3 w; 0.14..4-iitimis44 . - 4rut: ■ Arifiliksk 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.