Israel--A Special Section - Peres Alone at the Top
SALPETER, ELIAHU
Peres Alone at the Top Tel Aviv The murder of Yitzchak Rabin has thrust to the fore modern Israel's most enigmatic political figure. Like his predecessor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres now has to...
...Like Ben-Gurion, Eshkol and Rabin in the past, Peres has retained the Defense Ministry portfolio for himself...
...Peres' remarks sounded to his listeners like an outline of the philosophy that will guide him as Prime Minister...
...Lenin was a greater statesman, because he knew exactly what his goals were and would not let himself be distracted from them...
...When Ben-Gurion split Mapai in 1965 (over a clandestine operation in Egypt that went awry), Peres and Moshe Dayan joined him in forming the Rafi Party...
...In the Government of National Unity that emerged because the 1984 election produced an almost evenly divided Knesset, Peres was Prime Minister for two years and then Foreign Minister, in rotation with Likud's Yitzchak Shamir...
...Most crucial of all to Peres' and Labor's fate, though, will be Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat's success or failure in warding off major terrorist outrages in the months ahead...
...In this context, it should be noted, "religious extremists" and "ultra-Orthodox" are not synonymous terms...
...No less critical for the poetry-loving intellectual will be how much of the credibility enjoyed by Rabin is permanently transferred to him...
...Thirty months later Peres, as its Secretary-General, helped lead Rafi back into the Labor fold...
...The second was that a head of state must lead, and not be led by the public...
...those opposed to any real concessions (also approximately 30 per cent...
...Born in Poland, he came to Palestine in 1934 at the age of 11...
...to the French connection that was crucial during the Six Day War...
...This, Peres told the audience, was the first lesson in leadership he learned from his mentor...
...His Cabinet appointments indicate that his closest advisers are a younger generation of native-born Israelis, unburdened by the emotional legacies of the Diaspora...
...Fearful of losing them, the ultra-Orthodox are inclined to stick to the alliance they have had with Likud since Menachem Begin came to power in the late 1970s...
...In retrospect, numerous observers concede, there is no denying the deleterious impact of allowing the erosion of the principle of equality under law in the territories...
...Three times before, Labor under his tutelage lost governing opportunities to the Right...
...And he has not been able to shake the label Rabin pinned on him: The late Prime Minister, in his pre-peace memoirs, called his longtime rival for Labor's leadership an "inveterate schemer...
...An inconclusive election in 1988 led to a somewhat different arrangement, with Peres choosing to run the Ministry of Finance...
...Throughout his career—whether as Ben-Gurion's protege, or under fire from Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, or in association with Dayan, or matching wits with Shamir, or as a rival and then partner of Rabin—Peres has functioned in relationship to another leader...
...It doesn't help either that Peres, an undisputed intellectual who tends to get carried away by flights of utopianism, is clearly an inveterate optimist (his reason for disliking Freud, he says...
...Sonia, his wife of 50 years who shuns the limelight, was love at first sight when they met in high school...
...His groundwork thus contributed directly to the creation of the best-equipped military organization in the Middle East...
...Speaking at Hebrew University in Jerusalem about a fortnight after Rabin's funeral, Peres recalled that during his first meeting with Ben-Gurion, the "Old Man" asked him: "Who was a greater leader, Trotsky or Lenin...
...Members of their younger generation have exhibited nationalist tendencies, too...
...While most of the secular nationalists' religious allies in the Knesset and in the streets are staunch Zionists, to the ultra-Orthodox Zionism is anathema...
...Many Israelis doubt the script will play...
...Economists warn that harsh remedies may be needed, possibly even during the sensitive election year...
...Offenders were often not prosecuted or received ridiculously light sentences...
...A book is like a woman," he says, "you have to fall in love with it at first sight, after 10 or 12 pages...
...Over the next decade and a half, as he rose to the head of the party, he was successively Minister of Absorption, Transport and Communications, Information, and Defense...
...In this early period Peres recorded three of the most important achievements of his career: He initiated the unwritten Paris-Tel Aviv military alliance that helped Israel procure modern armaments...
...Chaim Ramon, 45, the Minister of Interior, only recently wrested control of the Histadrut (Federation of Trade Unions) from the old Labor machine...
...Will he attract enough votes in the upcoming balloting to gain more than a marginal Knesset majority that is dependent upon the Arab parties...
...and to the deterrent that, as was disclosed recently, kept Saddam Hussein from using chemical weapons against Israel in the Gulf War...
...and those who would fudge or postpone arriving at concrete decisions until some indeterminate point in the distant future...
...This adds to the difficulty of making predictions about his stewardship...
...Rapid growth is being maintained by a combination of increased wages, domestic consumption, government budget deficits, and the influx of speculative foreign capital thanks to high interest rates—all at the expense of an ever-worsening balance of trade...
...He wants to resuscitate the old politically progressive religious Zionist movement that was for three decades a partner in Labor-led coalitions...
...and launched the reactor project at Dimona, in the Negev, that would make Israel a member of the nuclear club...
...Yossi Beilin, 47, occupies a new ministerial post in the Prime Minister's office, something between a deputy and a chief of staff...
...That marked his start in politics and brought him to the attention of David Ben-Gurion, who co-opted him into the leadership of the Ha-ganah in 1947...
...But in the wake of the shock caused by the assassination, part of the last group seems to be shifting toward the view that the country has to put its most corrosive problem behind it...
...A long involvement with the management of security affairs ensued, including his appointment as Director-General of the Ministry of Defense at 29, and as Deputy Minister of Defense at 36...
...It was not a mere coincidence that the mass demonstration at which Rabin was shot convened under the slogan "For Peace—Against Violence...
...Peres' character, not surprisingly, has become a vital national issue...
...But there can be no doubt about his remarkable energy...
...At night he j uggles several titles...
...After high school he joined the youth movement affiliated with the Israel Workers' Party (Mapai...
...Several say that placing the Land above all other Jewish values, especially when peace could save lives, is a form of idolatry...
...The feeling of immunity engendered among hotheads in the West Bank and Gaza, it is maintained, inevitably spread to extremists inside Israel...
...A close working relationship developed between the two, enabling the Foreign Minister to convince his boss to approve the secret negotiations that led to the agreement with the PLO...
...Sociologists have long been warning that force as the ultimate arbiter could not be restricted to the disputed territories forever...
...Few remember the days when he was denounced by Labor veterans as a go-getter for whom practical results were more important than hallowed Socialist principles...
...adversaries, pointing to his rosy forecasts, accuse him of building castles on hot air...
...At20hewas named its Secretary-General...
...Hence behind the acrimony stirred by the Orthodox background of Rabin's confessed murderer there lie issues involving the future shape of life in Israel that go beyond border demarcations and relations with the Arabs...
...The iron fist policy that sought to crush Arab terrorists was accompanied by leniency toward settler violations of Arab human rights...
...Can he muster sufficient public backing for the considerable concessions required to achieve a conclusive peace with the Palestinians and Syrians...
...Rabin, however, was not targeted because he was personally hated, or because some sick mind was set off by composite posters showing him in a Nazi SS uniform...
...When young Peres picked Trotsky, Ben-Gurion replied: "Wrong...
...Time is the most important commodity in life," the workaholic Prime Minister says...
...Outsiders, influenced by the media and Peres' constant reiteration of the peace objective, tend to concentrate on the resumption of talks with Syria and implementing the agreements made with the Palestinians...
...The Right has used such fears as a weapon in its battle to block major concessions to the Palestinians, and to discourage clampdowns on Jewish extremist activity...
...Colleagues hope the shock and soul-searching following Rabin's assassination will pull middle-ground voters toward his commitment to the peace process...
...Certainly Peres is Israel's most experienced and versatile statesman...
...By choosing recently retired Army Chief of Staff EhudBarak,53,as Foreign Minister, though, he has assured the presence of a more hawkish voice in his inner circle...
...In part, Likud's steady and skillful campaign to discredit Peres—sure to resume once the current wave of grief fully recedes—accounts for the public's wary response to him...
...But he bears scars as well from being described during intraparty battles as an intriguer and backstabber...
...Supporters see an inspiring visionary...
...In contrast to Rabin, Peres does not make decisions without extensive consultation...
...They don't see the beginnings of redemption or anything else of religious significance in the rebirth of Israel...
...Polls have consistently shown three blocs of public opinion on territorial policy: those ready to give up everything taken in the Six Day War except East Jerusalem (roughly 30 per cent...
...The 1995 gap could near $ 10 billion, an unheard of sum for such a small country...
...Unlike Rabin, he is in the position of governing an electorate whose trust he has never been able to win—and at a time when its fissures have dangerously deepened...
...the only source of at least tacit religious support for the government, they suggest, is likely to be found among the small ultra-Orthodox parties...
...For the secular majority, freed to focus on domestic affairs, would probably move to have the Knesset enact laws separating religion from the state...
...Now, in the winter of his political journey, he is alone at the top...
...With patience and painstaking effort, he persuaded Rabin that he had no intention of seeking the prime ministership...
...Nevertheless, they hesitate to openly support the peace process...
...The coming election will be the 72-year-old Peres' last chance to erase his "loser" image...
...At the same time, warnings of an impending civil war between the Pro-Peace and Pro-Land camps seem little more than calculated exaggerations...
...The consequent hostility of the secular majority toward the different and differing groups making up the Orthodox minority is almost palpable—even though relatively few of the latter believe giving away any piece of ground is a greater sin than taking a life...
...One can't help suspecting that what irks most is his frequently displayed intellectuality...
...In addition, virtually all of the Orthodox worry that if Israel were finally at peace, their official control of religious matters would no longer be tolerated...
...But in typical Israeli fashion, now that there is a backlash against the Right, civil libertarians are cautioning against new internal security measures going too far...
...Economic expertise promises to be particularly important again...
...Critics of the present situation charge, discreetly yet ever more persistently, that the Orthodox establishment prefers the status quo to relinquishing its grip on extensive areas of day-to-day existence...
...Some of them have cited increases in physical conflicts within families and the appalling death toll on the highways as evidence of its already crossing the "Green Line...
...Still, the bottom line is that this man with the sad beagle-like face lacks charisma...
...After Labor's narrow victory in 1992, Peres' strong base among local party officials compelled Rabin to appoint him Foreign Minister...
...n a broader level, it is apparent that despite a spontaneous curbing of the "verbal violence" poisoning the political atmosphere, the ideological rift between Right and Left cannot be eliminated by civility...
...Here in Israel, the extent of the violence permeating the country's politics, and the widening chasm between the majority of the population and the roughly 25 per cent that is Orthodox, are no less critical issues...
...Peres has made it clear that he considers the softening of this clash his primary domestic task...
...His 25-year-old assassin, a native-born Orthodox Israeli and former combat soldier, says he acted "on orders from God...
...Veteran ultra-Orthodox leaders and rabbis are therefore not overly concerned about holding on to every inch of what they refer to as Judea and Samaria...
...He was killed because of his willingness to trade part of the Land of (Biblical) Israel for peace...
...Why is he often mistrusted, not only by the opposition Likud Party but by some segments of his own Labor Party...
...Actually, through the six years of unity government he oversaw an aggressive program of fiscal restraint that won him acclaim for reducing Israel's triple-digit inflation to the 15-18 per cent range...
...And the third was that he must not be afraid to take risks—as Ben-Gurion had shown when, in the midst of the War of Independence, he asserted the fledgling Israeli government's authority by giving the order to fire on the Altalena, a ship bringing recruits and arms to Begin's Right-wing Irgun militia...
...acted as chief liaison with the French and British in the preparations for the 1956 Suez campaign...
...It has also facilitated his only hobby—reading...
...Years of making do with fourto five hours of sleep have given him the ability to stay awake, with cat-naps, for days during crucial negotiations...
...Like his predecessor, Prime Minister Shimon Peres now has to grapple with the daunting choices posed by the peace process...
Vol. 78 • December 1995 • No. 9
