Shimon Peres: Rabin's Challenger From the Left

By Leon T. Hadar

Most American press attention in recent weeks has been focused on the meteoric political rise of Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu to become the leader of Israel's rightwing bloc. The conventional wisdom is that "Bibi," the 44-year-old news bite-producing demagogue, with his telegenic qualities, has a serious chance of beating the 70-year-old Yitzhak Rabin and his Labor Party in the coming elections.

American supporters of Likud, led by New York Times columnists A.M. Rosenthal and William Safire, have applauded the opening of the "window of opportunity" for the Greater Israel coalition's return to power. Safire has suggested that unlike former President George Bush, President Bill Clinton would be less interested in trying, through various policies, to tip the balance of power in favor of Labor.

Rosenthal even went so far as to suggest that Washington cut the economic aid package to the Jewish state, so as to weaken the hold of Labor over the Israeli electorate. (It should be recalled that "Abe" Rosenthal was one of those who bashed the Bush and Baker team, calling them "anti-Israeli" if not "anti-Semitic" for denying the Shamir government an unconditional $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.)

Rosenthal and Safire, like many other top U.S. columnists, book reviewers and television talk show hosts, have been helping "Bib)" plug his new propaganda volume, Among the Nations, in the U.S. media. Correspondents covering Israel, led by Clyde Haberman of The New York Times, have all but nominated Netanyahu as Rabin's successor. Many of these admirers try to portray "Bib)" as a closet moderate who, after coming to power and based on only-Nixon-could-go-to-China logic, will lead Israel into a land-for-peace settlement with the Arabs.

While Netanyahu's popularity in Israel has been soaring to some extent since his election as Likud's leader—the latest polls indicate that he is outstripping Rabin 42 to 35 percent—it is not obvious at all that his leadership will guarantee Likud's victory in the next Knesset elections.

Actually, the most remarkable phenomenon of current Israeli politics is that despite the fact that the uncharismatic Rabin's Labor coalition has performed disastrously in both foreign and domestic arenas, and is characterized by public bickering between its members, the Yuppie-led Likud still has not attracted any major slice of the Labor constituency to its ranks.

Most political analysts agree that the Israeli political map, particularly the division between "hawks" and "doves," has remained quite stable since the last elections. While Netanyahu's star quality may have contributed to the slight rise in Likud support, Likud's continued attachment to the Greater Israel concept makes it unattractive to Labor voters.

Labor strategists believe that as Israel moves closer to the election campaign, they will be able to make it clear to most voters that Netanyahu, contrary to wishful American thinking, is nothing more than a Shamir with a telegenic face. Some analysts say that Labor would have faced a more difficult challenge if Likud members had elected the more pragmatic Benjamin Begin or David Levy as their leader.

The Old Peres

While American media analysts debate the long-term political significance of "Bibi," few have paid attention to a significant debate taking place inside the Israeli foreign policy establishment.

There Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Rabin's old political nemesis, is emerging as the leader of cabinet and Labor Party "doves," positioning himself once again for a possible challenge to Labor's hard-line prime minister.

Peres' metamorphosis into leader of Israel's "doves" would surprise anyone aware only of the early career of the Polish-born politician. In the late 1940s Peres made his first moves in Israeli politics as a protege of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. With fellow Ben-Gurion disciple Moshe Dayan, Peres was one of the most "hawkish" figures in the Socialist-Zionist Mapai, and later in the Labor movement.

As head of Israel's Defense Ministry in the late 1950s and '60s, Peres led Israel's successful drive to acquire nuclear weapons. He was a major figure working behind the scenes to oust from power moderate Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharrett, and also was one of the architects of the alliance with France that led to Israel's 1956 attack on Egypt.

Together with Dayan, he pressured Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to launch the 1967 war and, as a ranking cabinet member during the first years of the occupation, became an ally of the Gush Emunim movement in its efforts to settle the West Bank. While serving in the first Rabin government, before Labor's fall from power in 1977, Peres had become a major adversary to the prime minister, undermining his various diplomatic efforts from the right and putting pressure on him to accelerate the Jewish settlement drive in the occupied territories.

The New Peres

It was only after becoming Labor Party leader himself, and moving to the opposition benches, that Peres began his major political transformation. With Likud as Israel's ruling party, and the country's political system moving to the right, Labor had little choice but to challenge Likud with a more moderate agenda. Observers also attribute the Peres metamorphosis to young and more dovish advisers, such as current Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, some of whom for years have supported an opening to the PLO, and occasionally have met with its leaders. Others attribute Peres' more conciliatory approach to the Palestine issue to his close ties to the Socialist French President Francois Mitterand.

Peres himself has suggested that the experience gained from the 1982 Lebanon war, the intifada, the Gulf war, and the end of the Cold War demonstrate that Israel's ability to survive in the long run depends on its making peace with the Arabs and integrating into the Middle East.

Hence, the one-time proponent of Israel's nuclearization has been calling in recent years for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. The 1960s advocate of a European-Israeli alliance to defeat Arab nationalism now leads efforts for a Mideastern version of the EC, drawing up plans for Israeli-Arab cooperation in water resources, commerce and tourism.

Most important, observers agree, is that Peres has been moving away from militant Zionism toward acceptance of Palestinian nationalism. During the Labor-Likud National Unity government, then-Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Peres attempted to reach an agreement with King Hussein, an effort that was sabotaged by Prime Minister Shamir. As an opposition leader, he and his advisers tried to convince Washington to put diplomatic pressure on the Likud government to end the settlement process.

It was Peres' image as a "dove" and an "Arab lover," among other things, that convinced many of his ideological supporters in Labor to switch their allegiance to Rabin as the party's candidate for prime minister. The assumption underlying that move was that only Rabin, the former general with a hard-line image, could defeat the hawkish Likud.

Peres continued to believe that even under his leadership Labor would have won the election. Actually, according to his calculation, Labor under Peres would have won over more of the Arab voters, and, as a result, come out of the election with at least two more seats in the Knesset.

Challenging Rabin

Peres, however, accepted his defeat in Labor's contest for the leadership and promised to back Rabin during the election campaign and after Labor's slim victory. In return, Rabin agreed to award Peres the job of foreign minister, but emphasized that he as prime minister would maintain total control over the management of the relationship with the U.S. and the Arab-Israeli peace process.

But as Rabin started to navigate the security and diplomatic policy shoals, the differences between the two leaders emerged. Peres seemed to warn that any halt in the peace process is dangerous since it tends to play into the hands of extremists on both sides. Hence, as the Bush administration found itself paralyzed during the election campaign and as the talks with the Syrians seemed to be leading nowhere, Peres attempted to bring the French into the peace process to serve as a mediator with Damascus, a move that was immediately rebuked by Rabin.

The foreign minister, who was not informed in advance about Rabin's plan to expel the 415 Palestinian Islamic activists last December, did not hide his dismay at the prime minister's move. And whereas Rabin has been trying to limit the power of Palestinian self-rule, Peres has been trying to expand it. He was the driving force behind such decisions as decriminalizing meetings between Israelis and PLO officials and permitting Faisal Husseini to take part in the Washington peace talks.

These and other efforts, including hints to Washington to renew its diplomatic dialogue with the PLO, are seen as part of a gradual effort on the part of Peres and his deputy, Beilin, to open negotiations with the PLO and to accept the idea of Palestinian independence alongside Israel. These policies are supported by most of Labor's Knesset members.

Most of these activists, propelled by their political survival instincts, had supported Rabin as their party's leader. But, with the peace process stalling, they are having second thoughts. Most believe that only a dramatic move in the peace process can give Labor the time it needs to consolidate its hold on power, and that Rabin's policies are not leading in that direction.

This sense of urgency to breathe life back into the peace process also explains Peres' disappointment over the Clinton administration's apparent disinclination to engage Israel in a serious dialogue over the peace issues. The return of the Likud to power would be immeasurably hastened, Peres' supporters argue, by a collapse of the peace talks and an escalation of violence between Arabs and Jews.

Israeli Foreign Ministry sources complain that Clinton and his advisers are ignoring the "Peres camp's" ideas such as re-opening the U.S.-PLO talks, and are not taking advantage of Rabin's vulnerability to U.S. pressure. Members of Peres' own entourage are suggesting that, in the absence of any U.S. activism on the peace front, it might be worth looking toward the EC as an alternative diplomatic catalyst.