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2 Friday, June 26, 198i
THE 'DETROIT JEVIII H :NEWS
Purely Commentary
An Election With a Luring Effect on International
Concerns . . . Israel's Policies, Ideologies . . . Glory
of Right to Dissent and Role of Lonely Dissenter
By Philip
Slomovitz
Israel's June 30 Election, the Bitter Conflicts, the Normality of Campaigning
Israel's approaching election on Tuesday has attracted worldwide interest. The
results will be watched with as keen concern as the political controversies elsewhere and
especially in the United States.
As a guideline for the tens of thousands of the interested students of affairs in Israel
and the Middle East, the following chart of the political parties now occupying seats in
the Israel Knesset should be helpful:
1973
1977
1981
45
39
39
Likud Bloc
(20)
Herut
(12)
Liberal
(4)
Laeam
Rafi
(3)
32
34
51
Labor Alignment
Labor Party
(29)
Mapam
(5)
10
12
12
National Religious Party
15
Democratic Movement for Change
Now Split Into:
3
Democratic Movement
6
Shinui
3
Ahva
5
Torah Religious-Front
4
4
Agudat Israel
1
_ 1
Poalei Agudat Israel
4
5
5
New Communist (Rakah)
1
2
2
Shell
4
1
1
Independent Liberal Party
3
1
1
Citizens Rights Movement
1
1
Flatto-Sharon
3
1
1
United Arab List
(affiliated with Labor)
2
Tehiya
5
Unaffiliated
If all of the parties competing for seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, were to be
listed, much more printed space would be required. There are 31 political parties on the
ballot for the Israel electorate to choose from on Tuesday. While the Labor Alignment and
the Likud are the major contenders, it would be sheer folly to ignore the fact that the
religious ranks play equally as vital a role in the contest, that the National Religious
Party may retain the balance of power in the formation of the next government, no
matter who predominates.
- This is a fact not to be ignored. Unable to attain a majority, whoever wins must turn
to third parties for numerical strength to form a governing coalition. This is the run in the
issue: Likud and Menahem Begin can be blamed all one wishes, the truth remaining that
in the formation of new settlements, in the suppression of the rights of the Conservative
and Reform Jews, in the religious domination in the land, the NRP dominates and the
ruling forces bend their knees and submit.
In the current election there are other factors that may have an influence in the
attainment of power. No matter how insignificant the minor parties, they may draw
away enough votes from the Labor Alignment to give the edge to Likud and Menahem
Begin. -
This is the first time in Isrgel's political history that so much bitterness has been
injected in a contest for power. There is more name-calling than ever. Political violence
has added to the confusion.
Name-calling, however, is not new to Israel's politicians. Menahem Begin and David
Ben-Gurion had many tiffs in the Knesset and in public arenas in earlier years, and
names they called each other shocked the parliamentarians of 'all parties.
Now Prime Minister Begin is accused of utilizing his position in a manner affecting
The Normality of Dissent:
Role of Balfour Brickner
In Israel, reportedly, sentiment was unanimous in ap-
proval of the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq.
Elsewhere, Israel was an available target for severe
criticism.
A few courageous editorial writers called attention to
the services that were rendered, for the benefit of a safer
mankind by the Israeli act.
Representatives of Jewish movements in the United
States defended the bombing as a necessity in Israel's self-
defense motivations. As a tribute to democratic indepen-
dent thinking, there was a dissenter. Balfour Brickner
criticized the act:
BALFOUR BRICKNER
STEPHEN WISE
Israel's position in international ranks with the power he has exercised in the form of the
bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq, his threats to Syria on the subject of the missiles
based in Lebanon and in other forms which are charged with having harmed relations
with the United States. The quest for power seems, however, to justify all means which
affirm the-old saying that "all is fair in love and war," except that added to it also is "all is
fair in politics . ."
Himself a stormy petrel, Meanhem Begin is the chief target of Likud's opponents in
this bitterly-contested campaign. Begin is accused of demagoguery. More than that: he is
charged with being a one-man party and the appeal to the Israeli voters assumed extreme
proportions. Abba Eban and Chaim Herzog have played leading roles in condemnations
of Begin. An interesting angle in the attacks on the prime minister's appeal for retention
of leadership was incorporated in an article in the May 29 issue of the Jerusalem Post in
which Meir Merhav, writing under the title, "The Gathering Gloom," accused Begin of
making unwise selections of associates in his government personnel and his selection of
successors. He especially criticizes the possible selection of Yaacov Meridor and hewarns
that Begin is an one-man party, declaring:
Begin's is a one-man government. His heir-apparent, Yaacov Mend
is a man-who is even older than himself and who, having been busy for 4111,
decades in making money here, there and everywhere, is a strangek to the
real Israel.
-Even if one were willing to grant Begin himself all the leadership he has
failed to demonstrate, one must remember that he is an elderly and very ill
man. After him there is no Likud; no Herut; only functionaries.
To elect him for another 41/2 years may, at some point in time, mean that
the fate of the country will be placed in totally incompetent hands. That is
the darnkess that looms ahead.
That's how the big battle stacks up in Israel. Tuesday will be an exciting day for
Israelis with an inspired keen interest in the results globally.
If only there could be a majority for the dominant party. The influence of the fringes
would be eliminated and the country could settle down to making decisions without
tongue-in-cheek obstructions.
Next Wednesday will provide relief from many of the tensions for many Israelis. It
will offer new food for thought for the rest of the world in relation to the Israel that is such
an important entity on the world scene.
That Israel's election and the contest involving the status of the Likud Party and
Menahem Begin's political future has become a world cause celebre became espe-
cially obvious in a New York Times Op-Ed Page article June 22 by Flora Lewis. Writing
from Paris, under the title "Decision for Israelis," Miss Lewis penned a most devastating
analysis of Begin and Likud, describing them as menacing to Israel and to the world. She
warns that Begin's re-election would be calamitous. She refers to Begin as "a stubborn,
narrow-minded man, whose vision is limited to denouncing the past. "As much as Israel's
first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, used his daring and resolve to shape the future,
Mr. Begin uses his great political skill and stamina to deny it," she wrote.
Shimon Peres seems to have been given more than a week to utilize this article as a
campaign weapon. No one in Israel, even among the extremist of Likud's opponents,
could have been more brutal in an attack on an opponent at the polls.
The question arises whether readers of this piece will concede that Begin's re-
election could mean the undermining of the peace plans with Egypt, whether Israel's
economic future would be undermined by retention of Likud in power, whether Flora
Lewis should be taken seriously when she declares in rieiNYTinaes article:
"There are no new Ben-Gurions on the Israeli horizon, but there is a choice in Israel
next week between plunging blindly toward catastrophe or averting it. It is too important
for Israel's own sake and for the rest of the world to let partisan emotions of the moment
black out the future."
Will Israelis heed this as sound advice, or will it be treated as an intrusion into the
sovereignty of independent political thinking?
This remains to be seen and the judgment of the Israelis will be of great interest to
the world at large.
Meanwhile, Likud marches forth with polls predicting its victory. There is a political
confidence in Likud's ranks, emphasized in advertising appeals, one of them asserting:
"PEACE . . . It is just the BEGINning."
A dissenting note came from Rabbi Balfour
Brickner, of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in
New York. He said he had been "dismayed and
troubled" by Israel's raid on Iraq as not in the
best interest of Israel."
"No nation can arbitrarily thumb its nose at the
world, destroying what it perceives as a threat to
its security," Rabbi Brickner said.' "Israel does
not live in a vacuum. She is part of an interna-
tional community and dependent on that commu-
nity for aid and peace."
It was Henry James who said that there are times
when a single person, confronting the world, may prove to
be right in a dispute. In the Brickner case it may well be
argued that this particular dissident has aligned himself
with a destructive majority.
After all, the dissenters in the current experience are
the few, the very few, editorial writers who have called
attention to the justice of Israel's decisions in her defensive
methods. Therefore, in the Iraqi bombing case, the media
dissenters are the minority with Israel and her friends that
will prove to be correct.
Nevertheless, Balfour Brickner should be a welcome
maverick in Jewish ranks. How else can a just case be
strengthened, unless there is a devil's advocate, someone
with a challenge to be tested as much as disputed?
Balfour Brickner certainly is not an echo of the giant in
the Reform rabbinate, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, who was Rabbi
Brickner's predecessor as rabbi of the Free Synagogue of
New York. Rabbi Brickner would have embarrassed the
eminent founder of the Free Synagogue, in the pulpit of
which Rabbi Wise thundered for justice for the Jew and for
Israel. There is so much unanimity for Israel in the current
dispute that a dissent could be questionable.
Those who were associated with the elder Brickner, the
eloquent Rabbi Barnett Brickner, the father of the current
dissenter, may wish to make a comparison. The elder
Brickner was also a dissenter. He was among the minority
of Reform rabbis who defied the majority in their Zionist
allegiance. Now the son is the,critic. As stated: because he
helps place issues on the agenda, the dissenter Balfour
Brickner deserves being treated kindly. After all, he re-
mains in the minority.
Moral Hypocrisy Over Iraq
By RABBI MARC
TANENBAUM
A Seven Arts Feature
Much of the politcal reac-
tion of governments and
pundits to Israel's destruc-
tion of the Iraqi nuclear
reactor is simply more of
that moral hypocrisy which
- holds the victim responsible
for his victimization.
No fair-minded person
who separates out the pious,
self-righteous rhetoric of in-
stant condemnation from
the brutal facts of reality
can conclude anything
other than that Israel had
no alternative but to carry
out its brilliant defensive
strike against that Iraqi
death-factory.
When it became known
that France's Giscard d'Es-
taing had concluded a cyni-
cal deal with Iraq for trad-
ing oil for enric
uranium, Israeli lea
spent two years in inted
diplomatic activity trying to
persuade both France and
Italy not to hand over
nuclear-bomb-making
capability to the war-
rattling Iraqis.
In fact, it is now known
that Saudi Arabia, fearful of
Iraq's imperialist strategies
in the Persian Gulf, secretly
protested to France for the
same reason.