arach...
...And this has to be cleaned up by introducing new people and new policies...
...He is currently the Director of the Bureau for Cultural Services to Communities in the World Zionist Organization...
...Odds are that his party has not won a majority of the 120 Knesset seats...
...We are a central, middle-of-the-road party...
...strength is also money...
...In the forthcoming election, the rules may be especially important, since the polls now show the Ma'arach (Labor) and the Likud running virtually neck and neck...
...I feel closer to some people in the Ma'arach than I do to others, even though my vote will help elect both kinds...
...In foreign affairs we have to deal with the Russians, the Americans, the Syrians, the Egyptians...
...That nice phrase, "We have to give peace a chance," is correct, and I personally believe in it...
...I'm talking about the Alma oil fields we've already given away and the tremendous gas fields that I am sitting on top of right now...
...Because if we now introduce settlements in a massive way, either in very densely populated areas or in Hebron, like the Hadassah people and so forth, that contradicts the idea of autonomy...
...All of us voted for it...
...But, at the same time, each supporter must face the possibility that if the government falls, and if, as a result, new elections are required, he may be left off the list—especially if it is his defection that has led to the collapse...
...Mordechai Virshubski, age 51, is a lawyer, a former city attorney of Tel A viv...
...The Voters Speak Edna Margalit, age 34, is a lecturer in philosophy at Hebrew University...
...Now maybe I reached the conclusions I did so fast because I was personally affected, and others, not personally affected, took longer to come to the same conclusions...
...We, the Israelis, are conferring sovereignty to them...
...I am voting for the Likud, but that doesn't mean that I am satisfied with everything they have done in the last four years...
...On the contrary: the relative power of the smaller parties depends not so much on their size as on their potential as coalition participants...
...Begin has also made skillful use of several events in the international sphere...
...But because of the unprecedented neck-and-neckness of the race between the Big Two, many voters who have traditionally voted for smaller parties may be reluctant to "waste" their votes, choosing instead to cast them for either the Likud or the Ma'arach...
...We have prepared a very detailed platform on how autonomy should be carried out...
...Indeed, if T'chiyah (or any other small party) is needed to complete the coalition, it will be in a position to hold the senior coalition partner, Likud or Ma'arach, hostage, not merely when the coalition is put together, but for the duration of its administration...
...6. The broader the coalition, the less likely it is to be able to articulate a coherent policy...
...In its days as a junior partner to Labor, it ceded foreign and economic policy to its senior partner in return for control over the nation's religious life, and— depending on how critical its support was—the right to extend the definition of what "religion" covers...
...Back in January, the polls showed the Ma'arach winning the election with 58 seats, the Likud winning only 20...
...We also want to change the structure of government and administration in Israel—points that were never very strong with the Labor party...
...That is what we have tried to do over the last years...
...Her record is impressive, and has been courageous at times, and has had an effect that has not been insignificant in Israeli politics...
...I mean strength in all kinds of ways...
...That's true for reasons of defense, for strategic reasons, because we need Sinai to contain the size army we maintain, and we have to be a bigger country in order not to be vulnerable...
...The Voters Speak some people are...
...This is the difference between us and most of the parties...
...The choice is between Masada and living sanely...
...the Likud says that we should settle in Samaria as well...
...The Likud seems to believe that less government control over the economy is a more effective method, while the Ma'arach supports government control—but both agree that very unpopular measures will be required if Israel is to be restored to economic health...
...Doing that might make me feel good, but it wouldn't be efficient...
...To support Mafdal (National Religious Party) today means that you support a group that has kept all its values intact...
...Actually, the deterioration in political morals was created during the time and the reign of the Ma'arach...
...The polls at mid-May showed each of the two major parties pulling about one-third of the total vote, with the rest of the parties dividing the remaining third...
...No government is really free to do what it wants...
...Begin...
...This unexpected windfall solved no economic problem (inflation in April was back at 10 percent, or an annual rate of 120 percent), but it pleased many voters who are less interested in economic theory or abstract statistics than they are in a personal sense of economic betterment...
...Once, in 1965,1 voted for Ma'arach, when Eshkol was being opposed by Ben Gurion and Rafi...
...That is, they will join the Alignment between the time of the election and the time the results are formally certified...
...But that does not mean that they will be powerless...
...But they ended up a sideshow, too obvious a political ploy to be taken seriously...
...In Mafdal, we don't have questions about values because the answers are all there...
...five times I've supported parties to the left of the Ma'arach...
...So what do we do in the meanwhile...
...Maybe they'll win a very small victory and then the NRP might get a bit more...
...What is important is that we know this cannot be achieved immediately...
...It is a sad fact, but even sad facts are facts...
...It's all or nothing...
...I have to live with that, with a group of people that has many different conceptions, many different ideas...
...This is a grave problem...
...the second is a very murky and far more exclusive event, with results that are often unstable...
...The 1981 Elections In the forthcoming elections, Israel may—for the first time—come very close to a two-party system...
...Since we signed the so-called peace, we are less loved by the world, we are much less respected, we are weaker inside, we believe less in ourselves, we believe more and more that we are dependent on the United States and we go around with this feeling of dependence...
...we have to be mentally strong...
...But the NRP has demonstrated, over the years, an awesome political agility...
...The only thing is to work out a real autonomy and see how things develop, and then decide later on about the final solution between us and the Palestinians...
...That does not mean there are not important differences regarding foreign policy...
...And besides that, I've come to know some of the leadership of the party personally over the last two years, and I believe in them...
...This, and an elaborate welfare system, as well, of course, as the staggering costs of defense, have created an intolerable level of foreign debt...
...And there shouldn't be any settlements or any encroachments in the development of the West Bank as an autonomous part of a state that will later on be one with Jordan...
...We'll have to accept it—but it will be very sad if it happens, because we're dealing here not just with a difference in political opinions between Likud and Ma'arach—it's a question of political cultures...
...His missions to London, where he met with King Hussein's brother, and to Morocco, were undertaken precisely in order to persuade the voters that he might open up new opportunities for peace...
...I can spend an evening at a nice party or go to a demonstration...
...And all these things we don't have today, and we have had less and less of them since we signed the Camp David agreements...
...The Voters Speak Micha Shagrir, age 44, is a businessman who lives in Jerusalem...
...In case we don't succeed, and the Likud stays in power—that's life in a democracy...
...If that happens, some of the smaller parties will disappear, and the rest will command a smaller number of seats, in the aggregate, than they used to...
...But he can't form a government unless he can command the support of a majority...
...And the continuing internecine warfare within Labor has convinced many voters that the Labor party of 1981 is the same party they voted out of office in 1977, not the chastened and reformed grouping they had hoped to see...
...On the West Bank we are ready for territorial concessions...
...There was no dramatic change in this respect in the last four years, but I did not expect that much to be accomplished in four years, so I'm not disappointed, as...
...We will have to wait and see...
...The Likud is doing well just now because of all the economic gimmicks, and because of the new state of emergency regarding the Syrian missiles, and also because of the very poor, even ugly, performance of the Alignment...
...It is worth remembering, as well, that the two major parties are themselves very complex coalitions...
...they may choose to vote for some other party...
...I don't want a kamikaze driver...
...We have to know that we have the power to do what we believe in...
...This is a group whose interest is to have the education and the values preserved so that we will not lose sight of the aim of the Jewish State that was set from our first days...
...they may vote for Mr...
...They've done so since the beginning...
...In this respect we differ quite a lot from the Labor party, because the Labor party has not gone into details regarding what autonomy should be...
...To people like myself, Begin's announcements sound like the words of a maniac, somebody who should be classified clinically, but to others those same words are inspiring...
...The first is that it is my understanding that it will soon be publicly announced that if the result of the election is such that the number of members that Aloni has is the number Peres needs in order to be asked to form the next government, to be the largest party, then those who were elected on the Aloni list will join the Alignment immediately...
...Few of the as-yet undecided voters are likely to question the thoughtless sequence of events that led to the introduction of the missiles, just as few were upset by Mr...
...We want to be Minister of the Interior and Minister of Justice, because these are the most important things for the future of Israel...
...Public opinion in Israel is no less volatile than elsewhere, so the shift should not be surprising...
...It's more fun to go to a nice party, but it doesn't do much good politically...
...Much of the political disorder in this country, and much of the economic situation, has come about as a result of a very bad structure of government, both local and national...
...And that he has not done, and does not seem able to do...
...It has to be created step by step...
...It will end up, most likely, siding with the highest bidder—that is, the party willing to make more concessions to it, to give it the greater control over those areas it takes most seriously...
...If we talk about details, we might have different points of view within the party...
...My hope is that we'll get a saner government, as well as more efficient people to be in the government...
...When I was very young, I supported Mapam...
...8. A government that starts out with, say, a 70-seat majority may soon find itself governing on the basis of a 61-seat majority...
...They may choose to stay home...
...I want to stress once more that we believe that the problem of Israel is now not only the problem of border insecurity but also the problem of internal life in Israel...
...Yosef Rabani, age 47, is Professor of Physical Chemistry at Hebrew University...
...All this seems very confusing—and sometimes, it is...
...In the meanwhile, Shimon Peres is not offering the voters very compelling reasons to vote for Labor...
...So, whichever party emerges on top and manages to piece together a governing coalition, the prospect is for politics as usual—an unstable and cantankerous coalition, able at best to respond to external events but unable to press hard in directions of its own choosing...
...However they vote, they will not be voting— as many Israelis will—against Mr...
...But if we are talking about why I support Mafdal rather than some other party, then I support Mafdal because of the answers it has for Jewish values and for the Jewish State...
...I believe in a strong Israel, because the one thing that the Arabs are afraid of, and the onelanguage the Arabs understand—and I'm not happy about it, but I believe it's a fact, and as a neighbor of Arabs for quite a few years, I've seen it—is strength...
...We need a car with better brakes...
...In that framework, Israel's case is an anomaly: a non-working multi-party system that works...
...Ella Weiznian, age 31, of Moshav Sadot, is a farmer, an artist and a mother...
...Nor do I think the policy of the Labor party is going to bring any agreement with Jordan, because Jordan will not accept any partition of the West Bank...
...Maybe Likud or Ma'arach will win a big victory and they will say to the NRP, "You won't get anything...
...He has tried...
...We are very much against this, and we say that this is of utmost importance...
...Begin are unlikely between now and June 30 to reject him...
...The Ma'arach is basically a socialist party, although it has a tendency to forget that...
...Of course, if we are talking about a political party then we have got splits—we've got different ideas...
...Today T'chiyah is the only party that is definitely talking against the Camp David agreements...
...Foreign policy is made not just in terms of what we want, but has to respond to external factors as well...
...In 1977, we merged with Dash, and then, in 1978, we split...
...Although it is an open secret in Washington that Secretary Haig was dispatched to the Middle East in February in order for the new administration to be able to avoid inviting Mr...
...Does the world appreciate the difference...
...For that reason, no important foreign policy initiative is likely to issue from the next Israeli government...
...The core of the economic issue, compounded by the escalation of energy costs, is that Israel has lived, for some time, well beyond its means...
...Some of my best friends are Jews, and I know that when you have three Jews you have four opinions...
...I've also supported smaller parties...
...Here are the key elements: 1. The entire country is one district for purposes of Knesset elections...
...They support some kind of Jordanian option, which is very nice theoretically but practically is not feasible just now...
...We are independent, and we have been independent for 33 years, and we have to continue to be that way...
...Because the enemy within is eating at us very strongly now...
...In the forthcoming elections, the T'chiyah party, headed by Geulah Cohen and Yuval Ne'eman, is not likely to win more than three seats...
...with other parties, trading seats in the government coalition (the cabinet) for Knesset support...
...That is the case not only because economic issues are of such immediate and personal relevance, but also because many Israeli voters have long since discounted the sections of the party platforms that deal with foreign policy...
...For me, that's an important argument...
...Knesset members, for whatever reason, may simply drop out of the party on whose list they were elected and join another party, or set up a party of their own—even if it is a one-person party...
...But in the absence of any sign of interest either from Jordan or from the Palestinians in anything less than total Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries—a position the Ma'arach rejects as vigorously as does the Likud—there is no obvious urgency to the difference of views...
...And this created quite a decrease in human rights and religious freedom...
...The Labor party voted for this law, saying it is a bad law but we cannot vote against Jerusalem...
...I am under the impression that Israel is not vulnerable when she is strong...
...Shinui existed before Dash...
...So it's a very important election...
...When a voter goes to the polls, he votes for a party rather than a person...
...In the light of the Ma'arach's recent decision—taken a few months back when it thought it might actually win a majority of Knesset seats—to encourage "religious pluralism" in Israel, which translates into putting the brakes on the NRP's religious hegemony, the inclination to join with the Likud is still stronger...
...Begin the opportunity to act at his most prime ministerial...
Vol. 6 • June 1981 • No. 6
