Next Generation

Continued from preceding page

But if Labor has closed the quantitative
gap, the Likud clearly leads in quality.
Labor's young guard are mostly anony-
mous party hacks, back-benchers without
an individual power base or a clear public
image. None have cabinet level jobs, and
only three — Ramon, Deputy Finance
Minister Yossie Beillin and Avrum Burg,
a former peace activist and son of long-
time National Religious Party Leader
Yosef Burg — are at all well known. Some
of the others have proven disappointing.
One Micha Goldman, a protege of Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was recently ex-
posed for having impersonated an army of-
ficer and faked his educational
background.
The Likud, on the other hand, is now
reaping the rewards of its head start. Four
of its young leaders — Moshe Katzav, Ron-
nie Milo, Dan Meridor and Ehud Olmert
— are cabinet ministers. Benyamin
Netanyahu, the former ambassador to the
U.N., is Deputy Foreign Minister. And
several of the others, including Benyamin
Begin and David Magen, are powerful
figures in party circles.
The impact of these young politicos is
already obvious in the Likud and the
government. Meridor, Milo and Olmert, all
attorneys, are among Prime Minister Yitz-
hak Shamir's closest advisers, and played
a role in shaping his Peace Plan. Netan-
yahu is a confidant of Foreign Minister
Moshe Arens. And David Magen played a
key part in the Likud's near sweep of this
year's municipal elections.
The young generation of Likud politi-
cians can be generally divided into two
groups, "princes" and "paupers:' The
princes — Olmert, Meridor, Milo,
Netanyahu, Benny Begin, and MKs Uzi
Landau and Tzachi Nanegbi — are the sons
of prominent Likud figures. They have
known one another all their lives, and they
provide the party with a sense of ideologi-
cal and personal cohesiveness and continui-
ty. Although many of them are talented,
they owe their relatively premature success
primarily to family connections.
As a group, the princes are well
educated, sophisticated and financially
secure. Most have professional degrees
and, despite their youth, they have already
amassed an impressive amount of ex-
perience. Olmert, who is Foreign Minister
Arens' candidate for Ambassador to the
United States, has served in the Knesset
for more than 15 years; Meridor was
cabinet secretary and close personal ad-
, viser to Menachem Begin during the war
in Lebanon; and Milo served as Deputy
Foreign Minister in the last government.
Politically, the princes' political appeal
extends beyond the Likud's normal work-
ing class, ethnic base into the white-collar
bastion of Labor. They grew up among the
WASPS (White-Askenazi-Sabra-Paratroop-
ers) and, as the children of prominent
Beginites, learned the art of getting along
with their political enemies. Justice

26

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1989

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

a gifted orator who speaks English without the trace of an accent, the former UN Ambassador is said to have an
ego as large as his talent.

.

Minister Dan Meridor, an elegant, soft-
spoken Jerusalemite and Benny Begin, a
geologist known for his personal honesty
and modesty, are especially popular with
left-leaning Israeli yuppies.
The "paupers," on the other hand, are
self-made men (there are almost no women
among the young politicos) from the
Sephardic blue-collar class. Minister of
Transportation Moshe Katzav, MKs David
Magen, Ovadia Eli, and Jewish Agency
treasurer Meir Shitreet all immigrated to
Israel as children from Middle Eastern
countries, were raised in desolate, outlying
"development towns" and eventually
became mayors of those towns. As a result
they have independent power bases, which
the princes lack. Collectively the paupers
are less affluent and polished than their
Ashkenazi contemporaries, but this is a
political advantage; it gives them authen-
ticity in the eyes of their constituents.
Thus far, the infusion of so many influen-
tial young politicians into the Likud has
had very little impact on the party's basic
policies. Allowing for differences in
temperament and style, there is a surpris-
ing uniformity in their ideological posi-
tions. The "paupers" tend to be economic
populists who focus primarily on domestic
issues; the princes lean toward a more neo-
conservative fiscal outlook, and are apt to
be more sensitive to the international
scene. But on the key question of the
future of the West Bank and Gaza, they do
not deviate from the Likud orthodoxy —
the indivisibility of the Land of Israel and

opposition to the "land-for-peace" formula
of the Israeli left.
Several years ago Moshe Amirav, then an
obscure member of the Likud's central
committee, conducted talks with promi-
nent West Bank Palestinians known to
have close ties to the PLO. When these
talks became public, Amirav was drummed
out of the party, but not before claiming
that Ehud Olmert and Dan Meridor had
known about them and tacitly approved.
Olmert and Meridor hotly denied this,
however; and both spent considerable ef-
fort to fortify their hawkish credentials
before the most recent Likud nominating
convention.
Despite their denials, many foreign
diplomats and journalists, and even some
Israelis, believe that Meridor, Olmert and,
to a lesser extent Benny Begin and Moshe
Katzav, are closet doves, pragmatists
prepared to agree to a territorial com-
promise. This, however, is wishful thinking.
The difference between such young
"moderates" and their "hawkish" contem-
poraries — Netanyahu, Uzi Landau and
David Magen — is largely one of style, not
substance. A future government domin-
ated by them could be expected to continue
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's present
policies, although it would certainly ex-
press them in softer tones, more attuned
to American sensibilities.
Given the geriatric nature of Israeli
politics, it may be some time before the
young politicians take control of the Likud.
An interim generation, made up of David
Levy, Ariel Sharon and Moshe Arens, is

