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Isi Leibler , former head of the Australian Jewish community, now lives in Jerusalem. He was a leading personality in the movement to free Soviet Jewry and is a prolific writer on Jewish affairs.
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By Isi Leibler
June 2, 2004
Waxing eloquent over the need for Jewish unity is like motherhood and apple pie. Who can possibly object to unity? A Unity Government would now seem timely, given the fact that that most Israelis share a consensus about the nature of our confrontation with the Palestinians and having regard to the global outpourings of anti-Semitism and hostility against Israel.
Most Israelis concur that since the Oslo Accords our Palestinian neighbors have been transformed from adversaries seeking independence into evil killers. Their fanatical determination to end Jewish sovereignty takes priority over everything, including the lives of their own children who they willingly sacrifice. It is therefore no surprise that in the absence of a partner for peace, the vast majority of Israelis support a policy based on separation.
Israelis have also recognized that Jewish settlements in isolated Arab areas are incapable of being secured without a massive military presence. Most now feel that they will have to be dismantled even if this means ethnic cleansing in reverse, by displacing the very Jews who had previously been hailed by all governments for developing these barren areas of Eretz Yisrael. The majority of Israelis justify this painful course on the grounds that there are times when a democratic country is obliged to impose painful even harsh sacrifices on citizens for the perceived common good. The areas of contention lie in the timing, the extent of the withdrawals, the security implications, and the level of reciprocity.
In this scenario a Unity Government encompassing the broad mainstream of the political spectrum, would normally be considered to be in the national interest...
However, in addition to requiring a common platform on immediate objectives, a Unity Government also presupposes cohesiveness and inner discipline. Its members must undertake to abide by majority decisions and deny themselves the right to publicly dissent from adopted policies. The Unity Governments that led the nation to victory in 1967 and to economic recovery in 1984 adhered to these principles.
Alas, in contrast, the previous Unity Government (2001-2002) was a disaster and became a showcase of paralysis and chaos, even destabilizing the Israeli public. Ministers publicly condemned their own government policies in order to score cheap points with their shabby political constituencies. Prime Minister Sharon and Minister of Defense Ben Eliezer regularly contradicted one another on critical defense issues. Whilst Sharon was trying to persuade the world to isolate Arafat as a duplicitous murderer, his own Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, was being quoted in the media arguing bitterly with visiting U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney, that Arafat had to be treated with respect and recognized as Israel's only potential partner for peace.
Today the protagonists would be even more at each others throats. The Labor party already a far cry from the Labor-Zionist ideology of Ben-Gurion, further radicalized itself from the national mainstream. Today in a Unity Government with Labor, one could well visualize the former Speaker of the Knesset Avram Burg repeating his anti Israeli and anti Zionist diatribes from a Government platform; MKs paying homage to Arafat at the Mukata; and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres repeating the his recent calls for a return to 1967 borders.
Likud does not need a unity government. Even before Prime Minister Sharon unexpectedly launched his disengagement plan, Likud had effectively moved to the political center with Shinui assuming the center left role of Labor.
Over the past two years the Israeli public has become acclimatized to a government speaking with one voice. They have forgotten the chaos which prevailed during the era of the last Unity Government - the continuous repertoire of unseemly public squabbles in the wake of every difficult political and military decision.
Using band aids to create an artificial alliance between the conflicting political visions of a radicalized Labor and a centrist Likud will backfire. It may enable our Prime Minister to neutralize the verdict of the Likud referendum. But in the long term, barring the highly improbable scenario of Labor Ministers genuinely undertaking to turn a new leaf in terms of Cabinet responsibility, it will be doomed to failure. It will become an administration of disunity, undermining morale at home, confusing our friends abroad, and providing ammunition to our enemies. An ersatz Unity Government will also bring about a return to power of those who inflicted the Oslo disaster upon us and ultimately ensure a withdrawal to the 1967 "Auschwitz" borders.
By the same token if the national camp continues to insist that the verdict of the referendum remains the last word and refuses to take account of the mood of the electorate, they will simply be thrown out.
What is now desperately needed is for the leaders of the national camp, including the moderate Yesha elements, to plan a strategy which will also takes account of the wishes of the majority .To retain leadership and unite the nation, they must determine the red lines and devise a policy which will move towards a goal of separation in conjunction with the annexation of the major settlement blocs.
It is time for the moderates and the realists in the national camp to stand up against radical colleagues who still labor under the illusion that all the territories can be retained. A small minority of fanatics must be denied the right to determine the agenda or ultimately they will bring about the defeat and marginalization of the entire national camp. There is indeed truth in the aphorism that those who insist on not giving up anything are in danger of losing everything.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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