SPECIAL REPORT

Dr. Gabi Sheffer, an expert
in U.S.-Israeli relations at
the Hebrew University.
Superpower disen-
gagement, it was thought,
might even include a studied
indifference to the Israel-
Palestinian conflict — as
long as the intifada (upris-
ing) did not threaten to pro-
voke a full-scale Arab-Israeli
conflict.
None of the experts be-
lieved that the superpowers,
having opted to end their
competition for regional su-
premacy, were in any mood
to continue beating their
heads against a problem
that has proved so intrac-
table for more than 40 years.
In one sense, Sheffer says,
recent events have played
into the hands of Israel's
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir, affording him an
opportunity to avoid mak-
ing any concessions over the
occupied territories.
"The slogan today is
realpolitik," Sheffer says.
"And that suits Shamir per-
fectly. The Palestinians un-
derstand very well what is
happening and they are de-
pressed. Most of us at the
university are depressed.
"We have a total impasse
here. All the trends that are
sweeping Eastern Europe are
going to bypass the Middle
East. Neither of the super-
powers is going to intervene
here. There will be no new
leverages to break the cur-
rent deadlock."
The result, he warns
gloomily, will be a conflict
between Israel and the Pal-
estinians that will continue
to poison both peoples, leav-
ing Israel to slide into "a
swamp, a mediocre
backwater."
That prognosis, while
heard frequently, is coupled
with the conviction that the
fruits of glasnost have ser-
ved to strengthen Israel's
hand by allowing the Jewish
state to be both flexible and
generous in its approach to
the Palestinian conflict.
For Professor Moshe
Maoz, one of Israel's most
respected Middle East
historians, Israel's greatest
problem is that it "suffers
from a surfeit of politicians
and a lack of statesmen.
"The Palestinians, who
have sacrificed so much,
know the power of Jewish
immigration," he says.
"They are afraid and frus-
trated. They see that Shamir
has been strengthened, and
this may push them to even
more violence."
Ari Rath, former editor of

the Jerusalem Post, echoes
the gloomy sentiments, but
warns that it is a dangerous
illusion to imagine that time
is now on Israel's side.
"With so many barriers
coming down and a new
order emerging, it is un-
thinkable that the world will
let Israel get away with the
status quo," Rath said.
"The longer we wait, the
higher the price we'll pay.
Because eventually there
will be a solution imposed by
the superpowers. And if we
don't deal with the PLO di-
rectly, the next step will be
the fundamentalists. Life is
not standing still."
Israel's opponents of ter-
ritorial compromise concur
with Rath's general analysis
but reach different conclu-
sions. Life has not stood
still, but it has altered reali-
ty in Israel's favor, they say.
Ideas that appeared incon-
trovertibly true just a few
weeks ago have been turned
upside down.
Yisrael Medad, American-
born spokesman of the na-
tionalist Tehiya Party,
which advocates the im-
mediate, formal annexation
of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, is now able to declare
that the demographic threat
facing Israel has passed. It
is the Jews, he says, who
have the Arabs on the hip.
Dr. Yossi Olmert, a Mid-
dle East specialist at Tel
Aviv University and direc-
tor of the Government Press
Office, also perceives events
having been turned on their
head.
"The PLO thought that
time was on their side," he
says. "They thought they
had a monopoly on the mo-
mentum of events. They de-
picted Israel as a collapsing
venture.
"Now it seems that Israel
has a new lease on life. We
are in a position to dictate
the course of events because
we are much stronger and,
at the end of the day, hold
better cards than the Pales-
tinians."
Those Israelis who once
warned that a failure to set-
tle the Palestinian problem
meant an inevitable drift
toward war are now, very
cautiously, changing their
tune. An end to superpower
rivalry in the region, they
concede, will greatly reduce
the likelihood of another full-
scale Arab-Israel war.

Superpower Play
For some years now, the
Israelis have sat on the side-

❑

THE NEW EXODUS

lines watching Gorbachev
lecture his Arab clients on
the need to abandon the mil-
itary option and pursue a po-
litical settlement with Isra-
el.
"Now the bomb has
dropped," says Aharon
Levran, a retired general
who was formerly associated
with Tel Aviv University's
Center for Strategic Studies.
"They know that he means
it."
Gorbachev has backed his
words with deeds. Moscow's
clients have been informed
that they will be supplied
only with the weapons
systems that can be paid for
in hard currency. Over the
past five years, the Soviets
have halved their military
supplies to Syria, their
closest Middle East ally,
and are now massively
reducing the number of their
"military advisors" on
Syrian soil.
The loss of an effective
superpower patron will be a
heavy blow to Arab states—
particularly Syria — which
have placed so much empha-
sis on defeating Israel by
force of arms.
Levran is hopeful that
when hostile Arab states
come to realize that "they
have to stand on their own
feet, they may become more
realistic, think twice before
doing anything dramatic
and come to terms with Is-
rael. Without wanting to ex-
aggerate or be premature, I
think there will come a day
when even radical states like
Syria will switch to the A-
merican camp altogether.
After all, who needs a
superpower that is not pre-
pared to play a superpower
role?"
Levran is convinced that
the possibility of another
war has diminished. Israel
learned in Lebanon that mil-
itary might does not trans-
late into political gains. And
the Arab states learned from
the Gulf War that the
absence of a superpower pa-
tron who supplies weapons,
spare parts and political
support, renders warfare a
dangerous, futile exercise.
But the superpowers are
unlikely to leave the region
untended for long, says Dr.
Galia Golan, a Soviet spe-
cialist at the Hebrew Univ-
ersity.
"At some point," she
says, "they are going to
have to deal with the Middle
East, particularly in terms
of the proliferation of mis-
siles and nuclear and chemi-
cal weapons. They are also

going to want to end con-
flicts that interfere with the
winding down of the Cold
War, arms control and gen-
eral demilitarization."
When that moment
comes, Israel could find
itself in a tight corner, for
even if the superpowers stop
short of imposing a settle-
ment on regional conflicts,
they could apply pressures
greater than anything Israel
has experienced to date.
"Israel's dilemma is that
it has no margin for maneu-
ver," says Levran, who ad-
vocates coming up with a
plan now to deal with the
pressure —diplomatic, psy-
chological, economic and po-
litical — that is sure to
come.
The official, sober gov-
ernment line is that nothing
will really change until full
diplomatic relations are es-
tablished with the Soviet
Union. Plus, Golan cautions
that the Soviet bureaucracy,
like the State Department,
has its Arabists who are
unhappy about the prospect
of a complete reconciliation
with the Jewish state.
"But everything short of
that is in place — consular
delegations, high level polit-
ical visits, the Habimah
Theater in Moscow, teachers
[and] sports teams," Golan
says. "The situation is
probably better today than

it was before the Soviets
broke relations with Israel
in 1967."

Economic Shifts

There is no doubt that the
sight of Soviet and East Eu-
ropean diplomats in Jerusa-
lem — as well as diplomatic
relations with a growing
number of African states —
has quickened the pace of
Israel's collective heartbeat.
The demise of the automatic
anti-Israel voting bloc in in-
ternational forums now ap-
pears near an end.
Even more important are
the economic implications of
current developments in the
Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe. It is a subject that
is treated with extreme cau-
tion in Jerusalem. Some
analysts point out that an
end of the Cold War could
mean good news for Israel's
ailing agricultural sector,
but hard times for its mas-
sive military-industrial
complex.
East European nations,
whose economies have been
wrecked by years of Com-
munist mismanagement, are
turning to Israel for exper-
tise in agriculture and high-
technology, giving Israel a
trade boost at the very mo-
ment when some of its estab-
lished markets are being se-
riously threatened by the

Sharansky: trying to placate angry Sephardim while championing the
cause of Soviet Jews.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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