From: Arab World and Islamic Resources <awair@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Date: 05 Sep 92 02:13 PDT
Subject: Rabin and Labor:Is Past Prologue?
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1296500331:000:11427
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!awair    Sep  5 02:13:00 1992


From: Arab World and Islamic Resources <awair>
Subject: Rabin and Labor:Is Past Prologue?


REPRINT FROM
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BREAKING THE SIEGE		Volume 4, No. 3
-------------------------------		August-September 1992
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Newsletter of 
THE MIDDLE EAST JUSTICE NETWORK
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The Middle East Justice Network was formed by Americans drawn 
together by a common concern about our government's role in 
supporting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.  We 
advocate a US policy based on United Nations Resolutions 181, 
242 and 338, and the principle of territory for peace, aiming at the 
creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel with international 
security guarantees for both states.  Our bimonthly newsletter, 
BREAKING THE SIEGE, is intended to break through the siege 
mentality which has long prevented the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 
from being fairly discussed and understood. To subscribe to 
BREAKING THE SIEGE and Action Alerts (one year, first class 
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fax.(617)776-8926


RABIN AND THE LABOR PARTY: IS THE PAST PROLOGUE?

As James Baker pushes for a rapid resumption of peace talks in 
August in hopes of results which will bolster President Bush in 
November and his own future as Secretary of State, the Palestinians 
find themselves in a difficult position.  While they may welcome the 
change in tone in Israeli government circles, and may hope that the 
Meretz bloc plays a positive role, they must be worried by the 
effusive reconciliation between Israel and the "honest broker" of the 
peace process during this honeymoon period, and at the thought of 
what a change of Administration in Washington in November might 
yet bring.

The votes cast by the Israeli electorate were still not completely 
tallied when NEW YORK TIMES columnist Thomas Friedman 
sounded a theme which is bound to dominate the media in the 
months ahead: "One thing United States officials are worried 
about...is that Palestinians may overreact to the Rabin victory and 
inflate some of their demands, just as they are going to be called on 
to make the concrete concessions required to close a deal" (June 24).

Palestinians, who have so far made all the concessions, had better 
be prepared to make more, if they are not to assume Shamir's role of 
the "obstinate" partner in the peace process.  Otherwise, Friedman 
implies, the "deal" is off.

But what deal is Labor likely to put on the table?  What choices will 
face Palestinians?  It is already clear from the way the Israeli 
announcement of a "settlement freeze" was hailed in the US press 
that it will not be easy to get behind the public relations spin and 
assess the implications of what is actually on offer.  From what is 
known of Yitzhak Rabin and past policies of the Labor Party, we 
have compiled information which may shed light on what lies ahead.

Rabin's Personal History

Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem.  During the 1948 War he was 
involved in driving Palestinians from Lydda and Ramla and was 
later the military chief-of-staff during the Six Day War.  When he 
entered Jerusalem on June 7, 1967 he "felt this was the height of my 
life....as chief-of-staff to bring about the unification of the city...it's 
fulfillment of a dream" (quoted in Donald Neff, WARRIORS FOR 
JERUSALEM, p.233).

There is no reason to doubt Rabin means what he says when he 
declares that "a unified Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people" 
and is "not open for discussion" (YEDIOT AHRONOT, July 1) and 
that "I'll never, I'll never agree to any peace if it will be 
preconditioned on withdrawal to the pre-67 lines" (WASHINGTON 
POST, March 18).

Serving as ambassador to the US from 1968-1973, Rabin then 
became Israel's first native-born prime minister, succeeding Golda 
Meir in May 1974 and staying in office until he was forced to resign 
in April 1977 because of a scandal over illegal bank accounts he and 
his wife kept in Washington.  As prime minister he presided over a 
vigorous expansion of settlements in the Golan, the Gaza Strip, the 
Jordan Valley and elsewhere in the West Bank, and over large-scale 
confiscation of Palestinian land.

He repeatedly maintained that the settlements were permanent, and 
would never be surrendered.  For instance, he told settlers in Gush 
Etzion south of Bethlehem that "the bloc will be an integral part of 
Israel in any political settlement and that it will have territorial 
continuity with Israel" (quoted in Geoffrey Aronson, ISRAEL, 
PALESTINIANS, AND THE INTIFADA, p.35).

During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 Rabin proposed that 
water and food be cut off from the besieged population of Beirut.  
Four years later, in 1986, he was defense minister when Israel 
applied the "iron fist" to the territories.  He was still defense minister 
when the uprising began - he announced it would be put down with 
"force, might and beatings" on January 19, 1988 and over the next 
few years proved as good as his word.  On July 7, 1992 THE NEW 
YORK TIMES reported that Rabin said he was willing again to use 
"an iron fist" against Palestinian violence.

The Labor Party Record

On August 31, 1975, when Rabin was prime minister, Yehuda 
Harel, the leader of the settlers on the Golan Heights, was quoted in 
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Israel is a country without borders.  
No two people in Israel or abroad agree on the borders of Israel.  
What we have is where Jewish people have settled....The people 
feel that by coming here they have made this the border."

Harel was expressing a view which has largely united Zionists 
across party lines, whether motivated by "security" concerns or the 
ideology of "Greater Israel".

When the occupation was just a year old, the Labor Party leader 
Moshe Dayan spoke words which could have been uttered by 
Yitzhak Shamir twenty years later: "During the last hundred years 
our people have been in the process of building up the country and 
the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional 
settlements in order to expand the borders here.  Let no Jew say the 
process has ended.  Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the 
road" (MA'ARIV, July 7, 1968).

It was Labor which pioneered methods of land confiscation which 
Likud later utilized, and gave them a "legal" veneer.  This was true 
both within the pre-1967 armistice "green line" when Labor carried 
out the "Judaization" of the Galilee, and within the West Bank, Gaza 
and Golan Heights.  After a decade of Labor Party rule over the 
territories, more than 90 settlements were either established or being 
built, including a dozen East Jerusalem "neighborhoods".  The 
settlements were military-style outposts with relatively few settlers - 
perhaps 10,000 -apart from East Jerusalem.

Labor focused on building along the so-called "confrontation lines" - 
in the Jordan Valley, Golan Heights, Hebron Hills, southern part of 
the Gaza Strip and around Jerusalem, following the 
recommendations of the Allon Plan.  This blueprint for settlements, 
which still appears to guide Rabin's thinking today, was first drawn 
up in 1967 by Yigal Allon, once the commander of the volunteer 
force known as the Palmach in which Yitzhak Rabin and Meretz 
leader Shulamit Aloni both served.  The plan called for a wide chain 
of "security" settlements on a north-south axis which would hem in 
and isolate the Palestinians in heavily populated areas, and the 
eventual annexation of the "security belt" - amounting to half or 
more of the West Bank. 

JUDEA AND SAMARIA: GUIDELINES FOR REGIONAL 
PLANNING, a government publication of 1970, recommended the 
development of "the periphery of Samaria and Judea [the West 
Bank] so that it will be integrated with the rest of the country.  After 
the 1973 war Labor specifically stated that Israel would not return to 
the pre-1967 borders.  

Views of Autonomy

In his first speech before the Knesset in July Rabin offered 
Palestinians rapid movement toward "autonomy with all its 
advantages and limitations" as an five-year interim arrangement 
before final status negotiations.  

Both Menachem Begin, Likud prime minister during Camp David 
negotiations, and Shamir regarded autonomy as a way of 
consolidating Israeli control over the territories, a transition period to 
permanent Israeli sovereignty .  Palestinians would be allowed 
limited self-administration within pockets of heavily populated 
territory from which the Israeli army would withdraw, but no 
control over water, land, security or foreign affairs.  The army 
would be able to re-enter "autonomy" areas in case of "emergency".  
Settlements would continue to grow and would be part of Israel.  
Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a "sea of Israeli security with 
Arab autonomy pockets inside it" (HA'ARETZ, March 1).  

Will the autonomy offered by Labor be fundamentally different?  It 
is difficult to say, since Rabin was careful never to specify what he 
meant by autonomy during the election campaign. He is apparently 
prepared for an outward show of "territorial compromise" at some 
stage of negotiations, but promised the Shas Party when it joined his 
coalition that such matters would be decided in a national 
referendum.  

But there is no indication that his government would go as far as the 
group of high ranking Israeli military reserve officers and ex-
Mossad officials, representing 60% of the total number of senior 
reserve officers, who were polled on the eve of the election.  70% 
felt that "security arrangements can be developed and maintained if 
most of the occupied territories, including the Golan, are returned" 
(JERUSALEM PRESS SERVICE DAILY REPORT, June 22).  
75% approved a withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza.	

Rabin has also been careful to preserve room for maneuver, free 
from the constraints of international law and UN resolutions.  Like 
his predecessor, he has shown no inclination to accept UN Security 
Council Resolution 242, which the US made the basis of the peace 
process.

Indications are that Rabin's conception of autonomy will fall well 
short of what Palestinians are demanding - including control over 
water and so-called "public land" that has been confiscated for 
exclusive Jewish use, as well as participation of East Jerusalem 
residents in assembly elections.  Palestinians regard autonomy as a 
transitional period of self-government leading to the establishment of 
a Palestinian state on 22% of mandated Palestine.  For the time 
being at least, Rabin, with his uncompromising opposition to 
Palestinian independence, may well regard autonomy in enclaves of 
high population hemmed in by "security" belts as an end in itself.

Avigdor Kahalani, now a Labor Member of the Knesset, declared in 
an election speech: "Settlement should continue in order to tightly 
surround the concentrations of Arabs to be granted autonomy" 
(MIDDLE EAST INTERNATIONAL, July 10).  With this view of 
the future, it is not surprising that Labor made some gains in all 
known Likud strongholds.