Israel: Growing Explosiveness

In the wake of the report on the Beirut massacre, it is becoming more and more clear that the U.S. will be dealing in the months ahead with an Israel that not only remains stubbornly aggressive on the outside but is dangerously volatile within.

Israel's explosive mood has been building up ever since the invasion of Lebanon last June—although the underlying problems which are causing it have roots which go back much earlier.

Symptomatic of the present volatility was the killing of an anti-Sharon demonstrator and the wounding of several others by a grenade outside the office of Prime Minister Begin, only days after the publication of the massacre report. But the killing was also symbolic—since it was the outgrowth of what appear to be deepening ethnic and political divisions in the country. The victim, Emil Grunzweig, typifies the divisions because he was both a "peacenik" and an "Ashkenazi" i.e., an Israeli of European origin—and may have lost his life for either or both those reasons.

Ethnic rivalries have been becoming acute for several years, as immigrant Jews of Middle East, Asian and African background—the "Sephardim"—have grown to outnumber the Ashkenazi founders of Israel. The Sephardim arrived with less money and education than the Europeans, and most found themselves doing the menial jobs and living in run-down areas, while the Ashkenazi "establishment" ran the government, held the better jobs, and filled the universities. It is a widely held view among the Sephardim that they are kept far down on the social and economic ladder through deliberate discrimination. Last December, rioting broke out between the two ethnic groups after a Sephardi youth was killed while he tried in vain to stop authorities from bulldozing, for bureaucratic reasons, a new section of his family's overcrowded dwelling in a Tel Aviv suburb. In the worst such outbreak in Israel's history, rampaging Sephardim vandalized Ashkenazi property and even painted swastikas on shops and homes owned by Ashkenazis.

Mr. Grunzweig was killed after he had marched to Mr. Begin's office in a group of about one thousand demonstrators belonging to the "Peace Now" movement. Along the route to the office from central Jerusalem, fistfights and scuffles between the marchers and government supporters broke out in some of the neighborhoods they passed through. Eyewitnesses said there was a strong racial overtone to the clashes, with the pro-government supporters being mostly of Sephardic origin and the "Peace Now" marchers mainly Ashkenazis. One Sephardi was heard to shout at the marchers: "It's too bad Hitler didn't finish you all off." Another man at the emergency entrance of the hospital where the wounded anti-Sharon demonstrators were taken after the explosion called out: "It's a pity they didn't blow them all up."

The politics of the "Peace Now" movement, in addition to being a magnet for ethnic tensions, also is part of the growing political polarization of Israel during the past year. The organization was started by some reserve army officers to protest the government's unwillingness to trade off occupied territory for peace. Although it is still small, it grew increasingly active during the Lebanon war and was the catalyst for a protest demonstration, after the September massacre, which drew 400,000 people—one tenth of the entire population of Israel. A more significant trend towards polarization, and future trouble, may lie in the heavy-handed and scornful attitude being adopted by the Begin government towards its principal opposition, the Labor Party, combined with what many Israelis see as a rising chauvinism that sees criticism as disloyal, treacherous and unpatriotic. This attitude also has roots that go back for some time. After the Labor Party questioned the wisdom of the Begin government's attack on Baghdad's nuclear reactor in 1981, Begin responded: "There has never been such behavior by an opposition. I hate, with a deadly hatred, the word treason. You have never heard this word from my mouth. Anybody can express an opinion, and can err. It's still not treason. Treason, it's a legal term. But there is something of sabotage (in the Labor Party's criticism). They are truly sabotaging the diplomatic campaign Israel is waging." Since then, Begin has consistently shown his disdain for opposition criticism of his moves in Golan, the West Bank, and in Lebanon. He called early criticism of Israel's involvement with the massacre a "blood libel." The other day, Begin's foreign minister Yitzhak Shamir denounced three Israeli politicians—a reserve general, a former director general of finance, and a prominent publisher—who had gone to Tunisia for a meeting with Yassir Arafat as "enemies of the State and of democracy" who had reached "the depths of depravity" by having their meeting.

The measures taken in response to the recommendations of the inquiry board on the massacre are now raising more dismay in Israel. These measures included a-reshuffling of the-cabinet that allowed former Defense Minister Sharon to stay in the government, and the recommended transfer of General Amos Yaron, whom the board said should be withdrawn from field command, into a higher post calling for a major general—thereby suggesting that Yaron may be disciplined by being promoted. To many Israelis, the government's actions amount to contempt for the spirit of the inquiry board's recommendations. Labor Party leader Shimon Peres questioned whether the government was "setting a good example of proper behavior in a democratic society."