Downturn in Rabin's Popularity Has Several Causes

By Dr. Israel Shahak

All Hebrew press correspondents and an overwhelming majority of Israelis at present share the belief that the government of Yitzhak Rabin is in big trouble and that it would fall if elections were held now. At one time Rabin used to be called a "teflon" politician, in recognition that his popularity was too high to be tainted by any fault. No longer. His Dec. 10 Nobel Peace Prize, which came as the culmination of a sequence of other prizes he received (including the "Reagan Freedom Prize"), was ridiculed in Israel, and not necessarily because he shared it with Yasser Arafat. If anything, it further lowered his prestige rather than boosting it.

The Labor government's popularity began to dwindle several months ago. But only by December 1994 had it sunk so low that some Labor party leaders were calling openly for replacement of Rabin before the next elections, to be held no later than June 1996. Commentators differ about the reasons for Rabin's decline, but only 15 months after the Oslo Agreement was signed on the White House lawn, seemingly with enough pomp and ceremony to sustain his popularity for a long time, he now is considered a failure in Israel to the point of being challenged within his own party and beyond it.

Economic Deterioration

This is due in large part to a rapid deterioration in Israel's economic situation. Rabin, and especially Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, had promised a radical improvement in Israel's economic situation as a result of the "peace process." It was supposed to produce enormous foreign investments in Israel and an enormous growth of trade with the Arab countries. Those promises, along with Rabin's policies to favor the wealthy from the very beginning of his prime ministership in July 1992, caused a rapid rise in stock prices on the Tel Aviv market. Speculation rose to a frenzy after the Oslo Agreement, but when the expected foreign investments in Israel failed to materialize (except on the pages of the U.S. press), and when Israeli trade with Arab countries failed to increase more than marginally above its levels before 1993, the bubble burst.

All of the profits on stocks accumulated since Rabin came to power had been wiped off the books by October 1994. Because the percentage of Israelis who speculate on stocks, usually on credit, is high, their losses inevitably have found expression in political attitudes.

But even more fundamental reasons for the economic deterioration were explained by conservative writer Sever Plotzker in Yediot Ahronot of Sept. 19, 1994: "The gap between imports and exports has widened. Exports from Israel grew in 1994 at a very slow pace: by less than 7 percent. But imports continue to grow at a very rapid pace, twice the rate of export growth. The [Israeli] foreign debt might therefore increase this year by about one-third, that is by about $2 billion." (This turned out to be an underestimate. In fact the Israeli trade deficit grew in 1994 by $3 billion.)

Some Labor party leaders were calling openly for replacement of Rabin.

"The gap between production and consumption also is growing. Private consumption might grow this year by 10 percent, but the gross domestic product by only 4.5 to 5 percent. How is this possible? Very simple: Israelis saved much less this year than they saved last year. The rate of private savings is declining sharply."

Plotzker blames Rabin for failing to resist the 1994 strikes of teachers, nurses, doctors and academics after proclaiming solemnly that he would never yield to their demands. In Plotzker's view, all these strikes resulted in wage hikes which the Israeli economy could ill afford. As noted by all commentators, in the course of 1994 the Israelis discovered how easy it was for lobby pressure to change Rabin's positions, in stark contrast with his tough resolve in foreign affairs.

Perhaps the most important economic factor detailed by Plotzker is the formidable rise in the cost of housing during Rabin's term of office. "In the spring of 1992, on the eve of the elections, the Shamir government was involved in the construction of 60,000 apartments, directly or through subsidies, promises of acquisition, benefits to speed up construction and the like. In its devotion to free enterprise, Rabin's government did not like this involvement. Confronted with the sharp decline in [Jewish] immigration, many unsold apartments in development areas and heavy government commitments to buy them from the contractors, Rabin's government decided to stop all public construction immediately in order to restart the free play of market forces. The result: while in 1991 the Housing Ministry initiated construction of 62,000 apartments, the corresponding figure in 1993 was only 4,700 apartments, a decline of 93 percent.

"At first it seemed that this policy had borne fruit. The prices of apartments stopped rising. Government allocations for public housing were diverted to construction of new roads or highway junctions and to deficit reduction...But as soon as the experts examined these data, they became concerned about how to meet the annual demand for 50,000 apartments, knowing that the private sector could supply only half that amount. They were reassured by the Finance Ministry, however, that owing to the market mechanisms everything would turn out all right. Yet in January 1993, building prices started to rise again."

Indeed, by December 1994 the increase in apartment prices during the Rabin government's term of office was estimated at about 58 percent.

Like all economic correspondents of the Hebrew press, Plotzker staunchly supports the Rabin government's efforts on behalf of the peace process. Moreover, Plotzker is afraid of what he calls "Likud's populism," i.e., its penchant—much more pronounced than that of Labor—to advocate programs calculated to raise public living standards. As many commentators have noted, Rabin admires the conservative wing of the American Republican party, especially its economic views. Yet Rabin's views on the economy seldom are denounced by Israeli leftists because they fear that merely criticizing his programs could damage the "peace process."

Contrary to Plotzker's observations, the perceived deterioration of the economy has in fact led to a fall in consumption. Data published by Gideon Eshet in Yediot Ahronot of Dec. 21 reveal a catastrophic decline in private consumption between July 1 and October 1. Sales of heavy goods such as cars, refrigerators and washing machines declined by a monstrous 43 percent. Sales in the supermarkets declined by 33 percent. Eshet, a staunch supporter of the peace process, writes that "to all appearances the public already are tightening their belts." He quotes the view of economists that "Israel is in an economic slump."

All of this must be put in perspective, however. In recent years Israel has become one of the richest countries of the world, with the average income of its citizens (but of course not of its subjects in the territories) much higher than of the immediately surrounding Arab countries.

World Bank data quoted by Avraham Tal in Ha'aretz of Nov. 11 reveal that while in Israel the per capita GNP amounted to $13,220, the corresponding figures for Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were $640, $1,120 and $7,510, respectively. (The per capita GNP in the West Bank is roughly half that in Jordan, and that in the Gaza Strip is not even its quarter.) Nevertheless, as in other wealthy states, the Israelis want their standard of living to go on improving, and blame their government when it does not. The more they heard promises of improvement from Rabin and Peres, the more infuriated they became.

Another factor in the decline of the Rabin government's popularity is that Rabin's party, Labor, is rapidly going to pieces. In the words of Industry and Trade Minister Micha Harish, a former secretary-general of the party, "the Labor party is now in a state of clinical death" and there is nothing left to discuss except "to appoint a committee to investigate why the party is in this predicament." The remarks were delivered at a meeting of the Labor party executive committee called to discuss a party agenda for 1995, according to a report in Ha'aretz of Nov. 19.

Rabin, who spoke at the meeting after Harish, ignored the outburst. Instead, he demanded that party members "express their pride in the achievements of the government headed by Labor" among which "peace with the Palestinians" was the most important. He also exhorted the Israelis "to fight the enemy of the peace, the terrorist and extremist Islam."

However, all signs indicate that a majority of Israeli Jews don't believe that peace with the Palestinians is real and have little interest in an Israeli crusade against "terrorist and extremist Islam."

Probably this was why other discussants ignored the remarks of both Rabin and Harish and concentrated instead on tactics to improve the party's plight. Health Minister Efraim Sneh castigated Israeli publications in the Russian language as "poisonous." He asked that Labor party leaders explain to Jewish immigrants from the former U.S.S.R. that Labor's marginal victory in the 1992 elections had been, to some extent, due to "the Russian vote."

In the next elections, however, this vote is expected to turn against Labor, primarily for economic reasons, but also due to Labor's support for the ultra-religious Shas party, whose specialty is to abuse new Jewish immigrants from the former U.S.S.R. in order to curry favor with "Oriental" Jews. Needless to say, Sneh's remarks were subsequently reported at some length by the Russian-language press and compared to Stalin's, with the effect of making the already bad situation worse.

"The Labor party is now in a state of clinical death."

It can be said that all efforts by Labor party stalwarts to improve their plight have proved as counter-productive as Sneh's idea to fight "the poison" in the Russian-language press. Instead, Labor's inept efforts to extricate the party from its current slump have become a favorite subject for Hebrew press satirists, who have considerable political influence. The Dec. 16 Davar Aher, the satirical Friday supplement published by Davar and Yediot Ahronot, offered such comments as these: "Psychologists wonder why the Labor party has not left a letter explaining its reasons for committing suicide." "A Jewish millionaire from abroad expressed a desire to purchase Mr. Labor Party's corpse in order to exhibit it in a museum in New York." "Said two 'most senior' Labor ministers: our great achievements owing to which we have received so many prizes guarantee that we will not lose touch with reality. Just as we claimed before that we alone could bring peace, so will we claim in the future that we alone can retreat from peace."

However, the sickness of the Labor party is no laughing matter. At present it remains in power not so much due to its own strength as to weakness and internal discord in the ranks of the right-wing opposition in general, and Likud in particular. But there are signs that Likud's situation is improving. With this in mind, Daniel Ben-Simon, who represents an increasing number of Laborites who want to change the Labor party leadership for the sake of a speedier implementation of the Oslo Agreement, writes in the Dec. 19 Davar: "Yitzhak Rabin will not be prime minister after the 1996 elections. He may still be thinking seriously about running again for the prime ministership, but if he does, he will be making a big mistake. At the age of 74 he will look frighteningly old compared to Netanyahu."

Ben-Simon says the last Histadrut elections showed that Israeli voters, especially the younger generation, expect to see new and younger faces at the helm of the state. "They may also prefer politicians who are less ideological and more open to new ideas...This will be the third stage of a revolution which began in 1977. The first step, which took place in that year, marked the end of long years of ruling Labor ideology, and the pushing aside of the party that professed it. The second stage took place in May 1994, when in the revolutionary Histadrut elections the voters discarded the old bureaucrats who had ruled that institution since the 1920s. The third stage may take place in the next elections. It seems likely that Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres will bear the brunt of the coming change. This means that whatever they do not accomplish during their present term of office, they will not accomplish at all....

Netanyahu and Ramon

"All indications show that the average Israeli voter is increasingly disgusted with the old leaders, who find it difficult even to understand the new voters and their language. All recent polls show that [Benyamin] Netanyahu and [Haim] Ramon are considered possible substitutes...Both were born when Israel already existed and they speak Hebrew as it is now spoken. Respectively, they speak clearly for the Israeli right and left.

"Although Ramon's political plans are not known, his impressively speedy leap to the position of Histadrut secretary-general turned him automatically into the only possible successor to Rabin and Peres. While the other Labor party leaders of his age behaved like nice boys, saying naively that they would wait patiently until the old leaders retire gracefully, Ramon risked his political career and won. In this way he contradicted the bolshevik-like stigma of the Labor party as a party ruled only by the iron law of gerontocracy. His willingness to take risks and his eventual success gives him an enormous advantage over any Labor leader who during that crisis preferred to bow low to Rabin and Peres.

"This is why many Laborites now humbly entreat him to return to the Labor ranks. They want him to represent Labor in the next elections. Since the polls continue to rate Netanyahu above Rabin, and since little change is expected in those ratings, the process of building up Ramon as the new leader of Labor is likely to gain momentum. It can be expected that pressure will be exerted on Rabin to announce his forthcoming retirement from politics and that the election of Ramon as his successor will take place shortly thereafter. If Rabin decides to retire, he will undoubtedly welcome Ramon as his successsor, even if only to infuriate Peres."

Personally I am convinced that Ben-Simon is wrong on this point. In my opinion Rabin will cling to power as long as he can and, if he ever appoints a successor, it will be his own man. But I agree with Ben-Simon's view that "in view of Peres' declining political clout within Labor he would hardly be in the position to prevent Ramon's appointment as the Labor party leader. Thus," concludes Ben-Simon, "the 1996 elections are likely to mark the coming to power of a new Israeli generation. For the first time two energetic and relatively young Israelis are likely to compete for the leadership of the nation."

"The settlers know how to exploit Rabin's weakness and always end up getting more money."

Some aspects of Israel's foreign relations that are little understood outside Israel also affect Rabin's popularity. One is his obsession with the idea of an Israeli-led anti-Islamic crusade. This crusade certainly does not add to his popularity. Nahum Barnea, who accompanied Rabin to Japan and South Korea, reported in Yediot Ahronot of Dec. 16 that "lately, he cannot make a speech without uttering...his favorite phrase: 'the dirty wave of Islamic fundamentalism.' The speech also must include the sentence: 'I tell you again and again that I describe it as Khomeinism without Khomeini.' Rabin has repeated that last sentence so often that the [Hebrew press] correspondents are by now referring to it by the acronym 'KWK.' I heard every Rabin speech from Oslo to Seoul and the KWK indeed figured in all of them."

Barnea admits, however, that "Israel derives great benefits from the anti-Islamic campaign it has initiated. Its most important advantage is that it lets Israel please the American public. Even in the U.S. Congress some dare to say that Israel has lost its former value as a major American strategic asset. To that, the anti-Islamic campaign provides an answer! The evil Iran will replace the Soviet 'evil empire,' which regrettably has disappeared. Israel will become the Western vanguard in the war against the Islamic enemy."

Rabin's contradictory stands on Israeli settlements in the West Bank also open him to media criticism. An editorial in Davar of Dec. 29 points out that "great differences between avowed and actually implemented policies are a constant feature of Labor governments. The best present example is the contrast between the declarations that the settlements will no longer be expanded and the enormous amounts of money being poured into their expansion. The facile way of justifying it is by referring to the natural increase of the settlers' population. But when the Israeli Arabs demand more money to house their naturally increasing population, the argument somehow does not work.

"The settlers know how to exploit Rabin's weakness and always end up getting more money. In an effort to save his government from the consequences of soaring costs of housing, Rabin accepted the recommendation of [general-director of the prime minister's office] Sheves to build as many multi-story buildings as possible. But he never applied this recommendation to the settlements. Had he so insisted, he could have permitted no new construction in the settlements other than adding floors to existing houses, and thus he could have prevented the continuous expansion of the settlements onto new land."

The Big Lie

Motty Basuk wrote in Davar of Dec. 30 that "the big lie of the Labor-Meretz government burst forth a few days ago." The lie was that the government, while pretending to freeze the settlements, "helped them financially even more than the Shamir government ever did." Basuk rebuts the excuses of Rabin's spokesmen that the enlargement of the Efrat settlement was due to its location within "Greater Jerusalem." In fact, Basuk writes, "settlements have been enlarged everywhere in the West Bank, even in the most provocative places. Jewish settlements are being enlarged not only in the town of Hebron but also in the Tel-Rumeida neighborhood," a den of Kahanists. As Basuk points out, Kahanist leader Baruch Marzel "boasted about the enlargement of their neighborhood on TV."

For a long time, the Hebrew press was hardly interested in covering settlement expansion. Basuk attributes that to the fact that during Shamir's term of office the Hebrew press relied for its information on the published reports of "Peace Now" observers who monitored actual settlement construction, and to leaks from the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem, "whose officials frequently could be seen watching the developments on the ground."

According to Basuk, Peace Now discontinued its monitoring work in the settlements after Rabin came to power, and U.S. consulate officials "could at first be seen there less and less, and in the end not at all." This means that the era of careful monitoring occurred after Rabin's meeting with U.S. President George Bush in July 1992, whereas the second era of no monitoring began after Clinton assumed the presidency. As for Rabin, I interpret his policy in the territories not as a manifestation of weakness, but as a dictate of his ideology.

It is significant that on really substantive issues involving the "peace process," such as the status of Jewish settlements, all Israeli religious parties have supported the settlers staunchly. Rabin and Peres do not seem to understand that no "peace process," especially the one they have been promoting, can possibly be carried out without confronting the Jewish religious parties head on. The failure by both Rabin and Peres to do this portends their undoing.

Dr. Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and retired professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is chairman of the Israeli League of Human and Civil Rights.