Crisis in Jerusalem as Bush turns on the pressure
LENA
Two issues in the last six months have brought the crisis within Zionism to the fore. The first was when news broke of a mass immigration by Jews from the USSR to Israel, which the Zionists heralded as a rebirth of what was fast becoming a dying project.
However, the cuphoria was quickly muted after the second major new event the collapse of the coulition government of the Labour and Likul Parties, as a result of the failure of thie two bloes to reach agreement on conditions for Israeli-Palestinian talks scheduled to open in Caro with American and Egyptian backing Thas highlighis the crucial relationstop betwcen the Zionist State and US imperialism, as well as sharply lustrating the squahhles be wcen the main factions of the Zimist Teader shin over who will best defend Israel's in tegrity as a lowish stale.
The temporary unily of the two ruling par ties, which extended through the whole Zionist camp: was the consequence of greas expecta tions over the influx of Soviet Jews; some analysts have estimated that there will he wound 300,000 new arrivals in the next three years. But discord arose when Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared that a large
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By Benjamin Cohen country is nicedeil for a great migration, Al most unimechately: Soviet Umon threatened to change its emigration policy, the US waned that it would not Financs soltlement beyond the 1967 green line', and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). together with the Arab states, announced a campaign to oppose the immigration.
The link made in Shamir's mind is ob vious: he thinks that the Soviet Jews are the means by which the occupied Wost Bank and Gaza Strip can be annexed, the two and a half year old Palestinian uprising (ahe "intifada) crushed, and IsracTs regional strength consolidated, Addinionally, the threat of a mass transfer of Palestinians to neighbouring Arab States, an idea which has gained ground over the last two years, is increasingly real
But Shamir's hardline stance was never enough for Industry Minister Ariel Sharon, architect of Ihc 1982 Lebanon invasion and Likud's arch hawk. who quit the government in protest at Shamir's readiness to negotiate with personally selected representatives of the Palestinians, Ironically, this came in the wake of Labour Minister Exer Weizmann's dismissal irom the cahmet for unauthorised contacts with the PLO. Sharon, who has made his dis gust at the moderation' of the occupation regime in its handling of the intifada quite clear, argued that negotiations would lead in. evitably to a Palestinian state
Labour, meanwhile, stepped up the pressure on Shamir to come lo the negobating tahle Unable to reach agrcement Shamir sacked Labour leader Shimon Peres from the government, whereupon the other Labour cabinet ministers resigned. Two days later, a vate of no confidence was passed in the Knesset (parament), transforming Shamir into a caretaker Prime Minister. On April 11th a special session of the Knesset was held to ratify Peres's government, which he formed after several days of bartering with the religious fundamentalists and the right At the last minute, two rabbis withdrew their voles. and Peres was back to square one.
I was American pressure which tore the coalition apart, the government was unable to roach agreement on acceplance of the Baker plan for Israeli-Palestinian talks. The US is keen to maintain the stability of the Zionist state and neutralise the Palestinian resistance, through a diplomatic process framed mn Washington and Jerusalem that requires hefty concessions from the Palestinians.
An Isracli government actively involved in helping to secure these aims would be a let-
rifie boost to the Bush administration, which has taken full advantage of the crisis of stalimism to reassert US global dominance. Importantly, this does not mean bypassing the PLO, with whom the US has engaged in shaky. dialogue since late 1988, when Yasser Aralal declared his acceptance of the "two state' solution. The US Stage Department has realised that there is no alterative Palestinian cadership to the PLO. Whether the PLO will accept a pax americana is already a subject of debate for the movement inside and outside Palestine; the US is chiefly сОПcerned with gaining support from its Zionist ally for such diplomatic moves. Pores has always been keen co present himself as a trusted friend of the US, although Washington is hesitant as to whether he will deliver.
The unfolding crisis in the Zionist State, which is accentuated by its increasingly uncasy alliance with US PRLESTIUAN
STATE Imperialism. Imperialism, simultancousiy opens up new vistas for the class struggle in the region. The most important factor is, of course the intifada which, despite periodic warnings to the contrary in the media, shows no sign of letting up. Also of significance is the growing resentment felt hy the underprivileged strata in Israchi society towards the Soviet Jewish immigrants.
Taken Ingether, these two elements could well transform the nature of the conflict in Palestine beyond the marrow Framework of diplomacy. The very fact of the intifada means that Palestinian statchood is not something which can be compromised. Indeed, the structures that direct the intifada are those of a state in the making; a state, moreover, whose citizens, through the struggle of the last two years, will have ample opporcunity to consolidate the popular institutions of direct democracy which they themselves have
(teated.
The intifada is also the principal energy source of the PLO, and it has served as a model to the working class in the surrounding
Arab states (witness last year's uprising against IMF imposed cuts in Hashemite-ruled
Jordan, and the mass demonstrations, brutally crushed, in Algeria in 1988). Yet Isracl has remained intransigent, and the principle ques= tion now facing the Zionists is how long such a stance can be maintained.
One indicator is the internal struggle in 15rael itself, which graphically exposes the con tradictions of Zionism. Most perceive it as an ethnic battle, between the dominant
Ashkenazi (European Jewish) minority and the subordinate Oriental majority.
In fact. it is a class struggle, albeil with strong: ethnic overtones, and it is one which displays the somewhat unique natare of the Isracli working class.
As a working class born of a colonial process, Israeli workers are
FEATURES divided from their Palestinian counterparts both by superior living standards and by loyal ty to Zionism (in the last thirteen years, this has heen expressed in a vote for the right wing and the religious parlics). However, when compared to the situation of Ashkenazi Jews, it becomes clear that working class Orientals have had a rough deal throughour the existence of the Zionist state. With unemployment in Israel now standing at 120,000, the Oriental
Jews are beginning to express resistance to the
Celebrating the first year of the inititada: demonstrators in London influx of Soviet Jewish Immigrants, Maipen, the newspaper of the Revolutionary Com munist League (Israell Section of the Fourth
Internatiónal), notes:
"The massive immigration from the Soviet
Union will arouse an outburst of fury from the neighbourhoods inhabitants of the distressed and the devclopment towns...
Unrest amongst the Oriental Jews, which would follow in a militant traditiom that goes back to the 1950s, is the last thing the Zionists need. But that in itself will not solve the prob lem of Soviet Jows. It should be remembered that in the 1970s. Soviet Jews, facing a fresh wave of anti-semitism. provided the US with an important bargaining chip in its dealings with the stalinists. Gorbachev's leniency on emigration is, though, a consequence of the new foreign policy required for perestroika;
the issue is not so much whether the LISSR will allow Jews out, as who will let them in:
Despite the fact that most Soviet Jows want to go not to Israel but to the US, the Zionists have succeeded in persuading the Americans o maintain the racist policy of not granting
"the structures that direct the intifada are those of a state in the making; a state, moreover, whose citizens will have ample opportunity to consolidate the popular institutions of direct democracy which they themselves have created"
entry visas, campaigning instead for direct flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv. In keeping with the demands of Zionist colonisation, Israel is not interested in fighting antisemitism, whether it comes from Pamyat, whose thugs only recently assaulted a Jewish woman in Moscow, carving a Star of David onto her breast with a flicknife, or from within the state apparatus.
Peres himself admitted as much when he said that the issue was not anti-semitism, but emigration. This statement came a few days after threatened
Pamyat pogrom against the Jewish community in Leningrad.
It may soem odd, in the light of the compression of more than two ycars of crisis into throc weeks, that the issuc currently mobilising Israclis is elecloral reform. Peres's frantic efforts to build a new aroused government huge public protest against the country's system of proportional тертеsentation, which grants a the Knesset 10 scal in every party that gams one percent of the vote.
On April 8, 100,000 people gathered in Tel
Aviv to demand a new electoral system - Israel's biggest demonstration since the Peace Now rally condemning the massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, and much bigger than any of the demonstrations held in solidarity with the intifada. Certainly, the large parties would have much to gain if electoral reform was realised: bor the protests are not expres sions of support for either Labour or Likud.
Rather, they signify the anger Icht by Israelis, the majority of whom are secular, at the disproportionate influence of the religious parties, whose support the main Zionist blocs have desperately been trying to win.
Yet abolition of the one percent direshold would, in all likelihood, lead to the disappearance of the Arab national lists from the
Knesset In essence, it is not electoral procedure that is at fault but the institutionalised power of the rabbis in the Zemist state.
Whatever the outcome of the next few months, two basic facts will remain un-
Firstly, the lension between diplomatic and revolutionary solutions to the question of Palestine will continue to disrupt the equilibrium of Zionism.
Secondly, as long as there is a Palestinian people there will be a demand for a Palestinian state: every day that passes in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip is a reminder of this.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 24, May 1990 Page 14