Politics and Terrorism in Israel
PETERS, S.
Politics and Terrorism in Israel By S. Peters Jerusalem The decision to have 70-year-old Golda Meir take over the Prime Minister's office, following the sudden death last month of Levi Eshkol,...
...Dayan and his supporters would undoubtedly stress the considerable effectiveness of his policies in the occupied territories during the first 18 months after the June 1967 war, and the obstacles he has faced since the beginning of this year in attempting to pursue and expand those policies...
...If she shows sign of approving his views, which seem close to her own ideas, he will probably stay...
...They roughed up several Arabs who happened to be in the vicinity, and police had to block their march toward the Arab quarters of the city...
...Finally, the process of distinguishing between the different terrorist organizations has led many Israelis to give serious thought?often for the first time in their lives —to the existence of an Arab Palestine problem...
...But whatever the ultimate political repercussions, the general public is reacting to the conditions created by the Six Day War with increased sophistication...
...Politics and Terrorism in Israel By S. Peters Jerusalem The decision to have 70-year-old Golda Meir take over the Prime Minister's office, following the sudden death last month of Levi Eshkol, has not simply postponed a fight for succession here that could have transferred power to Israel's younger generation...
...In fact, before Eshkol's death, the top contenders for the Prime Ministership seemed eager to have him continue in office, with the transfer of power to first take place shortly after the elections...
...if she supports Sapir, who was her ally in the May 1967 party in-fighting against General Dayan, the likelihood is that he will go out on his own...
...Israel goes to the polls in October or November, the exact date has not yet been set...
...present itself to the electorate as a genuine opposition alternative...
...Accordingly, he wants the government to encourage Israeli and foreign business investments in the territories, and foster hiring of Arab workers by Israeli employers...
...He claims they would gradually lead to full economic integration of the West Bank with Israel and, ultimately, to some kind of political integration or union between the two...
...For one thing, it has enabled the Israelis to carry out their counteractions with greater precision...
...Others maintain that to prevent increased terrorism an early political annexation of the West Bank is needed...
...Many of the proannexationists, though not all, favor the imposition of death sentences on terrorists convicted of murder...
...Meir may yet agree to stand for reelection to block his way...
...While nobody can guarantee that some particularly outrageous act will not reverse the process, everybody is hoping that the policy of tough military actions plus the successes in apprehending the perpetrators will continue to serve as an effective safety valve...
...Israelis have begun to differentiate more clearly, too, between the various terrorist groups...
...Indeed, her doing so will be taken as an indication that she really considers herself a caretaker Prime Minister and does not intend to continue in office after the elections...
...The strike was often spectacular, to give weight to its deterrent effect...
...These actions are carefully planned military maneuvers with targets and timing chosen for maximum practical results...
...occupied territories...
...This would create a security belt of Israeli settlements along most of the west side of the Jordan River, and have the Arab-populated bulk of the West Bank—between the "belt" and Israel—revert to Jordanian sovereignty...
...Israelis now realize that the problem will continue to exist as long as there is no genuine peace, and that all Israel can do is try to keep it down to a tolerable level...
...Therefore, far from being expanded, it should be reversed, and physical barriers should be erected to hinder the movement of actual and potential terrorists from the Arab countries into Israel...
...Thus Israel has to dig in firmly along the lines where it faces Egypt, to make Cairo understand that nothing can be gained except by negotiation...
...Dayan feels that the present scope of the terrorism and its limited success do not warrant a resort to capital punishment...
...His opponents, meanwhile, would have to present their counterarguments and ideas on how to deal with the Arabs and bring peace nearer...
...Despite some perfunctory talk about it, the Allon plan is not considered very realistic...
...Levi Eshkol had a special knack for avoiding decisions by repeatedly postponing them...
...Meir assume temporary leadership of the country...
...To begin with, Mrs...
...This would make clear to the local population, and especially to local Arab leaders, that they will not be returned to Jordan, eliminating the fear of retaliation for cooperating with Israel and the hope of rewards for helping terrorists...
...Military relations, too, are being measured with greater care...
...Al Fatah, the largest and least intellectual of them, is now seen as concentrating primarily on primitive mine laying, and on hit-and-run attacks across the borders...
...But unless Defense Minister Moshe Dayan quits the dominant United Labor party (a coalition consisting of Mapai, Ma-pam and Achdut Avodah) and forms his own political organization, the election campaign will be more of a shadowboxing affair than a real contest...
...Some, like Sapir, claim Dayan's policy of open borders between Israel and the territories and the territories and Jordan has failed...
...All this has had several positive effects...
...In addition, what seemed like a huge, amorphous terrorist organism has been reduced to recognizable groups whose weaknesses have become apparent...
...These arrests quickly led to the uncovering of a wide network of Palestine Liberation Front cells, and the apprehension of about 200 suspected Front members...
...This could prove to be the most important result of Israel's so far quite successful battle against Arab terrorism...
...In such a joint political entity, the Arabs with their much higher birthrate would soon outnumber the Jews, who would become a minority in their own country...
...After the initial acts of terrorism against civilians, some enraged Israelis tried to take the law into their own hands...
...Instead, he would meet the growth of terrorism by vigorously enforcing his program and thereby making Israel's position unmistakably clear...
...doves" issue could emerge as a focal point of the campaign...
...In a sense it has driven the struggle underground while guaranteeing, for the immediate future at least, a continuation of existing foreign and domestic policies...
...That has also helped Israelis free themselves from the distortions caused by the tendency of Western newspapers and magazines (widely read here) to glorify and overdram-atize the terrorists...
...Israelis are still bitter over the fact that the whole world went into an uproar when 13 empty airplanes were destroyed without anybody suffering even a scratch, and not one word was said when an Israeli passenger was killed and several others were wounded in the attack on the El Al plane...
...For although she is believed to favor him, she is not the type who can delegate important responsibilities to her deputy and so keep him in the limelight...
...Yet no one thinks that terrorism has been stamped out for good, or even for a prolonged period...
...Should this substantially raise Dayan's stock, Mrs...
...In the case of Jordan, Dayan feels that only a reconciliation of conflicting interests can bring about a lasting solution...
...Whether General Dayan stays in the Labor party or leaves it to run on a separate ticket may depend in large measure on Mrs...
...Yet the latest terrorist acts both in the occupied areas and in Israel proper are seen by many here as a warning that the absence of a clear-cut program vis-a-vis the territories is becoming dangerous...
...Convinced that the current interim period will be fairly long, Dayan maintains that Israel's actions in the occupied territories will very much affect the kind of peace that finally emerges...
...Consequently, they arouse relatively little international reaction...
...He sees a basis for a geographical solution of the Israeli-Egyptian dispute that would satisfy Egypt's desire to remove Israeli troops just a few hours' distance from Cairo at Suez, and Israel's vital interest in maintaining its presence at Sharm-el-Sheikh to safeguard shipping to and from Eilat...
...This would involve returning most of the West Bank to Jordan, but provide Israel with certain military rights there to protect its security...
...The activities of other less significant groups have been similarly defined and sorted out in terms of importance...
...In the past, Israel added up the acts of terrorism, then suddenly hit back with a ferocity of accumulated anger and suffering...
...The move, moreover, caused some shifts in the overall situation...
...she will have to make a concerted effort to avoid decisions, particularly on as vital a subject as the policies to be pursued in the...
...Barring unexpected international developments, the questions of resisting American pressure and of readiness to take risks and make concessions to the Arabs will not require clear-cut public answers from those seeking the leadership...
...The government then started a crash campaign to explain to the public that interracial tension was exactly what the terrorists wanted to inspire, since it would prevent the development of peaceful relations between Jews and Arabs...
...The-message sank in and self-restraint gradually became more evident...
...General Dayan needed time to determine whether his chances for inheriting Eshkol's role were improving inside Mapai (and Labor) —to find out whether his constantly growing popularity in public opinion polls was having an effect on the noncommitted members of Labor's Central Committee, which selects the candidate for Prime Minister—before deciding if he should wage his fight from the outside...
...Pinchas Sapir, Labor's secretary general, needed time to complete his very systematic cultivation of local party functionaries throughout the country, and to translate this into actual voting strength for himself...
...Golda Meir is quite different...
...Once again, Israelis see them in true perspective: as having only a marginal effect on everyday life...
...The high point of this policy was the raid last December 28 on Beirut Airport, in response to the terrorist attack on an El Al plane in Athens two days earlier...
...Allon, meanwhile, is trying to push his own proposal...
...But if such agreements are to be achieved, the Defense Minister argues, the Arabs must be made to recognize certain realities...
...He is certain that multiplying the economic links between Israel and the territories, between Jews and Arabs, will give the Arabs more and more of a personal reason to avoid getting involved with terrorism...
...Meir's appointment was a blow to Allon's position...
...Since the balloting in Israel is for party lists, not individuals, and all the major parties are now in the government, none will be able to S. Peters, a previous contributor to these pages, is a freelance writer currently based in the Middle East...
...For Jordan, on the other hand, he urges an approach through the Palestine population in the form of business relationships between Jews and Arabs, partnerships in industrial and commercial enterprises, employment for Palestinian jobless in Israel where wages are higher, and the establishment of Jewish settlements in Arab areas, just as Arab towns and villages exist inside Israel...
...But the tactic would probably be of less help to Allon than Sapir, who would gain more time to consolidate his hold on the party machinery...
...Then a "hawks" vs...
...The smaller Popular Liberation Front—more ideologically committed, partly Chinese oriented—is known to be almost exclusively responsible for the acts of terrorism against Israeli civilians here and abroad, and for stirring up unrest among Arab youth here...
...Nevertheless, the Beirut affair appears to have accelerated the development of a new policy: Specific and spectacular retaliatory actions have been replaced by systematic "search and destroy" operations designed to hit directly?mostly from the air—at terrorist bases located in Arab territory...
...This represents a much more realistic attitude than the response following the first homemade bomb explosions in Jerusalem in 1967...
...For example, the terrorists who recently bombed a Jerusalem supermarket were caught within 48 hours, and those who subsequently shattered the Hebrew University Library cafeteria were in the hands of Israeli police within a week...
...These considerations remain true today, and explain why everyone concerned quickly agreed to have Mrs...
...Sapir strongly and vocally opposes General Dayan's views...
...Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Al-lon, who had begun making appearances and statements as "heir apparent," wanted time to get the people used to the idea of his stewardship...
...Dayan believes that the present status quo offers the best hope of avoiding war and moving toward peace...
...Unless, of course, Dayan quits the Labor party and runs on a separate ticket...
Vol. 52 • March 1969 • No. 6
