The 'New Leftniks': Opposition in Israel

( This is part II of a two-part feature. )

MOST Israelis like their government.

They like it because they feel it is important for a country in Israel's situation to be unified, or at least to seem unified from abroad. So even if they don't like their government's policy, they are reluctant to say so.

They accept it because there's really very little they can do about changing it. The party leaders control the selection of candidates and thus control the policy-making. With the current election procedure and the party coalitions, the average Israeli really has very little effect on what his country is doing.

Also, the coalition government is doing something for everybody. It says that it does not intend to keep all the occupied/liberated territory, but it arranges for Israeli housing developments in these lands. It overturns a court decision with implications opposed by the religious elements in the country and then proposes a law effecting the original decision without the "dangerous" implications. Looking at the government's record, nearly every Israeli can find something to his liking.

Certainly it is difficult for a coalition government like Israel's to formulate precise policy without destroying the coalition. Many Israelis criticize the government for placing national unity above national policy, and some have even charged that Israel lost the chance to make a quick peace after the Six Day War because the unity government could make no decisions.

But this criticism is seldom displayed as outright opposition to the government. Disapproval of or disappointment with government policy has not been overwhelmingly vocal since the 67 war and has never been effectively organized.

When I was in Israel in January, I decided to seek out some people who did not like their government's foreign policy and who opposed it from the left. I suspected that such people might exist, since many Israelis in the U.S. are unhappy with their government's policy, and I had heard speeches and read articles by several outspoken Israelis who felt that their government was not working in the best interests of their country or of peace.

Finding them in Israel was not as simple as I expected. I asked some of my friends in the Israeli army, and they thought I was kidding. They knew of a few "deviants" who wrote articles against the government's international policy, but this was isolated, they said.

My first success came at a dinner with students from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I told our host what I was looking for. "Here I am," he said. "And here are some more," he added, pointing to his friends, so we started to talk.

It is difficult to generalize about the dissenters. All of them have been soldiers, and they are proudly patriotic. They are few, and they know it. They are the intellectual elite among a people where education has always been highly valued, and many of them are academics.

Outside the university they are found in the self-styled New Left, composed of young, cosmopolitan, and moderately angry intellectual-and artist-types (who also seem to be the only Israelis who use drugs.

The discontent seems to be centered in Jerusalem. The university there is the largest and the most prestigious in Israel with the greatest emphasis on liberal arts. This is the most self-consciously intellectual and international atmosphere in Israel, and it seems to foster a more reasoned and a slightly more cynical nationalism (although one still deeply grounded in concern for country) which makes such disagreement possible and unavoidable.

They are mostly young, and they are alienated from the early pioneer and Zionist ideals which current Israeli leaders formulated 50 or more years ago and still represent. In fact, they differ politically from the old-time Zionist leaders still in control of the government, as well as from the newly-arrived Moroccan immigrants.

This left is not really organized. Under the present governmental structure, organization probably wouldn't do them any good, since there is no room on the political scene for an opposition party. But its "members" have several things in common.

In general, they are anti-expansionist. Some believe that every inch of captured territory must be returned. Others hedge on the issue of Jerusalem and, in addition, would like "secure" boundaries, especially around the Golan Heights. But all object to the new settlements now being established in occupied territory and oppose further annexation of Arab land.

The second political characteristic of these dissenters deals with the Palestinians. Official government policy dictates that Israel will deal only with the Arab states, and claims that the Palestinians are adequately represented by the governments of these Arab countries in which they now live.

The Palestinians do not agree, and are increasingly developing their own identity and their own institutions more or less independent of the Arab states. (The commando organizations are only part of this trend. and also one of the driving forces behind it.)

The Palestinians' demands are qualitatively different from those of the Arab states. No matter how one interprets the conflict in the Middle East, it is clear that the Arab governments have more on their minds than merely returning the land of Palestine to its "rightful" owners, or even removing the "imperialists" from their area. For the Arab-Israeli war is very important in Arab politics, and all the states use the current situation to further their own interests.

The Palestinian aspect of the conflict is somewhat simpler and seemingly purer. First, the Palestinians want a state of their own of which Israel and the Arab states have "deprived" them. Second, they want their state in their "homeland." most of which is now part of Israel. Many of the Palestinian leaders express a desire for a "de-Zionized" Palestinian state of both Palestinians and Jews, although for the vast major?? of Israelis and world Jewry, who are in favor of a Jewish state, this is just as deadly a solution as "throwing the Jews into the sea."

Pressures arising mainly from increasing world attention to the Palestinian cause has forced the Israeli government to justify its position. Moshe Kol, Minister of Tourism and member of the Cabinet, spoke to our group of American student journalists and was forced to deal with the question:

"There are two Palestinian states now. One is in Jordan, one is in Israel. One is Arab one Jewish. We are ready to negotiate with Jordan. We have placed no conditions on who will negotiate for Jordan. Many of the Jordanian population are Palestinian. If they would change the government. Jordan would become a Palestinian state. We would be willing to give up part of the West Bank to this Palestinian state for the sake of peace. Why do we have to negotiate with a third force? There is no room for a third Palestinian state."

And even Kol's half-hearted, defensive acknowldgment of Palestinian existence misrepresents the emphasis of official Israeli policy: "We will negotiate with the Arab states. anywhere, anytime," government leaders say, but "the government is not willing to negotiate with the Palestinians."

The dissenters' attitudes towards the Palestinians are diverse, and they disagree violently among themselves. The lowest common denominator is that their typical Israeli irrational (and moving) belief in the ultimate reign of peace in their nation is somehow tied to the Palestinians. but beyond this similarity (which is still a sign??? one), anything goes.

Vary few of the students and "New L???ks" I spoke with put forth the ??? of a binational state, a solution now so popular among some New Left American Jews (such as N??m Chomsky) and many Arabs. Most of these Israelis still feel the ??d for a Jewish state, although they would all like to see the religious elements lose their political influence.

But all of them feel very strongly that the Palestinians should have a state and that it would be to Israel's benefit-both politically and morally-to help establish it.

They realize the difficulties of this "solution." First, they know that such a state would be opposed by Arab governments, since it would be located in all or part of pre-June 67 Jordan: this is one of the many points of conflict.

Also they realize that the Palestinians may never accept this plan. since the Palestinian elements now must vocal are calling vehemently for a state in the area which is now Israel.

But they believe that a compromise could be worked out. Everyone argues this differently, but most of those I talked to thought that. among other things, the Palestinians would eventually realize that today's Israel is no longer their "homeland" of 20 years ago, and both in fact and in spirit the Palestinians "homes" are no longer theirs.

The dissenters emphasize the difficulty of finding a Palestinian leadership to deal with. Few of them recognize Al Patah (the largest Palestinian command?organization) as the legitimate political representative of the majority of Palestinians. Some would like to see the Israelis give the West Bank Palestinians enough freedom to establish some unified political structure, but they know that if the army gave more leeway, the terrorists would take advantage of it and the Israelis would have to clamp down even harder.

All the dissenters I spoke with seemed to think that the Israelis themselves could not set up an acceptable Palestinian political structure. Yet some questioned whether the Palestinians could do it themselves. "I hope they can." said one student. "but they've never been able to before, even while the Jews were structuring themselves under the British Mandate. And it is especially difficult now, with the Palestinians living under so many governments."

Fatah is rejected as the representative of the Palestinians because although it enjoys wide support. it has never been legitimized by the Palestinian population. "Semehow, there must be elections." someone sighed. "Maybe the Fatah leaders would be elected, but the Palestinian population is in general more moderate." he continued, and many of the Fatah leaders are being discredited as their success makes them more and more bourgeois."

Ultimately, ?one of the dissenters really know what to do. The Israeli Student Union did send a letter to Fatah and received a reply-certainly a milestone, but the content of the answer a complete refutation of everything the students had written, showed the distance that still has to be bridged.

Even if they knew what should be done, the dissenters wouldn't know how to get their government to do it. Political channels are closed. Demonstrations are ludicrous, for few Israelis could seriously stand on a picket line-or seriously react to it-after they've fought in a war. (This attitude carries over to student-power issues, where problems are worked out quietly with a very cooperative faculty and a rather progressive federal administration.)

The idea of any violent protest is inconceivable in a country at war. "Besides." a student laughed, "we are officers and trained fighters, but so are the people we'd be fighting."

Undoubtedly the dissent is receiving new publicity since the confrontation between the government and Dr. Nahun Goldmann, who was allegedly contacted by Nasser to hold talks, which the government refused because of Goldmann's political views. This event will tend to polarize and will undoubtedly force the government to publicly justify-if not modify-its policy. But there is no way to insure that this will happen.

So they talk and write and argue. Some of them are working for a change in political structure so an opposition could have a voice. But mostly, like all Israelis, they hope.