Commentary

26th July 1998

The devil quotes the scriptures

By Mervyn de Silva

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning"

( PSALMS 137.5)

Israeli Prime Minis ter Benjamin (Binyamin) Netanyahu knows the Holy Book quite well and uses it for his own cunning ends. Right now he intends to hold Knesset elections in January he has told a few trusted aides. Or so the high-circulation HAARETZ reported. Was it inspired leak, meant more perhaps for his assorted, increasingly confused allies than the traditional rival, the Labour party? That would be typical Netanyahu, keeping not only his main enemy puzzled but his allies off balance.

He certainly cannot match Ben Gurion in stature and yet he has a gift for guile and bold manoeuvre. The present crisis will certainly test all his skills.

The speculation in the Israeli press of a snap general election was brushed aside. Elections, he declared quite confidently, "will be held in 2000.." which means he will complete his four-year term.

But how well can he resist the mounting pressure from his coalition partners who keep threatening to pull out of the so-called "grand coalition" unless the Prime Minister orders troops to pull out from some parts of the West Bank "an explicit pledge in" the peace accord, which were strongly supported by the United Nations, and perhaps more significantly by the Clinton administration. (Prime Minister Netanyahu, far too cocky for President Clinton and his top- level staff is no favourite of the White House).

A pull-out from the West Bank would probably see some of the Prime Minister's rightwing allies say a hurried farewell to the not-so grand coalition, that now governs "the Jewish state". A group of Israeli mayors have decided to "block plans by the government to expand the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem", wrote the British correspondent, Judy Dempsey. "The move could galvanise opposition to one of the largest projects since Israel annexed eastern Jerusalem and occupied the West Bank after the 1967 war", she added. The six-day war on three fronts was the most scintillating victories of the 20 year- old I.D.F., the young nation's army which waged war on three fronts.

But thirty years older the P.L.O. now wages a different type of war, a "people war" an imaginative adaptation of 'peoples war'.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is not impressed, and no P.L.O. plan or political-military manoeuvre of "President" Yasser Arafat, overawes him. The creation of "an umbrella municipality" or Greater Jerusalem that includes suburbs west of Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements will be placed under it, added the same correspondent.

But Netanyahu's top officials, doubtless on orders from the Prime Minister's trusted aides, made a serious mistake — a concerted effort to deceive U.S. diplomats and officials, including it would appear the President's respected Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, a tough cookie indeed.

On their part, the senior advisers of Yasser Arafat were to show that if the plan was implemented fully, the Jerusalem municipal area will expand from 121.5 square kilometres to 600 sq.k.m.! Of this, east Jerusalem's boundaries area will grow from 70.5 sq.kms to 360 sq.kms - is something like 8% of the West Bank will be annexed by the "new" Jerusalem municipality. All Palestinian protests have been brushed aside by the Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmer.

However the Prime Minister and his keenest supporter, the Mayor has been confronted from an unexpected constituency— from upper middle-class Jewish residents! "We will never join Jerusalem", says Elie Moyal, the Jewish Mayor of Mevasseret Zion, a well- heeled suburb less than 15 minutes west from Jerusalem.

"We fled Jerusalem because we wanted to be free of the religious pressure, escape the high city taxes and have a better life.".

These residents belong to the "new elite", proud of their Jewish heritage but professionals, cosmopolitan, many American educated who refuse to sympathise with Prime Minister Netanyahu's ultra- conservative campaign which they see in terms of narrow, bigoted, vote-catching plans and manoeuvres that project an image of Israel that does not appeal to the American and European Jewish community, a cosmopolitan community, that has discarded the more obscurantist attitudes of Netanyahu's advisers and aides. Some go further. Netanyahu himself, they suspect, is not a bigot but finds ultra-religious slogans quite attractive to some large vote-banks.

Yes, Prime Minister Netanyahu has so far won each battle in the political propagandist war against his two main challengers, the Labour party and the P.L.O. - led by party chairman Yasser Arafat. But is he winning the war? Israel's patron and for half a century, its protector has been the United States, now the sole superpower and the U.S. Democrats, in particular. The U.S. is not fighting a formidable strategic-ideological rival, the Soviet Union, its WARSAW PACT allies and the Third World N.A.M. community. U.S. Big Business, the oil giants in particular (George Bush was an 'oil-man') have a large stake in the Arab (Moslem) Middle-east, at a time when post-Cold War strategists recognise a serious threat to the security in the region in Islamic revivalism.

President Yasser Arafat has not only told the international media that the Israeli leadership not only "continue to repeat the same words" but promotes anti-PLO ultra-Jewish groups. (The assassin of Prime Minister Rabin, the soldier-hero of Israel, was a member of a secret ultra- orthodox Jewish (Zionist?) group.

And so, Mr. Arafat goes to Cairo to consult the President of the militarily strongest Arab country, and the natural leader of the Arab League, President Hosni Mubarak. Prime Minister Netanyahu's reaction is likely to be "Let them talk".. President Clinton, well into his second and last term, is not likely to play mediator. Madeleine Albright is good enough.

Hulftsdorp Hill

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