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By Yacov Sen Efrat The shock over Israeli Prime Minister Rabin's assassination did not last long. Flags were still at half-mast as acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres began the search for new ways to prevent mounting Israeli internal tension from developing into civil war. Without much delay, a quiet agreement was reached between Peres and opposition leader Bibi Netanyahu: Labor agreed to stop calling the Likud "enemies of peace" and Likud acquiesced to refrain from calling Labor traitors and collaborators with Arafat. Yet, the most striking shift in the new government was Labor's new courtship with the representative party of the settlers' establishment — the Mafdal (Religious National Party). The Mafdal was not always a settlers' party; from 1948 to 1967, it represented the moderate Zionist (non-Orthodox) element of the religious camp. Led by Joseph Burg, a pragmatist with liberal positions, the Mafdal was a partner to Labor for many years. But the 1967 war created new messianic and chauvinistic trends in Israeli society; the result was a "revolution of the youth" in the Mafdal. The younger generation led the party to the extreme right, creating the basis for Gush Emunim (the settlers' organisation) and Yeshivot Ha Hesder (religious colleges that demanded their pupils serve in army combat units). Since 1977, the Mafdal has joined the coalition in every Likud government. Their slogan in the 1992 elections, "The Mafdal is on Your Right", signalled that no rightist party could compare for loyalty to Greater Israel and opposition to any return of territory to the Palestinians. When Rabin was assassinated, the Mafdal was quickly pinpointed as the movement that produced the murderer. Bar Ilan University, where Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir studied, is one of the institutions most closely connected with the party. Debates in religious institutions since the Oslo agreement have focused on whether or not Rabin is considered a threat to the nation of Israel (a positive answer being tantamount to religious justification for killing him in "self-defence"). The superiority of religious commandments to secular law, and refusing to serve in the army if settlements are dismantled by soldiers, were among the values passed on to the young religious generation. It seems that the assassination brought the religious establishment back to its senses. Its leaders suddenly remembered that to maintain their settlements, they need a strong state with a strong army; they realised that their extremism was beginning to undermine the basis of their own existence. A unique report published by Rami Rosen and Yossi Bar Mocha in the December 15 Ha'Aretz supplement reveals that in the settlements there are 2650 people on the public payroll. Rosen and Bar Mocha conclude that 51% of all salaries in the settlements are financed directly by the Israeli taxpayer (as opposed to 33% in Israel). Upon realising who butters their bread, this noisy settler sector decided to make a switch overnight. Uri Elitzur, editor of the magazine Nekuda (Point, or Creating a Point, i.e., settlement), called in his editorial for the municipalities of Judea and Samaria to open a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority. He concludes, "In order to succeed, we have to accommodate to the new conditions; we cannot attempt to function in an imaginary reality". To the dismay of Meretz (the Israeli "left-wing" coalition party), this religious "adaptation to reality" was warmly embraced by Peres, who willingly opened new venues of dialogue with the Mafdal. In exchange for Mafdal's support, Labor would seriously consider halting all further implementations of Oslo 2. Ha'Aretz commentator Doron Rosenblum described the dramatic conversion thus: "Even Molière, author of Tartuffe, would have found it difficult to invent this serpentine and dizzy plot, in which Mafdal and the settlers went from shock to condemnation of the assassination, from condemnation to attacking [the left], from attacking to preaching rapprochement, and from preaching to manipulating the government into fulfilling the assassin's aim (i.e., to stop the Oslo process), and then claiming to be 'fulfilling Rabin's will' by leaving the settlements intact. All this within five weeks only!" At the base of this new settler-government dialogue is the mutual understanding that Israeli politics cannot handle two contradictory policies, one that opposes Oslo and one that calls for removal of the settlements. A new consensus is thus forged around a package deal: the settlers will recognise the Oslo agreement as a fait accompli, while the government will agree not to touch the settlements in the future. The strategy of Peres' government, therefore, is not to fight the source of racism and violence in Israeli society but to compromise with it. Conveniently, the Oslo agreement does not specifically stipulate removal of settlements, leaving Peres free to use their future as a bargaining chip. As usual, the ones to pay the price will be the Palestinians.
[Abridged from Challenge magazine: P.O. Box 4119, Jaffa, 61411 Israel; e-mail chall@baraka.org.]