Tel Aviv. To comment today, and from Israel, on the prospects of peace and war in the Middle East has become a more painful endeavor than at any time in the past. It is easy enough to point to mistakes that have been committed in recent months, infinitely more difficult to point to realistic alternatives. And the task of commenting is made all the harder by the rapidly polarizing climate of opinion both in Israel and in the West, especially the United States.

Many friends of Israel are reluctant to admit even the possibility of error on the part of the Jerusalem government. As for Israel’s critics, this is a large company indeed. There are those who may sincerely want to “save Israel in spite of herself”; there are erstwhile supporters who have been waiting for the chance to dissociate themselves from a cause no longer fashionable; and there are still others who would not be greatly perturbed if Israel were to disappear. The last group includes “petro-conservatives” on the one side, radical revolutionists on the other, and—a relatively new phenomenon—some open anti-Semites sniffing for the first time in years the prospect of a fair wind. Most numerous of all the critics, perhaps, are the men and women of good will but impaired vision, aware of current opportunities, oblivious of the pitfalls and dangers.

President Carter, addressing a group of Congressmen, remarked of Menachem Begin that he “had peace within his grasp and he let it get away.” But it is one thing to criticize the Begin government for various sins of omission and commission; it is quite another to believe, as Carter seems to do, that “peace” in the Middle East hinges simply on one man and his followers. In the chorus of condemnation, it is all too quickly forgotten that even if the government of Israel were headed by Noam Chomsky, with I.F. Stone as his foreign minister, the Middle East would still be plagued with problems to which no one, except fools and fanatics, has found the answer—and a host of new problems besides.

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Any review of the current state of affairs between Israel and its Arab neighbors has to go back to the Six-Day War of 1967, which, in retrospect, can be seen as the true turning point in Arab-Israeli relations. Before that date there had indeed been, to use the popular Israeli saying of the time, “nothing to talk about.” The Arab governments were unwilling to accept Israel within its then-borders. The moderates among them were, at most, willing to consider a return to the original UN partition plan of 1947; the less moderate, who were the majority, advocated the destruction of the Jewish state. After the Six-Day War, however, Jerusalem was for the first time in a position to make moves which might have brought about some Arab acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy; for reasons that are all too understandable, Israel did not make the most of these opportunities.

True, from time to time there were concrete Israeli initiatives—such as Moshe Dayan’s plan of August 1972, aimed at giving up half of the Sinai; or the Allon plan, which envisaged autonomy for the West Bank, provided the Jordan River remained Israel’s security border; or the Labor Alignment resolution of December 1973 in which a Palestinian identity was recognized for the first time. Yet no real action was taken along any of these lines, and in the meantime Israel adopted a negative attitude toward the various peace initiatives of the U.S. and the United Nations. Again, it is easy to see why: among the Arab governments there was still no apparent willingness to accept Israel regardless of any concessions it might make. This was most clear in the threefold resolution of the Khartoum conference, held shortly after the end of the Six-Day War: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace. While Nasser was riding high on the wave of radical pan-Arabism, the prospects of even a limited arrangement were virtually nil. And after Nasser’s death, those opposed to the recognition of Israel still carried the day; the Rabat conference (October 1974) proclaimed the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO stood for the destruction of the “Zionist entity.”

Thus, there seemed at the time no alternative to official Israeli policy. Yet the dangers of that immobilism were nonetheless real, and costly. It was, for instance, largely as the result of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza that the PLO, now the main stumbling block on the road to any settlement, became a major political force. Inside Israel, an unwillingness grew to give up the conquered “territories.” (It ought to be recalled that before 1967 there was no irredentist party in Israel, and that not even Herut, let alone the religious parties, ever proposed the conquest of “Judea and Samaria.”) The idea that these regions should not be given back was never part of official policy, but the longer the occupation lasted, the more difficult it became even to envisage that they should one day be surrendered. This also meant that the Jewish state was saddled with a very substantial minority of reluctant inhabitants, and one which, given demographic trends, could well turn into a majority in the not too distant future—with grave consequences for both the Jewish and the democratic character of the Jewish state.¹

Whatever the mitigating circumstances, a price had to be paid for the lack of initiative on the part of successive Israeli governments, and that price was the Yom Kippur War. It is, in fact, possible that the 1973 conflict could have been averted had Israel made far-reaching concessions to Egypt along the lines of the Dayan plan of 1972. This would not have resulted in a formal treaty, but it would have removed the inducement for Egypt to go to war; and without Egypt, the other Arab states would not have attacked. It is true that Israel’s concessions would have had to be unilateral, but they would have been made from a position of strength. Unfortunately, there was a fixation within Israel on a formal peace, with all its trappings—trade, tourism, and the exchange of ambassadors—and in the absence of Arab readiness to reciprocate, this fixation was allowed to dominate political thinking. As a result, the depth of the hostility toward Israel in some of the Arab states was overrated, and the fact was ignored that the Arabs faced problems other than Israel, and that their relations among themselves were anything but cordial. Israeli foreign policy, in short, made no use of existing opportunities but followed the line of least domestic resistance. The shock of the Yom Kippur War showed that its assumptions had been mistaken.

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II

To dwell on lost opportunities may seem of little topical relevance. Certainly, the situation now is quite different from what it was six years ago. But if circumstances have changed, underlying political attitudes are more or less the same, despite the coming to power of a new government in Israel in 1977.

The reasons for Menachem Begin’s victory in last year’s elections to the Knesset are not to be sought in a sudden conversion of the electorate to the domestic and foreign-policy program of the Herut party. The reasons are more prosaic, having to do with the scandals, or alleged scandals, affecting some leading members of Mapai, and above all with the general feeling that one party had been in power for too long. In fact, foreign-policy issues played scarcely any role at all in the election results. True, the National Religious party had veered to the Right in recent years, but the Liberals, who were Herut’s partner in the Likud coalition, advocated a rather moderate foreign policy and so, emphatically, did the Democratic Movement for Change, another partner in the new coalition, consisting mainly of former members or sympathizers of Mapai. Still, however heterogeneous the composition of the Likud coalition, there was no doubt from the first moment that Begin would impose on it his own foreign policy.

Begin had been a key figure in Israeli politics from the very beginning, yet little was known about him outside a small circle of friends and admirers. He led a quiet life, he was not a prolific writer, and his speeches in the Knesset usually dealt with matters of current concern and were not meant to provide inspirational guidance. (It is perhaps significant that the only collection of Begin’s speeches at present available is the one in Arabic published by the PLO head office in Beirut.) His personality provoked sharply divergent reactions. His friends and admirers maintained that he was a political genius. Others took a less sanguine view. Ben-Gurion, himself no dove, always regarded Begin as the most dangerous man in Israeli politics, a “fascist,” who, if he came to power, would bring about Israel’s destruction through a reckless and adventurist foreign policy.

It is true that in the past Begin was given to outbursts of wild demagoguery. But he was not, and is not, a fascist, and he did not aim at establishing a dictatorship. In the 1950’s he organized a famous campaign in the Knesset to defeat the reparations agreements with Germany, but in the end, despite his dire threats, he did not go underground or unleash a “civil war.” On the contrary, he mellowed into a stalwart of democratic rule, taking an inordinate pride in his intimate knowledge of the intricacies of parliamentary procedure.

The main formative influence on Begin is Zev Jabotinsky, leader of the Revisionist movement within Zionism. But there are some important differences between the two men. Jabotinsky was essentially a 19th-century romantic liberal, in the tradition of Mazzini, and he had nothing but contempt for religious “obscurantism.” Zionist society, as envisaged by Jabotinsky, was to be liberal, not clerical. Begin, by contrast, has systematically cultivated Orthodox rabbis, and not just for tactical reasons—it is said that even now those who combine Orthodoxy with a belief in the “Land of Israel” concept are the only people to whom he is willing to lend an ear. Jabotinsky, to take another point of contrast, never denied the existence of a Palestinian-Arab people; in a series of articles in the 1920’s he made clear his belief that there was indeed such a people, proud of its traditions, eager for national independence. But it was Jabotinsky’s view that since the Arabs already had so many states of their own, whereas the Jews had none, elementary justice demanded that the claim of the Jews be honored before that of the Palestinians. Begin, on the other hand, has denied the existence of a Palestinian Arab people with an identity of its own.

Yet for all his single-mindedness, Begin too is in the tradition of 19th-century integral nationalism—a tradition that puts the interests of the nation above all other considerations, but that is also democratic in inspiration. (Begin has shown more politeness, even friendliness, to allies and enemies alike than almost any other leading figure in Israeli politics in recent memory.) Like Churchill and de Gaulle, Begin believes that a head of government should be free to concentrate on foreign policy and defense, and that domestic issues can safely be left to the experts. In an age of pragmatism, Begin is a man of firm, deep, and sincerely held convictions, including the conviction that the whole historical Jewish homeland belongs to the people of Israel by right.

Unfortunately, none of this—neither his intellectual and ideological background nor his three decades in parliament as the main spokesman of the opposition—really prepared Begin for his responsibilities as head of a government coalition. And what is worse, there was no one to initiate him into the realities of world politics and power. Over the years Herut had undergone successive splits and purges, and many of those who had shown any inclination toward independent thought had left the party. Intellectuals were never strongly represented in Jabotinsky’s movement, and the same was true with regard to Herut. There was a sprinkling of scientists, technicians, lawyers, and journalists, men and women of accomplishment in their own fields but with no specific competence or knowledge in politics. And so when he became Prime Minister, Begin assembled around him a group of young people who are vaguely reminiscent of the aides who entered the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department after President Carter’s election. These are people who might acquit themselves creditably as managers of a chain of supermarkets, as professors, or as partners in a law firm, but who have suddenly found themselves in positions of power and influence well beyond their capabilities.

Their influence, to be sure, does not extend to the Prime Minister himself, who has not been open to persuasion except perhaps on a tactical level. When confronted with unpleasant facts and figures, Begin likes to maintain that he is by nature an optimist. A true exchange of opinions is hardly possible in these conditions. Begin’s interlocutors are tempted to gloss over differences rather than go over the same ground for the second or third time, and this, in turn, creates the mistaken impression, as far as Begin is concerned, that his own arguments have prevailed: For the Prime Minister is a great believer in the power of the spoken word. His legal training in Poland seems to have persuaded him that, in politics as in jurisprudence, arguments are of paramount importance; he also tends to attribute enormous significance to legal formulations in the conduct of foreign policy. This is not just a matter of style; Begin’s approach has had a decisive impact on the negotiations in Ismailia and Washington.

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III

Despite his reputation for inflexibility, it appeared at first that Begin was actually willing to make more far-reaching concessions in his search for peace than any previous Israeli leader. Even before President Sadat’s mission to Jerusalem, he made it known that he would consider a general peace settlement. On September 11, 1977, the Israeli cabinet approved the text of a proposed treaty between Israel and the Arab states on just these lines.

Nor has the whole history of Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem on November 19 yet been told; once all the details are published, Begin may well emerge with more credit for the early stages of the talks than has so far been given him. There were, in fact, several preparatory meetings, ranging in location from Tangier to Teheran, and details of the statements made “independently” in Jerusalem by the two leaders were closely coordinated, including even Begin’s remark that he preferred a general peace settlement to a separate treaty with Egypt. Sadat’s later statement to an interviewer—“I gave him everything, he gave me nothing”—is quite untrue. The fact that Begin did not accept a total withdrawal to the June 1967 lines, and rejected the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, could not have come as a surprise to Sadat in November. All this has been made clear by Foreign Minister Dayan in his preliminary meetings with various Arab leaders, and it had been stated publicly by Begin a week before Sadat’s visit.

What, then, went wrong during the weeks after the meetings in Jerusalem? When Sadat and Begin met in Ismailia on December 24, 1977, they failed to agree on a “declaration of agreement on principles” because of differences over the Palestinian problem. By January 14, Sadat announced that he had “absolutely no hope” that anything would be achieved at the forthcoming meeting of the political committee in Jerusalem, and he did in fact recall his delegation four days later, accusing Israel of proposing mere “partial solutions.”

Various theories, many of them quite farfetched, have been propounded to explain the breakdown. Some argue that the reason Sadat went to Jerusalem in the first place was that he feared an impending Israeli military attack, and that he drew back the moment he realized no such attack had been contemplated. Others claim that Sadat was acting in bad faith from the beginning, that his visit was a clever tactical move aimed at driving a wedge between Israel and the United States.

These explanations are not really convincing. There is every reason to believe that Sadat’s initiative was genuine. Egypt, after all, had borne the brunt of the Arab struggle for three decades, had sacrificed more than anyone else, and was truly inclined now to bury the hatchet with Israel. Sadat’s initiative was based on the assumption that Begin was a stronger political leader than his predecessors, that he could make concessions which they could not have made. This assumption was at least partly correct, for Israeli foreign policy under Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres had indeed been paralyzed—not least because the Labor leaders were afraid of Begin. And there may have been other factors behind the Sadat visit. United States policy-makers, in one of their periodic fits of lunacy, had approached the Russians in September 1977 with a view toward giving them a greater share in the Middle East peacemaking process, and in October the two superpowers signed a joint statement that harked back to a similarly ill-starred initiative undertaken by Secretary Rogers in 1970. Sadat clearly wanted no part of harebrained schemes of this kind. It was better, despite the risks involved, to talk directly to the Israelis.

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Sadat had two demands as a precondition for peace: Israeli evacuation of Sinai, and agreement on some formula regarding the future of the Palestinians. It is true that, after his visit to Jerusalem, Sadat’s position hardened on some issues—he began, for instance, to insist on Jordanian participation in the talks. Perhaps he had started to feel the pressure of the radicals in the Arab camp, perhaps he hoped that America would force Israel to make greater concessions. But Jordanian participation was apparently not an absolute for Sadat, and there are grounds for thinking that but for the vacillation of the Israeli government on some issues, and the amateurish way in which the negotiations were handled, the original momentum of the peace initiative could have been preserved.

To Sadat’s now somewhat hardened position, Begin responded in Ismailia with a detailed 26-point plan for the inhabitants of the West Bank, which was bound to create friction precisely because it spelled out what should have remained vague, at least for the moment. Far from clarifying the issues, these proposals provoked endless semantic discussions over the meaning of autonomy, self-rule, limited self-rule, and other such terms. Lawyers stepped in where politicians had feared to tread, and from that moment the talks entered a cul-de-sac.

But this was not the only stumbling block. While the negotiations were going on, General Sharon, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture, gave a green light to those Israelis who wanted to establish new settlements in Sinai, and Begin declared that these settlements would not be given up and were to be protected for all time by the Israeli army. The Prime Minister also offered a new interpretation of UN Resolution 242, claiming that it did not necessarily apply to the West Bank. This interpretation was not only rejected by every government in the world, it also differed from the interpretation provided by all previous Israeli governments, including Begin’s own (joint U.S. Israeli declaration of October 5, 1977). In April 1978, this reinterpretation of Resolution 242 was again reinterpreted in a more moderate, or in any case, more obscure way, but by then the damage had been done.

The impression was thus created among Israel’s friends and enemies alike that the Likud government was not really interested in pursuing the peace initiative. True, Begin continued to claim that “everything was negotiable except the destruction of Israel.” But this formula, which encountered disbelief even inside Israel, was naturally given little credence elsewhere. In fact, although Begin did want peace, and although he was aware that he faced a unique political opportunity, he was not clear in his own mind what price he could afford to pay for it in the way of concessions.

Begin’s misgivings in this regard were reinforced by attacks against him at home, which began almost immediately after the Jerusalem meeting. The main attack emanated from the “Rejection Front,” comprising most of Herut, most of the Le’am (“For the Nation”) faction, Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”), and the Greater Israel group. They based their opposition to possible concessions on the West Bank not on considerations of security but on the belief—to which Begin also subscribes—that Judea and Samaria are the historical homeland of the Jewish people and should under no circumstances be given up. And they were almost equally reluctant to make concessions in the Sinai, because they did not believe that the essential Arab hostility to Israel had changed or that the Arabs had ceased to aim at Israel’s destruction.

There was also criticism from certain circles in the Labor Alignment. Some, indeed, tried to outflank Begin on the Right; others, willing to make concessions on the West Bank, were not so willing to do so in Sinai, and pointed to the undeniable military importance of the airfields there; lastly, there were those (in the “agricultural-military complex,” as one unkind critic put it) who had a vested interest in preserving the status quo because of the extensive use they had been making of relatively cheap Arab labor.

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The settlements were perhaps not the most important bone of contention, but they caused the greatest opposition inside Israel and created the most political damage abroad. The basic facts are these: since 1967, 76 settlements have been established beyond the “Green Line,” with some 6,500 inhabitants. They are located in the Golan, the Jordan Valley, in Judea and Samaria, in the Rafiah region, and in the Sinai. Most were set up openly, with the permission and support of the Labor and/or Likud governments; others were established semi-legally, as temporary work camps, or within army bases. And a few, connected with Gush Emunim, were founded against the express wish of the authorities. Successive Israeli governments have closed their eyes to these last settlements, while demanding on occasion that they be evacuated.

The purpose of the settlements has never been made altogether clear. It might be argued abstractly that Jews do have the right to settle wherever they want in historic Palestine (and perhaps also in Transjordan). But given political and military realities, as well as the small number of people in Israel willing to join any new agricultural settlement, it is still hard to understand why priority should have been given for a decade to settlement beyond the Green Line. For during this same period, only 2,000 settlers have pitched their tents inside the 1967 borders, despite the fact that there is sufficient land and that unless new settlements are soon established, Western Galilee will have an Arab majority. From a military point of view, the settlements are of no value; on the contrary, they are likely to hinder operations in a time of war. Economically, many of them are not viable, in view of the high cost of water and the poor quality of the soil.

The problem with most of the settlements is not that they are illegal, as claimed by Secretary of State Vance, but that, with notable exceptions, they have been a waste of people and resources which are in short supply. The Gush Emunim settlements, in particular, are little more than Potemkin Villages. Of the few families living in them, some regard their presence as a political demonstration and have no wish to settle permanently, while others continue to work in Israel but return to the settlements for nights and weekends.

That the settlements were ever allowed to become a major political issue is in a way unforgivable. But a major issue they did become. Ezer Weizman, Minister of Defense, and not known as a dove, told the Prime Minister in a stormy telephone conversation from the United States early this year that he would resign if “one more bulldozer moved in the Sinai.” There were other voices of warning from within the government coalition, too, until it was finally decided to freeze construction of new settlements in the Sinai for the time being but to continue to expand existing ones, with Begin again emphasizing that no settlement would be surrendered in the framework of a peace treaty.

And so the stage was set for Begin’s disastrous visit to the United States last March. In early private meetings with Senator Henry Jackson and former Secretary of State Kissinger, Begin expressed dismay that the plan which he had submitted to President Carter in December, and which had been (he thought) approved by the President, was subsequently rejected. Carter, for his part, claimed that he had thought Begin’s plan merely a preliminary negotiating position, not a rock-hard stance. He complained that the Israelis had taken a slight nod of the head for a ringing endorsement. At the end of the meetings, Carter listed Begin’s “no’s,” which, in addition to the issue of the settlements, all concerned the meaning and scope of Resolution 242. Begin, according to Carter, had refused to commit himself to withdrawing from any portion of the West Bank or the Gaza Strip at any time, irrespective of security arrangements that might be included as part of an agreement. He had rejected the American proposal for a limited-choice referendum on the West Bank and Gaza Strip following a five-year transition period. And he had refused to acknowledge the legitimate rights of the Palestinians because, he claimed, this would lead eventually to an independent Palestinian state threatening Israel’s heartland.

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President Carter’s summary of Begin’s position, while unfairly stressing the negative, was basically correct. A glum Begin returned to Israel, and the dispatch of Weizman to Cairo on March 31 did nothing to remedy the situation. Weizman had gotten along considerably better on a personal level with Sadat and the other Egyptian leaders than had Begin and Dayan, but this time his reception was brusque, even unfriendly. As for Begin, upon his return he received an overwhelming vote of confidence in the Knesset. But even among those who expressed their confidence in him, there were many who felt great unease about the record of his government.

They were uneasy about more than foreign policy. When the Likud assumed power, it had been widely believed that at long last Israel had a government with a strong sense of purpose. It was expected that an end would come to the strikes which had paralyzed the economy, that bureaucratic interference would be reduced and incompetence stamped out, that a stop would be put to the chronic overspending which had resulted in an inflation rate of 40 per cent. And indeed the new government did take some daring steps during its first months. The pound was floated, most exchange controls were abolished, and there were massive cuts in subsidies. Simha Ehrlich, the new finance minister, did sincerely try to reduce spending and balance the budget. But after a short time he found himself confronting the same pressures his predecessors had faced, and he was not notably more successful in dealing with them. During the winter and spring, strikes spread throughout the public sector, and while the government held out in some instances, more often it had to give in to wage demands. Hoped-for investments from abroad failed to materialize. In short, after a promising beginning, the Likud government came to look no different from what had come before.

Even more disconcerting was the political disarray within the coalition. Ezer Weizman quarreled with both the Prime Minister and General Sharon; Moshe Dayan, who had some of the qualities needed by a foreign minister but lacked others, was bitterly attacked by Moshe Arens, the new head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, and an expert in aircraft technology rather than in world affairs. Shmuel Katz, an old Herut stalwart who had been made special adviser on information, resigned from the government and frontally attacked Begin, Weizman, and Dayan. In this he was joined by other influential Herut supporters and new converts like Moshe Shamir, the novelist, who demanded Dayan’s resignation.

By the end of the first year, the Liberals, one element in the coalition, were manifesting distinct unhappiness. The Democratic Movement for Change, another element, found itself in a state of disintegration. There were many resignations, and of the remaining party, half was in favor of staying in the government while the other half pressed to dissolve the partnership. As for Labor, it had yet to recover from its 1977 defeat or to constitute itself as any sort of alternative in political life. And meanwhile, outside the traditional political structure, a new movement came into being, “Peace Now,” led by army reserve officers who questioned Begin’s policy vis-à-vis Sadat and announced that peace without settlements beyond the Green Line was preferable to settlements without peace.

This was the situation in April. Begin again visited Washington in early May, when the atmosphere seemed friendlier and the differences between the Carter administration and the Israeli line seemed to have narrowed down considerably. It was made clear that according to the American blueprint, Israel would be able to retain military outposts on the West Bank during the interim period and beyond, and that a permanent settlement there would be based substantially upon the home-rule proposal put forward by Begin.

Yet if there was some advance in this direction, there were setbacks in another context. The package-deal sale of fighter planes to Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia was an issue which Israel could not win, and the political defeat was only aggravated by the disproportionate significance that was attached to it. Still, the implications of that defeat for the future are ominous, and the same may be said of the open dissent now being voiced in Israel and among American Jews over Israeli policy. Israel can ill afford a “second front” at this time, and Israel’s enemies will be only too eager to publicize these critical voices. But the dissent should be taken seriously, for it reflects the erosion of an earlier consensus. That consensus existed so long as Israeli foreign and defense policy was based on the legitimate security interests of the state. Once an attempt was made to shift the emphasis, to base foreign policy on, in effect, the platform of a single political party, polarization in public opinion became inevitable. That Begin is not a consensus politician has always been one of the main sources of his political strength. But at the same time it is this which jeopardizes the Israeli position at a time when unity is needed more than ever before.

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IV

For a few weeks in November and December 1977, there was a chance for an agreement between Israel and Egypt. Once the settlements became a bone of contention, once legal formulations became as important as matters of substance, the opportunity receded. Sadat reverted to his old demand that Israel withdraw from all territories, and Begin went back to quoting Scripture.

Today, it is still the case that a separate peace with Egypt is the most desirable of outcomes. There is, of course, no certainty that such an agreement with Egypt would hold. Sadat could suddenly disappear from the political scene, and a more radical or aggressively pan-Arab leadership might take over in Cairo. Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai would involve palpable risks. But the conduct of policy always involves risks, and in this case the risks are not that formidable. There was, and is, a great deal of support in Egypt for a settlement with Israel, and a great deal of discontent with the other Arab countries whose solidarity with Egypt has been mostly of the verbal kind. Sadat’s successor could fairly be counted on to take a line similar to his, and to put Egypt’s national interest before that of the Arab “cause.”

A successful outcome to the negotiations with Egypt would remove the prospect of war in the Middle East, and would strengthen Israel’s position both in the Middle East and in the world at large. Whether it would lead to a settlement on the West Bank is far less certain. It is Begin’s misfortune to have become Prime Minister precisely at a time when the hard choices more or less successfully postponed by his predecessors were at last put on the historical agenda. And it has to be said that even if Begin were to demonstrate all the qualities of a Richelieu, a Disraeli, or a Bismarck, even if he had at his disposal the best advisers and assistants in the world, even if his course of action were not dictated by the dead hand of the past (or the voice of Scripture), it is difficult to see how he could resolve the problem of two peoples claiming the same land.

It has been said in Washington that no one really expects Israel to withdraw from the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, and no one really expects that an independent Palestinian state will be set up. According to the various schemes that have been proposed in recent years, the West Bank and Gaza would be demilitarized; Israel would not claim sovereignty over the area but would merely retain some defensive outposts; self-rule would be granted to the Palestinian Arabs under the tutelage of Israel, Jordan, and, if necessary, Egypt. But would Palestinian Arabs accept a scheme of this kind, which would leave them with less territory than a West Bank-Gaza mini-state, with no control over defense or foreign policy, with their citizenship determined by Jordan, a country only slightly less resented than Israel? It seems unlikely in the extreme. The Palestinians are told that these schemes should be considered provisional; after five years there would be free elections in which they would have the right to decide freely their own future. If true, this would be a sensational new experiment—the first free elections for a very long time anywhere in the Arab world.

Anyway, this plan is opposed by the Israeli government because it would be nothing but a roundabout road toward the establishment of an independent state run by the PLO, a solution opposed by virtually all Israelis for reasons which have nothing to do with the theological beliefs of Begin and Gush Emunim. It is all very well to argue that under the American plan the Palestinians would be part of Jordan; what would prevent them from taking over and radicalizing a country in which they would constitute the majority? And Jordan, too, has so far shown no willingness to be party to a deal of this kind. Hussein already has too many Palestinians in his kingdom, and his past experience with them has been none too happy.

To break the deadlock, the idea has been broached of American guarantees for Israel and some Arab countries, with the overall aim of a regional nonaggression pact. The United States, according to this blueprint, would have an air base in Sinai and a naval base at Jaffa or Haifa, and would in turn enter into specific treaty obligations with regard to the territorial integrity of the countries involved. But there is little enthusiasm for any such plan in Israel and Egypt, even if one takes for granted congressional approval and an American ability or willingness to live up to such a commitment five or ten years hence, in an area much closer to the Soviet Union than to the United States. Given the reluctance of the present administration to match the continuing Soviet military build-up, the question arises of how much any U.S. guarantee is likely to be worth in the 1980’s. There would, in addition, be the greatest reluctance in Egypt to accept any scheme that smacks of 19th-century “capitulations.” It took the Egyptians a long time to get rid of their British bases; they would be unlikely to welcome new ones. Nor would such bases be welcomed in Israel; psychological considerations apart, it is not at all clear what security they would provide. They might be of help against a full-scale attack, but they would be of no use against missiles fired into Tel Aviv or Ben-Gurion airport, operations sufficient to cause grave dislocation but not sufficient to invoke the treaty obligations. Not that the idea of a base or a defense treaty should be dismissed out of hand; but it is an idea which would make sense only as one component of a general settlement, if acceptable to all concerned.

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What, then, is to be done about the West Bank? The hard truth is that there is no fully satisfactory solution, only a choice among various evils. Begin has said that everything is open to discussion except the destruction of Israel; this means, necessarily, that annexation of the West Bank by Israel is ruled out. And since Israel cannot occupy the West Bank indefinitely without clarifying its status, this in turn means that what must be envisaged is some form of autonomy and, indeed, independence.

According to some observers, the PLO has changed over the last year or two and become more moderate; according to others, it has been weakened through internal splits. But in its new program (March 1977) the Palestinian National Council made no attempt to modify the provisions of its charter, which are incompatible with the continued existence of Israel, and it rejected Resolution 242. Meeting again in August 1977, it failed to pass even a modified version of Resolution 242. Ever since Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, it has been the prime mover against Egyptian “treachery” and for the establishment of an “Arab Confrontation and Resistance Front.”

Not too much importance, perhaps, should be attributed to the PLO’s public announcements. Even an endorsement of Resolution 242 could be a mere tactical move, or perhaps signify the temporary victory of a moderate faction. The decisive test is not what the Palestinians say about recognizing Israel, but what they do. Nor is it of paramount importance what kind of constitutional arrangement would be made for a Palestinian Arab state. The military danger it would present can be reduced not by constitutional guarantees but only by a security pact—for instance, a treaty of friendship, cooperation, and mutual assistance between it and Israel similar to that concluded between Poland (1956) or Hungary (1957) and the Soviet Union. According to those treaties, the temporary presence of Soviet troops does not affect Polish or Hungarian sovereignty and does not lead to interference in the domestic affairs of the countries concerned; no Soviet troop movements outside specified areas are permitted without the authorization of the local government. It goes without saying that the treaties preclude the establishment of any third-party military bases or the presence of any foreign troops.

An independent Palestinian entity would obviously entail serious dangers, and not just for Israel. It is possible that the Palestinians, if given a mini-state of this kind, would start fighting each other—as the Irish did after gaining independence in 1921. Although some Arab countries would lose interest in the Palestinian cause once there was a state, others would certainly be tempted to intervene, and the result could be a new Lebanon on a larger scale; again the Irish precedent is anything but encouraging. And how could one reasonably expect the Soviet Union to pass up the opportunity to acquire an ideal base of operations, extending help to a defenseless state in need of a strong protector? In short, the prospects that a state of this kind would constitute a permanent irredentist force are greater than the chances of peaceful coexistence. For all these reasons, it is most unlikely that any Israeli government would accept the establishment of a Palestinian state unless it had guarantees reducing the dangers to a minimum. And the only effective guarantee one can envision at present is a long-term military presence.

But it should not be forgotten that if a Palestinian state would create dangers for Israel, such a state would itself be in an exposed position. If it engaged in military adventures against Israel, it would suffer at least as much as southern Lebanon has. Colonel Qaddafi of Libya recently told a German correspondent that Israel could not possibly permit the establishment of a Palestinian entity because it would mean the beginning of the end of the Jewish state. It may not have occurred to Qaddafi that attacks against Israel would also be perilous indeed for such an entity.

Recently the PLO has drawn much closer to the Soviet Union, but this rapprochement has also isolated the PLO, for many Arab countries have become increasingly apprehensive about Soviet intentions in the Middle East; events in Africa have shown that the Soviet Union now feels strong enough to engage in military intervention by proxy. The attitude of Saudi Arabia toward Israel is anything but friendly, but Saudi Arabia does not feel threatened by Israel; it would feel threatened by an irredentist Palestinian state representing Soviet interests in the Middle East. The same refers to Egypt and even the United States. To survive in a hostile climate, a Palestinian Arab state would have to be on its best behavior. One should not underrate the political intelligence and the instinct for self-preservation of the Palestinians, including perhaps the PLO.

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All this is not to minimize the dangers involved in granting even limited autonomy to the West Bank. Why, then, should it be tried? Because there is no other way, and it should be done from a position of strength rather than weakness; the errors of omission between 1967 and 1973 should not be repeated. Because the demographic factor, the presence of a million Arabs, cannot be forever ignored; because for a majority of Israelis, national security, and not the voice of Scripture, is the decisive consideration as far as borders are concerned; because the national security of a small country depends not only on territories but on a great many other things, including some measure of foreign support; and because Israel, unlike China, cannot withdraw into total isolation and defy the rest of the world. General Eitan, the new Chief of Staff, recently claimed that Israel cannot be defended without the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Most of his predecessors seem not to agree with him. And in any event, provisions for the defense of Israel will have to be made irrespective of whatever political solution may be arrived at; what is more to the point than territories, Israel cannot be defended without a steady supply of modern weapons systems—systems which are not produced in Israel.

It is one of the ironies of history that Israel may one day have to grant to the Palestinian Arabs the very autonomy which the Arab governments refused to give them between 1948 and 1967. From that stage on, it will be up to the Palestinians themselves to decide whether the experiment leads to some form of uneasy coexistence or to further bloodshed ending possibly in the destruction of their homeland.

¹ The demographic problem facing Israel is briefly as follows: within the pre-1967 borders there now live 3 million Jews and about 600,000 Arabs (17 per cent). If we add those living on the West Bank and in Gaza, the total number of Arabs amounts to 1.7 million (36 per cent). The growth rate of the Jewish population is 1.75 per cent, that of Israeli Arabs is 4 per cent; the rate is 3.75 per cent on the West Bank and Gaza. Projections show that in thirty years, or less, there will be more Arabs than Jews in the areas at present under Israeli control. It is likely that the Arab birth rate will decline, but such changes usually take place over longer periods.