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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions, Israel, 1988
ISRAEL OBSERVED THE fortieth anniversary of its founding as a state
in 1988. Although a young nation in the world community, Israel has
been profoundly influenced by Jewish history that dates back to
biblical times as well as by the Zionist movement in nineteenth-
and twentieth-century Europe. These two strands, frequently in
conflict with one another, helped to explain the tensions in
Israeli society that existed in the late 1980s. Whereas Orthodox
Judaism emphasized the return to the land promised by God to
Abraham, secular Zionism stressed the creation of a Jewish nation
state.
Zionism historically has taken different forms, and these
variations were reflected in twentieth-century Israeli society. The
leading type of early Zionism, political Zionism, came out of
Western Europe in large measure as a response to the failure of the
emancipation of Jews in France in 1791 to produce in the succeeding
century the degree of the anticipated reduction in anti-Semitism.
Jewish assimilation into West European society was inhibited by the
anti-Jewish prejudice resulting from the 1894 trial of Alfred
Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer. Theodor Herzl, a Hungarian Jew,
in 1896 published a book advocating the creation of a Jewish state
to which West European Jews would immigrate, thus solving the
Jewish problem. Rather than emphasizing creation of a political
entity, cultural Zionism, a product of oppressed East European
Jewry, advocated the establishment in Palestine of self-reliant
Jewish settlements to create a Hebrew cultural renaissance. Herzl
was willing to have the Jewish state located in Uganda but East
European Jews insisted on the state's being in Palestine, and after
Herzl's death in 1904, the cultural Zionists prevailed. Meanwhile,
the need arose for practical implementation of the Zionist dream
and Labor Zionism came to the fore, appealing particularly to young
Jews who were influenced by socialist movements in Russia and who
sought to flee the pogroms in Eastern Europe. Labor Zionism
advocated socialism to create an equitable Jewish society and
stressed the integration of class and nation. David Ben-Gurion, who
came to Palestine in 1906, became a leader of this group, which
favored a strong economic basis for achieving political power.
Labor Zionism in turn was challenged by the Revisionist Zionism of
Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Russian Jew who glorified nationalism and
sought to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine and the immediate
declaration of Jewish statehood.
The Zionist cause was furthered during World War I by Chaim
Weizmann, a British Jewish scientist, skilled in diplomacy, who
recognized that Britain would play a major role in the postwar
settlement of the Middle East. At that time Britain was seeking the
wartime support of the Arabs, and in the October 1915
correspondence between Sharif Husayn of Mecca and Sir Henry
McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, Britain endorsed Arab
postwar independence in an imprecisely defined area that apparently
included Palestine. In November 1917, however, Britain committed
itself to the Zionist cause by the issuance of the Balfour
Declaration, which stated that the British government viewed with
favor "the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the
Jewish People," while the "civil and religious rights of existing
non-Jewish communities in Palestine" were not to suffer. These two
concurrent commitments ultimately proved irreconcilable.
During the succeeding decades until the Holocaust conducted by
Nazi Germany during World War II, Jewish immigration to Palestine
continued at a fairly steady pace. The Holocaust, in which nearly
6 million Jews lost their lives, gave an impetus to the creation of
the state of Israel: thousands of Jews sought to enter Palestine
while Britain, as the mandatory power, imposed limits on Jewish
immigration to safeguard the indigenous Arab inhabitants. An
untenable situation developed, and in 1947 Britain referred the
Palestine problem to the United Nations General Assembly. The
latter body approved a resolution on November 29, l947, calling for
a complex partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state.
The Arab Higher Committee rejected the resolution, and violence
increased. The establishment of the State of Israel was declared on
May 14, 1948, and Arab military forces began invading the territory
the following day. By January 1949, Israel had gained more
territory than had been allotted by the partition; East Jerusalem
and the West Bank of the Jordan River remained in Jordanian hands
as a result of fighting by the Arab Legion of Transjordan, and the
Gaza area, and Gaza remained in Egyptian hands
(see
fig. 1). Israel
held armistice talks with the Arab states concerned in the first
half of 1949 and armistice lines were agreed upon, but no formal
peace treaties ensued.
Having achieved statehood, the new government faced numerous
problems. These included the continued ingathering of Jews from
abroad, the provision of housing, education, health and welfare
facilities, and employment for the new immigrants; the
establishment of all requisite government services as well as
expanding the country's infrastructure; the expropriation of Arab
lands--including lands left by Arabs who had fled during the 1948
war as well as by Arabs obliged by the government to relocate--so
as to provide a livelihood for new immigrants; the establishment of
a military government to administer Arab population areas; and the
growth of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to safeguard national
security.
Tensions continued to exist between Israel and its neighbors,
and as a result a series of wars occurred: in 1956 in the Suez
Canal area; in June 1967, during which Israel captured the Golan
Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and
the West Bank, adding about 800,000 Palestinian Arabs to its
population; and in October 1973, a war that destroyed Israel's
image of its invincibility. Israel's poor showing in the early days
of the 1973 war led to considerable popular disenchantment with the
ruling Labor Party; this declining popularity, combined with the
growing number of Oriental Jews who identified more readily with
the religious expressions of Menachem Begin than with Labor's
socialist policies, contributed to the coming to power of the
conservative Likud Bloc in the May 1977 elections.
The rise of Oriental Jews illustrated the changing pattern of
ethnicity in the course of Jewish history. In the late nineteenth
century, the majority of the Jewish population in Palestine was of
Sephardic (Spanish or Portuguese) origin, but by the time the State
of Israel was created Ashkenazim (Jews of Central or East European
origin) constituted 77 percent of the population. By the mid-1970s,
however, as a result of the influx of Oriental Jews from North
Africa and the Middle East, the Ashkenazi majority had been
reversed, although Ashkenazim still dominated Israel's political,
economic, and social structures. Oriental immigrants tended to
resent the treatment they had received in transition camps and
development towns at the hands of the Labor government that ruled
Israel for almost thirty years. Furthermore, Orientals experienced
discrimination in housing, education, and employment; they
recognized that they constituted a less privileged group in society
that came to be known as the "Second Israel."
In addition to the Ashkenazi-Oriental division, Israel has
faced a cleavage between religiously observant Orthodox Jews and
secular Jews, who constituted a majority of the population. In
broad terms, most secular Jews were Zionists who sought in various
ways, depending on their conservative, liberal, or socialist
political views, to support governmental programs to strengthen
Israel economically, politically, and militarily. Jews belonging to
religious political parties, however, tended to be concerned with
strict observance of religious law, or halakah, and with preserving
the purity of Judaism. The latter was reflected in the views of
religiously observant Jews who accepted as Jews only persons born
of a Jewish mother and the ultra-Orthodox who considered
conversions by Reform or Conservative rabbis as invalid.
A further divisive element in Israeli society concerned the
role of minorities: Arab Muslims, Christians, and Druzes. These
sectors together constituted approximately 18 percent of Israel's
population in late 1989, with a birth rate in each case higher than
that of Jews. Israelis in the late 1980s frequently expressed
concern over government statistics that indicated that the high
birthrate among Arabs in Israel proper (quite apart from the West
Bank) had resulted in an Arab population majority in Galilee. They
were concerned as well over the comparative youth of the Arab
population in comparison with the Jewish population. In general,
members of the ethnic minorities were less well off in terms of
employment, housing, and education than the average for the Jewish
population.
The role of the Arab minority in Israel's economy has
historically been controversial. Labor Zionism advocated that all
manual labor on
kibbutzim and
moshavim (see Glossary) be performed
by Jewish immigrants themselves. As immigration increased, however,
and immigrants had skills needed by the new state in areas other
than agriculture, cheap Arab labor came to be used for agricultural
and construction purposes. After the annexation of the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Arab day laborers became an even more
important factor in the Israeli economy, providing as much as 30
percent of the work force in some spheres, and in many instances
replacing Oriental Jews who had performed the more menial tasks in
Israeli society.
Despite its historical importance in Israel, agriculture has
not had major economic significance. For example, in 1985
agriculture provided just over 5 percent of Israel's gross domestic
product
(GDP--see Glossary)
whereas industry contributed almost
five times as much. Israel's skilled work force excelled in the
industrial sphere, particularly in high-technology areas such as
electronics, biotechnology, chemicals, and defense-related
industries or in such highly skilled occupations as diamond
cutting.
Although Israel had human resources, the lack of capital on the
part of many new immigrants after 1948 obliged the government to
provide funds for developing the country's infrastructure and for
many enterprises. This policy resulted in a quasi-socialist economy
in which ownership fell into three broad categories: private,
public, and Haltistadrat Haklalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael
(General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel) known as
Histadrut (see Glossary),
the overall trade union organization.
Israel depended to a large degree on funds contributed by Jews in
the
Diaspora (see Glossary)
to provide government services
necessary to settle new immigrants and to establish economic
ventures that would ensure jobs as well as to maintain the defense
establishment at a high level of readiness, in view of Israel's
position as a "garrison democracy" surrounded by potential enemies.
Despite the inflow of money from Jews in the Diaspora, as a result
of large government spending for defense and domestic purposes,
Israel has generally been a debtor nation and has relied heavily on
grants and loans from the United States. Israel in the early 1980s
also had to deal with runaway inflation that reached about 450
percent in fiscal year
(FY--see Glossary)
1984. To curb such
inflation, the government instituted the Economic Stabilization
Program in July 1985 that reduced inflation in 1986 to 20 percent.
By 1987, the Economic Stabilization Program had led to a
significant increase in economic activity in Israel. Increased
certainty brought about by the Economic Stabilization Program
stimulated improved growth in income and productivity. Between July
1985 and May 1988, a cumulative increase in productivity of 10
percent occurred. The 1987 cuts in personal, corporate, and
employer tax rates and in employer national insurance contributions
stimulated net investment during the same period.
The freezing of public sector employment occasioned by the
Economic Stabilization Program began lessening the role of
government in the economy and of increased the supply of labor
available to the business community. However, the outbreak of the
intifadah (uprising) in December 1987 had an adverse impact
on these trends.
The government has played a major role in social and economic
life. Even prior to the achievement of statehood in 1948, the
country's political leaders belonged primarily to the Labor Party's
predecessor, Mapai, which sought to inculcate socialist principles
into various aspects of society. Creating effective government
under the circumstances prevailing in 1948, however, entailed
compromises between the Labor Zionist leadership and the Orthodox
religious establishment. These compromises were achieved by
creating a framework that lacked a written constitution but relied
instead on a number of Basic Laws governing such aspects as the
organization of the government, the presidency, the parliament or
Knesset, the judiciary, and the army. An uneasy tension continued,
however, between religiously observant and secular Jews. For
example, in protest against the proposed new Basic Law: Human
Rights (and a possible change in the electoral system), which
Agudat Israel, a small ultra-Orthodox religious party, believed
would have an adverse effect on Orthodox Jews, in early November
1989 the party left the National Unity Government for two months.
Until 1977 the government operated under a political power
system with two dominant parties, Labor and Likud. As a result of
the 1977 elections, in which Labor lost control of the government,
a multiparty system evolved in which it became necessary for each
major party to obtain the support of minor parties in order to
govern, or for the two major parties to form a coalition or
government of national unity, as occurred in 1984 and 1988. The
result of Israel's proportional electoral system, in which voters
endorsed national party lists rather than candidates in a given
geographic area, has been a stalemate in which the smaller parties,
especially the growing right-wing religious parties, have been able
to exert disproportionate influence in the formation of governments
and on government policies. This situation has led to numerous
proposals for electoral reform, which were still being studied in
early 1990, but which had a marginal chance of enactment because of
the vested interests of the parties involved.
A major factor in Israel's political alignment has been its
relations with other countries, particularly those of the West,
because of its dependence on financial support from abroad.
Although Israel's relations with the United States and Western
Europe have generally been good, since late 1987 criticism has
grown in the West of Israel's handling of the uprising in the
occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The
agreement by the United States in December 1988 to initiate
discussions with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has
indicated that United States and Israeli interests may not
necessarily be identical. Furthermore, the feeling has increased
that the United States should exert greater pressure on Israel to
engage in negotiations with the Palestinians and to abandon its
"greater Israel" stance, as expressed by Secretary of State James
A. Baker on May 22, l989. In October 1989, Baker proposed a five-
point "framework" that involved Israel, the United States, and
Egypt to try to advance Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's plan for
elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel agreed in
principle in November but attached two reservations: that the PLO
not be involved in the naming of Palestinian delegates and that the
discussions be limited to preparations for the elections.
In addition to relations with the West, Israel has sought to
expand its economic relations, particularly, with both Third World
countries and with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and to
influence the latter to allow increased emigration of Jews. The
sharp upswing in Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel--approximately
2,000 persons in November 1989 and 3,700 in December, with a
continued influx in mid-January 1990 at the rate of more than l,000
persons per week--led to an announcement that Israel would resettle
100,000 Soviet Jews over the following three years. The cost was
estimated at US$2 billion, much of which Israel hoped to raise in
the United States. This influx aroused considerable concern on the
part of Palestinian Arabs, who feared many Soviet Jews would settle
in the West Bank.
Israel's relations with neighboring states have been uneven.
Egyptian president Anwar as Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in
November 1977 led to the Camp David Accords in September 1978 and
ultimately to the signing of a peace treaty and the return of the
Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. In 1989 Egypt began to play an
increasingly prominent role as mediator between Israel and the
Palestinians, particularly as reflected in President Husni
Mubarak's ten-point peace proposals in July. The PLO accepted the
points in principle, and the Israel Labor Party considered them a
viable basis for negotiations.
Tensions continued along Israel's northern border with Lebanon
because of incursions into Israel by Palestinian guerrillas based
in Lebanon. These raids led to Israel's invasion of Lebanon (known
in Israel as Operation Peace for Galilee) in June 1982, the siege
of Beirut, the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, and
withdrawal to the armistice line in June 1985. As a result,
relations with factions in Lebanon and relations with Syria
remained tense in early 1990, whereas Israeli relations with Jordan
had ended in cooperation agreements concerning the West Bank; such
agreements were canceled by King Hussein's disclaimer on July 31,
1989, of Jordanian involvement in the West Bank.
Israel's relationship with its neighbors must be understood in
the context of its overriding concern for preserving its national
security. Israel saw itself as existing alone, beleaguered in a sea
of Arabs. Accordingly, it has developed various security
principles: such as anticipating a potential extensive threat from
every Arab state, needing strategic depth of terrain for defensive
purposes, or, lacking that, needing an Israeli deterrent that could
take a conventional or nuclear form, and the necessity to make
clear to neighboring states, particularly Syria, actions that
Israel would consider potential causes for war. Another security
principle was Israeli autonomy in decision-making concerning
military actions while the country concurrently relied on the
United States for military matériel. (United States military aid to
Israel averaged US$l.8 billion annually in the mid- and late 1980s;
other United States government aid from 1985 onward brought the
total to more than US$3 billion annually).
Because of its national security concerns, the IDF, primarily
a citizen army, has played a leading role in Israeli society. With
exceptions granted to Orthodox individuals for religious reasons,
men and women have an obligation to perform military service, a
factor that has acted to equalize and educate Israel's
heterogeneous Jewish population. Although Israel operates on the
principle of civilian control of defense matters, a number of the
country's leaders have risen to political prominence on retiring
from the military, such as Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ezer
Weizman, and Ariel Sharon. The key national role of the IDF and its
pursuit of the most up-to-date military matériel, although costly,
have benefited the economy. Defense-related industries are a
significant employer, and, through military equipment sales, also
serve as a leading source of foreign currency. Israel has excelled
in arms production and has developed weapons used by the United
States and other countries.
The IDF has not only served in a traditional military capacity
in the wars in which Israel has been engaged since 1948. Since 1967
it also has exercised military government functions in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip. This role has proved particularly onerous
for Israeli citizen soldiers once the intifadah began in
December 1987.
The intifadah has probably had a greater impact on the
lives of both Palestinians and Israelis than any other event in
recent years. For Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
the
uprising has created a new younger generation of leadership, a
sense of self-reliance, and an ability to transcend religious,
political, economic, and social differences in forming a common
front against the Israeli occupation. In so doing, Palestinians
have organized themselves into local popular committees
(coordinated at the top by the Unified National Leadership of the
Uprising) to handle such matters as education, food cultivation and
distribution, medical care, and communications. Committee
membership remained secret, as such membership was declared a
prison offense in August 1988. Observers have commented that the
committees were reliably considered to include representatives of
various political factions within the PLO and some of its more
radical offshoots, as well as communists and members of the Muslim
fundamentalist Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas. Israeli
authorities initially endorsed Hamas in the hope that it would draw
Arabs from the PLO (Hamas was given time on Israeli television in
the November 1988 elections), but as it became more powerful,
especially in the Gaza Strip, Israel outlawed Hamas, Islamic Jihad
(Holy War), and Hizballah (Party of God), which were radical Muslim
groups, in June 1989, setting jail terms of ten years for members.
The PLO itself had been banned earlier in the occupied territories.
Various restrictions and punishments have been imposed from
time to time and in different locations on West Bank and Gaza Strip
residents since the intifadah began. Among actions taken
against Palestinians in the West Bank was the outlawing of
professional unions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers in August
1988. Universities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been
closed since October 1987. Schools in the West Bank were closed for
more than six months in 1988 and, after reopening in December 1988,
were again closed one month later; schools were open for only three
months in 1989. Instruction in homes or elsewhere was punishable by
imprisonment. Extended curfews have been instituted, often
requiring people's confinement to their houses. (For example, the
approximately 130,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Nabulus
experienced an eleven-day curfew in February 1989, during which
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in
the Near East trucks bearing food were forbidden to enter the
city). Water, electricity, and telephone service have been cut, and
periodically Palestinian workers have been refused permission to
enter Israel to work. By the end of 1989, at least 244 houses had
been destroyed, affecting almost 2,000 persons. Beatings and
shootings had resulted in 795 deaths and more than 45,000 injuries
by the end of 1989. Approximately 48,000 Palestinians had been
arrested and imprisoned since the uprising began through December
1989. Administrative detention without charge, originally for a
period of six months and increased in August 1989 to twelve months,
was imposed on about 7,900 Palestinians, and 61 Palestinians had
been deported from Israel by the end of 1989. These restrictions
were documented in detail in the United States Department of
State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the
statistics of Al Haq (Law in the Service of Man), a RamAllah-based
human rights organization. Countermeasures instituted by
Palestinians have included demonstrations, boycotts of Israeli
products, refusal to pay taxes (resulting in the case of Bayt
Sahur, near Bethlehem, in September 1989 of extended twenty-four-
hour curfews and the seizure of property in lieu of taxes), strikes
and intermittent closings of shops, stonethrowing, and some
terrorist acts including the use of fire bombs, and the killing of
about 150 Palestinians considered Israeli collaborators.
Both Palestinians and foreign observers saw the
intifadah as having had a profound effect on the PLO. In the
opinion of many observers, the PLO had previously sought to
minimize the role of Palestinians in the occupied territories so as
to maintain its own control of the Palestinian movement. The
coordinated activities of the young Palestinian leadership in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip since the uprising have obliged the
PLO to relinquish its sole leadership. The PLO has been compelled
to support solutions for the Palestinian problem that it had
previously opposed but which were favored by residents of the
occupied territories, namely an international conference to resolve
the Palestine issue and a two-state solution. The uprising brought
pressure on the Palestine National Council, which included
representatives of Palestinians throughout the world, to bury its
differences and to provide psychological support to Palestinians
within the occupied territories by announcing the creation of a
Palestinian state in mid-November 1988.
The intifadah has also had a substantial impact on
Israelis because of the escalation of violence. Israeli settlers in
the West Bank have taken the law into their own hands on numerous
occasions, shooting and killing Palestinians. In the course of the
intifadah, 44 Israelis had been killed by the end of 1989,
and, according to Israeli government statistics, more than 2,000
Israelis had been injured. The uprising has also affected Israeli
Arabs, many of whom have experienced a greater sense of identity
with their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Evidence is lacking,
however, of acts of violence by Israeli Arabs against Israeli
authorities, something that many Israelis had anticipated.
The cost to Israel of quelling the uprising has been calculated
by the United States government at US$132 million per month, not
counting the loss in revenues from production and from tourism--the
latter dropped 40 percent but were beginning to rise again in late
1989. The violence has not occurred without protest by Israelis.
Many of the soldiers of the IDF, for example, have found
particularly distasteful the use of force on civilians, especially
on young children, women, and the elderly, and have complained to
government leaders such as Prime Minister Shamir. The liberal
Israeli movement Peace Now organized a large-scale peace
demonstration that involved Israelis and Palestinians as well as
about 1,400 foreign peace activists on December 30, 1989, in
Jerusalem; more than 15,000 persons formed a human chain around the
city.
Many Israelis have expressed concern about the effects of the
violence on Israel's democratic institutions as well as on Israel's
image in the world community. A number of Israeli leaders have
publicly advocated a political rather than a military settlement of
the uprising. As early as the spring of 1988, a group of retired
generals, primarily members of the Labor Party, organized the
Council for Peace and Security, maintaining that continued
occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was actually harmful
to Israel's security, and that Israel should rely on the IDF rather
than the occupied territories for its security. The Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, a think tank composed
of high-level political and military figures, in a study conducted
by Aryeh Shalev, retired former military governor of the West Bank,
concluded in December 1989 that Israel's repressive measures had
actually fueled the uprising. Among individuals who have spoken out
are former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, who endorsed chief of staff
Lieutenant General Dan Shomron's view that the intifadah
cannot be solved "because it is a matter of nationalism." To this
Eban added, "You cannot fight a people with an army." Eban
maintained that the PLO could not endanger Israel because Israel
had "540,000 soldiers, 3,800 tanks, 682 fighter-bombers, thousands
of artillery units, and a remarkable electronic capacity."
Observers have pointed out that Israel's launching on September 19,
1988, of the Ofeq-1 experimental satellite provided it with a
military intelligence potential that reduced the need for
territorial holdings. In September 1989, Israel launched Ofeq-2, a
ballistic missile that further demonstrated Israel's military
response capabilities.
Both Eban and Ezer Weizman, minister of science and technology
in the 1988 National Unity Government, favored talking with the
PLO, as did General Mordechai Gur, also a Labor cabinet member,
former military intelligence chief General Yehoshafat Harkabi, and
several other generals. The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, in
its early March 1989 report, Israel's Options for Peace,
supported talks with the PLO. In fact, informal contacts between
Israelis and PLO members had already occurred, although such
meetings were a criminal offense for Israelis. On February 23,
1989, PLO chief Yasir Arafat met in Cairo with fifteen Israeli
journalists. In early March, several Knesset members met PLO
officials in New York at a conference sponsored by Columbia
University. In other instances, Egyptians, Americans, and West Bank
Palestinians have served as intermediaries in bringing Israelis and
PLO officials together. In October 1989, however, Abie Nathan, a
leading Israeli peace activist, was sentenced to six months'
imprisonment for meeting PLO members, and in early January 1990,
Ezer Weizman was forced out of the inner cabinet for meeting with
PLO figures. The families of Israeli prisoners of war, however,
were authorized in December 1989 to contact the PLO to seek the
prisoners' release.
In addition to the pressures exerted by the intifadah,
the reason for the greater willingness to talk to the PLO has been
a perception that the PLO has followed a more moderate policy than
in the past. For example, in November 1988, Arafat explicitly met
United States conditions for discussions with the PLO by announcing
the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242
and 338, which indicated recognition of the State of Israel, and by
renouncing the use of terrorism.
The majority of the government of Israel in January 1990,
however, continued to oppose talks with the PLO. For example, on
January 19, 1989, Minister of Defense Rabin proposed that
Palestinians end the intifadah in exchange for an
opportunity to elect local leaders who would negotiate with the
Israeli government. The plan, which made no mention of the PLO, was
presented to Faisal Husayni, head of the Arab Studies Center in
Jerusalem and a West Bank Palestinian leader, just after his
release from prison on January 28. Minister of Industry and Trade
Sharon in February 1989 sharply denounced any talks with the PLO.
In mid-April, Prime Minister Shamir stated that he would not
withdraw Israeli troops from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to
facilitate free Palestinian elections in those areas, nor would he
allow international observers of such elections. In late April,
Rabin asserted that any PLO candidate in Palestinian elections
would be imprisoned.
Despite such indications of an apparent negative attitude
toward facilitating peace negotiations, on May 14, 1989, Shamir
announced a twenty-point cabinet-approved peace plan, which he had
aired privately with President George Bush during his May visit to
Washington. The basic principles of the plan stated that Israel
wished to continue the Camp David peace process; it opposed the
creation of an additional Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip or
the West Bank (by implication Jordan was considered already to be
a Palestinian state); it would not negotiate with the PLO; and
there would be "no change in the status of Judea, Samaria, and the
Gaza district, unless in accord with the basic program of the
government." Israel proposed free elections in the occupied
territories, which were to be preceded by a "calming of the
violence" (the plan did not specifically set forth an end to the
uprising as a precondition for elections, as Sharon had wished);
elections were to choose representatives to negotiate the interim
stage of self-rule, which was set at five years to test coexistence
and cooperation. No later than three years after the interim period
began, negotiations were to start for a final solution;
negotiations for the first stage were to be between Israelis and
Palestinians, with Jordan and Egypt participating if they wished;
for the second stage, Jordan would also participate and Egypt if it
desired. In the interim period, Israel would be responsible for
security, foreign affairs, and matters relating to Israeli citizens
in the occupied territories. The plan made no mention of voting
rights for the approximately 140,000 Arab residents of East
Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967. In countering Israeli
criticism of the plan, Shamir restated his commitment not to yield
"an inch of territory."
Such an intransigent position also characterized those Israeli
West Bank settlers whose vigilante tactics have created problems
not only for Palestinians but also for the IDF in the occupied
territories. In late May 1989, West Bank military commander Major
General Amran Mitzna begged a visiting Knesset committee to help
"stop the settlers' incitement against the Israel Defense Forces."
The settlers were provoked by the army's interference with their
"reprisal raids" on Palestinians. The substantial reduction in IDF
forces in the West Bank, following a January 1989 reduction in the
defense appropriation reduction (variously reported as US$67 or
US$165 million) was followed by increased settler violence.
Concurrently, the IDF has reduced the number of days of annual
service to be performed by reservists from sixty (the number set
after the uprising began--it was thirty before the
intifadah) to forty-five, as a direct economy measure and to
minimize the impact on the Israeli economy of lengthy reserve
service.
The serious problems facing the Israeli economy have fallen to
Minister of Finance Shimon Peres, who, as Labor Party head, served
as prime minister in the previous National Unity Government. The
need to remedy the serious deficits incurred by the kibbutzim and
the industries operated by the Histadrut, both areas of the economy
associated with the Labor Party, were considered a major reason for
Peres's having been named minister of finance in the new 1988
government. Observers have commented that Peres made a slow start
in addressing the rising inflation rate, which was nearing 23
percent in 1989; the growing unemployment, which amounted to more
than 9 percent; and the budget deficits. In late December, Peres
announced a 5 percent devaluation of the
new Israeli shekel (for
value of the shekel--see Glossary) and a week later, when unveiling
the new budget on January 1, a further 8 percent devaluation.
Budget cuts of US$550 million were made in addition to government
savings of US$220 million by reducing food and gasoline subsidies.
The government also announced plans to dismiss thousands of civil
servants and to cut cost-of-living increases for all workers. These
components were collectively designed to revive the economy and to
stimulate exports. The Israeli public, however, was understandably
critical of these harsh measures, which made Peres personally
unpopular and decreased the possibility of his being able to force
an early election to overturn the Likud-led National Unity
Government.
Israel in January 1990, therefore, faced a difficult future.
Economically, the country was undergoing stringent budgetary
limitations that affected all Israelis. Politically and militarily,
it confronted the ongoing intifadah and the question of its
willingness to talk to the PLO and to consider giving up land for
peace, or its continued use of the IDF to repress the Palestinian
uprising in the occupied territories. Militarily, it faced a
possible threat from its enemy Syria as well as from the battle-
tested army of Iraq. Politically, Israel was challenged by the
growing strength of right-wing religious and religio-nationalist
parties and the need for electoral reform to create a more
effective system of government. Socially and religiously, the
country faced the issue of reconciling the views of Orthodox Jews
with those of secular Jews, considered by most observers as a more
serious problem than differences between Oriental Jews and
Ashkenazim. Any Israeli government confronting such challenges was
indeed called upon to exercise the proverbial wisdom of Solomon.
January 25, 1990
* * *
The major event since the above was written was the fall on
March 15 of the government of Likud prime minister Yitzhak Shamir
on a no-confidence vote over his refusal to accept the United
States proposal for discussions between Israelis and Palestinians
to initiate steps toward an Israeli-Arab peace plan. (Minister of
Commerce and Industry Ariel Sharon had resigned from the coalition
government on February 18 after the Likud central committee moved
toward approving such a dialogue). The fall of the government,
which was the first time that the Knesset had dissolved a
government, was preceded by Shamir's firing of Deputy Prime
Minister Shimon Peres on March 13, leading to the resignation of
all other Labor Party ministers in the National Unity Government.
The no-confidence vote resulted from a last-minute decision by
Shas, a small ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party, to abstain from
voting, giving Labor and its allies a sixty to fifty-five majority
in the Knesset. On March 20, President Chaim Herzog asked Peres to
form a government; despite five-week efforts to achieve a
coalition, Peres notified Herzog on April 26 that he was unable to
do so. This process again was a first--the first time in forty-two
years that a prime minister candidate designated by a president had
failed to put together a government. On April 27 the mandate for
forming a government was given to Shamir, who as of early May was
still negotiating. Should this attempt fail, new elections will be
required, but the composition of the Knesset will probably not
change significantly in such an election.
Meanwhile, the negotiations conducted by both major parties
involved bargaining and significant material and policy commitments
to tiny fringe parties, particularly the religious parties, that
were out of proportion to their strength. As a result, Israelis
have become increasingly disenchanted with their electoral system.
On April 7 a demonstration for electoral reform drew approximately
100,000 Israelis, the largest number since the 1982 demonstration
protesting Israel's invasion of Lebanon. More than 70,000 people
signed a petition, endorsed by President Herzog, calling for the
direct election of the prime minister and members of the Knesset so
as to eliminate the disproportionate influence of small parties.
Moreover, on April 9 an Israeli public opinion poll revealed that
80 percent of Israelis favored changing the electoral system.
The situation was further complicated by the Israeli response
to Secretary of State Baker's statement on March 1 that the United
States would back Israel's request for a US$400 million loan to
construct housing for Soviet Jewish immigrants only if Israel
stopped establishing settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip. The Israeli government stated that this condition was the
first time that the United States government had linked American
aid to the way that Israel spent its own money. In a March 3 news
conference, President Bush included East Jerusalem in the category
of territory occupied by Israel, saying that the United States
government opposed new Jewish immigrants being settled there (an
estimated 115,000 Jews and 140,000 Palestinian Arabs lived in East
Jerusalem as of March). Prime Minister Shamir announced on March 5
that new Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem would be expanded
as rapidly as possible to settle Soviet Jews--7,300 Soviet Jews
arrived in March and 10,500 in April.
On April 18, Shamir appointed Michael Dekel, a Likud advocate
of settlements, to oversee the groundbreaking for four new
settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip and to try to buy residential property in the Armenian
Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem for Jewish occupancy. This
action was made possible by the absence from the government of
Labor Party ministers, who had been opposing various settlement
activities. Government sponsorship of Jewish settlement in
Jerusalem, although initially denied, included a grant of US$1.8
million to a group of 150 persons, consisting of Jewish religious
students and their families, to rent through a third party St.
John's Hospice in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, which they
occupied on April 12, the eve of Good Friday. This incident caused
among uproar by Christian Palestinians and led to the protest
closing of Christian churches in Jerusalem for one day on April 27-
-the first time in 800 years that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
had been closed. Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek testified in court
opposing the settlement on the grounds that it would damage
Israel's international reputation, harm public order in the
Christian Quarter, and disrupt the delicate and established ethnic
balance of Jerusalem. The Supreme Court announced on April 26 that
it upheld the eviction of the settlers by May 1.
In other developments, the European Community threatened
sanctions against Israel unless the government allowed the
reopening of Palestinian institutions of higher education in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which had been closed since October
1987. In reply, Israel stated on February 26 that it would allow
sixteen community colleges and vocational institutions, serving
approximately 18,000 Palestinian students, to reopen in stages on
unspecified dates.
Iraq's president Saddam Husayn, who was extremely fearful of an
Israeli strike against Iraq, on April 2 threatened that Iraq would
use chemical weapons against Israel if it attacked. This threat
outraged the world community and was followed on April 3 by
Israel's launch of a new three-stage rocket earth satellite into a
surveillance orbit.
Meanwhile, the intifadah continued. The Palestine Center
for Human Rights reported on March 19 that 878 Palestinian
fatalities had occurred up to that date. The Israeli human rights
body stated on April 3 that thirty Palestinians had been killed by
Israeli army gunfire in the first quarter of 1990, whereas
Palestinians had killed thirty-five of their number as suspected
Israeli collaborators over the same period. Israel announced on
February 18 a 15 percent reduction in the defense budget for 1990-
91, together with a reduced number of service days for reservists,
caused by the financial costs of the uprising. No end to the
intifadah appeared in sight, with well-informed Israeli
sources suggesting that the uprising had strengthened the
convictions of Israelis on both sides: those favoring territorial
maximalism and those advocating compromise. The difference was
thought to be a greater realism, with maximalists feeling that the
territories could be retained only by removing a number of
Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and
compromisers recognizing that negotiations with the PLO would
require significant concessions.
May 2, 1990
Helen Chapin Metz
Data as of December 1988
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