Commentary

23rd May 1999

Israel and new Middle East

By Mervyn de Silva

"I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its cunning". The wily Benjamin Netanyahu who ignored the warning of the Holy Book, had to pay the ultimate price...... the collapse of his patchwork coalition, a patchwork "alliance" — an administration kept alive by Prime Minister Netanyahu's opportunism, his amazing skill for survival, and the divisive conflicts, ideological and personal conflicts.

Israeli politics lost its Labour vs rightwing Likud and its orderliness a long time ago. Russian immigrants, particularly after the Soviet implosion, represented a dangerously new de-stabilising, factor. Meanwhile the first shocking sign of Jewish fundamentalism as an answer to the global phenomenon of Islamic revivalism was to re-introduce a Zionist group some quit, as extremist as Islamic militant groups.

But Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's most decorated war hero (the so-called seven-day war) and the leader of the Labour party and its authentic policy-maker Shimon Peres, did raise hopes of domestic stability. Peres, an authentic product of Israel's vigorous radical, labour movement made the maximum sacrifice — party leadership and premiership.

The United States, the powerful and generous patron, was relieved and quite convinced of a stable, if fiercely competitive, Israeli parliamentary politics. Neither the Israeli governing class, nor its Arab neighbours, nor the United States, Israel's traditional patron were ready for the next stunning turn of events —— the assassination of war hero (the Six-day War) General Rabin as he addressed an election rally.

The Rabin- Peres was an unbeatable duo, representing two important pillars of the democratic Israeli socio political system. The hero of the scintillating victory in what was soon to be labelled by the popular media, domestic and international, the Six-day war.

The more stunning shock came later. The young assassin was no demented high-school student. He was a member of a secret cell of "Zionists." Islamic revivalism and Jewish orthodoxy. Zionism.

Zionist movement

More than a century ago a French military court sent Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew, to prison on fraudulent charges of treason. His conviction rested on the perjured testimony of gentile officers seeking to protect a fellow aristocrat, Major Charles Esterhazy ... Theodor Herzl, a Jewish lawyer - journalist reported the case for the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna. The blatant injustice of the Dreyfuss affair roused him to fury and the writing of a bitter pamphlet DER JUDENSTAAT, the Jewish state. It was printed in many languages.

This study has earned a handsome tribute from Arnold Toynbee no less. The book has correctly pointed out, says the distinguished historian that "in by far the greater part of the Arab world for by far the greater part of the time, the Jewish diaspora has been better treated than in Christendom. If and when Jews and Christians submit to Muslim rule, and play a surtax, Muslims are under an obligation not only to tolerate them but to protect them. This obligation is written into the Quran."

This tribute by Arnold Toynbee, the western world's most respected historian is surely an answer to those Zionists as well as to Israeli leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu.

American intervention

Following George Bush an "oil-man" from the west before he took to national politics and earned a four-year term in the White House, Bill Clinton was the first popular American leader to recognise the historical injustice to the Arab Palestinians. It is he who recognised that the oppressive laws and the discrimination must be removed if the Arab-Israeli conflict was to be resolved. In the name of democracy and human rights, the White House mobilised NATO to intervene in Yugoslavia. The Arab-Israezli problem is as old as the bitter Kashmir problem in our region.

Mr. Clinton visited Yasser Arafat's headquarters and spent more than a day in the Gaza. That took courage. He should read or re-read the speech that Shimon Peres made to the U.N. General Assembly in Sept. 1993. Peres chose to call his book THE NEW MIDDLE EAST. Peres is the kind of politician to whom Mr. Clinton will readily respond.

With the co-operation of Mr. Peres, the American president, the leader of the sole superpower, could make a unique contribution to regional peace, and lay the foundation of a new Israel and a new Middle-East.

The Jungle Telegraph

Editorial/Opinion Contents