UP FRONT

Israel's Labor Pains

On the eve of the Labor Party convention,
serious identity problems have emerged.

INA FRIEDMAN

Special to The Jewish News

T

he election year in
Israel is being in-
itiated not by the
Likud but by the opposition
Labor Party, which is
holding the first part of its
convention this week.
In some ways, the three-
day meeting could not have
come at a more inopportune
time. While surveys have
repeatedly shown that the
majority of Israelis are ready
to relinquish territory in
exchange for peace, which
has been the Labor Party's
platform for years, a poll
published last Friday found
that the electorate is
nonetheless moving away
from Labor and strongly to
the right.
The paradox has left many
a pundit scratching his head,
but the findings are in-
disputable. If elections were
held today, the Likud would
pick up 3 percent more of the
vote than it did in 1988 (for a
total of 37 percent), but
Labor would lose a whopping
9.5 percent of the support it

Ina Friedman reports from
Jerusalem.

culled three years ago, slipp-
ing sharply from 31.5 per-
cent to a dismal 22 percent.
The same tilt rightward is
reflected in figures showing
a 6 percent rise in support
for the right as a whole,
alongside a 7 percent drop in
support for the center and
the left, so that the main
flight from Labor is not to
parties with a more liberal
outlook.
(A separate poll taken
among Soviet immigrants
shows that they tend to split
in a ratio similar to the elec-
torate at large: 37 percent
for the right, vs. 26 percent
for the left, though a full 40
percent would vote for an
immigrants' party if one
were to arise.)
One reason for the thinn-
ing of the ranks may be less
political conviction than
sheer exasperation. Over the
past years Labor has been
all but preoccupied with the
endless struggle between
Shimon Peres and Yitzhak
Rabin for the party's top
post, which even for insiders
has become one huge bore. It
has, therefore, been actually
refreshing that the present
quarrel rocking the party
has been over ideological

issues: differences between
so-called hawks and doves
over the political plank in
Labor's platform.
Since 1977, under Shimon
Peres's tutelage, Labor has
inched somewhat leftward
from center, despite a strong
core of hard-liners on securi-
ty issues. The result of this
mix has been a kind of
pluralism that Israeli voters
find confusing.
Just what does Labor
stand for? It's hard to say,
because the party, which has
often been described
derisively as a "super-
market," has been offering
the electorate a selection of
political views all under the
same roof.
This week's wrangle bet-
ween hawks and doves has
centered on the burning
issues of the peace process:
the future of the West Bank,
Gaza Strip, and Golan
Heights.
The Likud's stand on these
matters is straightforward
and easy to grasp: Israel will
not cede a single inch of ter-

ritory to any of its neighbors.
Labor's position has long
been to call for "territorial
compromise" without speci-
fying precisely how much
territory it would be willing
to yield.
But as a prelude to the
convention, the hawks took

The sorest point is
the reformers'
attack on the
burden posed by
the Histadrut, the
National
Federation of
Labor.

the offensive in the party's
Political Committee and
tried to sharpen the party's
platform. First they passed a
plank, by a margin of two to
one, stating that there would
be no room for territorial
compromise on the Golan.
(One Labor member even in-
troduced a bill in the
Knesset, which passed with

the support of the right, that
the future of Golan Heights
is not open to negotiation.)
Then, while defeating a pro-
posal to endorse the Palesti-
nians' right to self-
determination, they wrote in
a clause explicitly forbidding
talks with the PLO.
The irony of these moves
was that rather than clarify
where Labor stood, they
seemed to cloud the picture
even further by blurring the
lines that distinguished
Labor from the Likud.
Indeed, the consensus in
the press during the week
leading up to the convention
was that Labor had become a
"second Likud." And that
was the mildest of the
criticism. In a desperate bid
for votes, charged one writer
after the next, Labor was ac-
tually trying to outflank the
Likud on the right.
"On the peace issue, Labor
has gone from being an ir-
relevant factor to an active
nuisance," wrote Abba
Eban, the party's elder
statesman and dean of the
doves.
"A week after the Likud
opened a door to the Syrians,
the Labor Party has passed a
bill against negotiations on
the Golan," observed a
columnist in Hadashot. And
"at a time when even the
Likud looks the other way
when its representatives
talk with people identified
with the PLO, Labor has re-

ROUND UP

26,680 Soviet Jews
Arrive In U.S.
Some 26,680 Soviet Jewish
refugees arrived in the
United States in Fiscal Year
1991 (FY91), according to
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society.
The arrival figure falls
short of the 40,000 visas the
U.S. government allocated
to Soviet Jewish refugees for
FY91 and is substantially
lower than FY90's record
number of 39,000 Soviet
Jewish arrivals.
BIAS attributes the short-
fall mainly to the fact that
the U.S. government's swit-
ch to Moscow processing,
which became effective Oct.
1, 1989, was predicated on
an anticipated time frame of
four-six months between an
applicant's interview with
the Immigration and
Naturalization Service and
his departure for the United
States. Yet bureaucratic
obstacles created by OVIR,
the Soviet agency responsi-
ble for issuing exit permis-

sion to emigres, have
resulted in an actual time
frame of six-nine months,
delaying the departures of
large numbers of refugees.
In October 1991, President
George Bush signed the
1992 Refugee Order, which
allocates 61,000 visas for
Jewish and other refugees
from the Soviet Union dur-
ing FY92. This is the largest
number of visas allocated to
the Soviet Union in recent
years. The increase does not
reflect a policy change, but
was designed to make up for
the FY91 shortfall.

Quiet Overhead
At Yeshivot
Washington — Yeshivot
and other private schools
located near airports will no
longer be prevented from ob-
taining federal funds to help
soundproof their facilities,
thanks to an amendment in
a transportation appropria-
tions bill recently signed by
President George Bush.

Yeshiva students: peace and
quiet.

The Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration had previously
deemed private schools in-
eligible for the funds, based
on technical wording in the
funding authorization of the
program. Under that
statute, grants were award-
ed for projects to soundproof
only "public buildings" used
for educational and medical
purposes.
The new amendment au-
thorizes grants for the
soundproofing of any
building used for education
or medical purposes and
provides for monies to be
given to schools irrespective
of their governmental or
private affiliation.

Leading the fight for the
wording change was the
Agudath Israel of America,
which became involved after
it received complaints from a
number of Hebrew
academies near JFK Inter-
national Airport in New
York.

New Kit For
Conservative Jews
New York — The United
Synagogue Committee on
Commitment and Obser-
vance has produced a packet
of materials intended to en-
courage Conservative Jews'
observance of mitzvot.
The packet includes the
first two brochures in the
"Mazel Tov" series produced
by the committee, making
the case that meals at wed-
dings and b'nai mitzvah
should be kosher. Also
enclosed is an order form for
tefillin that may be purchas-
ed at a discount through the
United Synagogue.
For information, contact
Dr. Robert Abramson, The

United Synagogue of
America, 155 Fifth Ave.,
New York, N.Y. 10010, or
call (212) 533-7800.

Women's Journal
To Make Debut
New York — A new
publication for Jewish wo-
men, The Jewish Women's
Journal, is scheduled to
make its debut late this
winter.
The quarterly journal is
being created by the staff of
the women's school of the
Jewish Renaissance Center
in Manhattan. Editors are in
the process of defining the
nature of the journal and
seek input from Jewish wo-
men throughout the country.
For information, contact
the Jewish Renaissance
Center, 210 W. 91st St., New
York, N.Y., 10024, or call
Susan Ornstein, (212) 580-
9666, 10:30-3 p.m. Monday
through Thursday.

Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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