From the Editor WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Will Netanyahu save Israel? That was 17 year old Noa Netanyahu's reaction when she heard of her father's election: My father will save Israel. We at AFSI who have ardently hoped that he would be elected, are now nervously awaiting to see what kind of leadership he will provide. We know the enormous pressures that will be on him, both from the ruthless Israeli left and from our own government. And our anxiety is compounded when we hear pundits, initially in shock, now concluding that Netanyahu's policies may not be that different after all: was it not Begin who gave away the Sinai? Saving Israel from the existential threat to its survival: that is what is at stake, not "peace with security," the glib slogan that both parties offered the Israeli public, with Peres coming off the less credible purveyor, of what is at this point an unrealistic promise by either party. Peres's "peace process," by inflaming Arab expectations, has doomed Israel to war: the question now is, under what circumstances will the military confrontation occur? Under Netanyahu, we believe the confrontation will come under strategically more favorable circumstances. That is because Peres, with a "mandate for the peace process" (think what he did without any mandate) would have pushed full speed ahead to achieve a "comprehensive" peace. Peres was so emotionally tied to the "success" of the agreements with Arafat that he would have been ill-equipped to withstand almost any determined Arab demand in the forthcoming final status negotiations. Peres was a true believer and ignored anything that interfered with his beliefs. Thus, it is hard to see what could have deflected him from his rush to withdraw from strategic territory. Peres's obvious willingness to return to the 1949 borders (including a divided Jerusalem) only whetted Arab appetites. In anticipation of the final status talks, the "Palestinian Authority" had assembled documents in preparation for claiming that much of West Jerusalem was theirs. "Moderate" PLO official (and close associate of Arafat) Nabil Shaath had announced that Israel had "no choice" but to accept the return of 100,000 "Palestinian" refugees to the Galilee. Emboldened, Israeli Arabs made no secret of their identification with the PLO. The election platform of the Hadash Party (which has now become the largest Arab party in the Knesset, winning five seats) calls for making Israel a "state for all its citizens," eliminating its distinctive Jewish character; creating a "Palestinian" state in the "conquered" territories, with Jerusalem as its capital; uprooting all Jewish "settlements"; and solving the problem of Arab refugees on the basis of existing UN resolutions. The last demand alone would eliminate Israel, since UN resolutions call for the return of all the refugees, with their descendants now numbering in the millions. So much for Israel's "loyal" Arab minority. Many on the Israeli left identified with a number of these

positions. High officials within Labor and Meretz had already called for doing away with the Hatikvah (Arabs could not identify with its poignant call for a Jewish return to "Zion"), abolishing the Law of Return, and eliminating the study of Judaism and Jewish history as special subjects in the curriculum. The demoralization within Israel that would have followed a return to the borders of 1949 and the de-Judaization and de-Zionization of the state can only be imagined in one's most terrifying nightmares. When Arab states moved in for the kill would Israelis even have had the fortitude to resist? What of Netanyahu? He knows the "peace process" for what it is. In September 1993, at the height of the euphoria following the signing on the White House lawn, he said, "The impetuous rush to embrace an enemy who uses the language of peace for the purposes of war in the long term will be seen as a historic blunder." Now Netanyahu says the Oslo accords signed by the previous government must be honored, and Israel must try to minimize the damage. Netanyahu's "solution," on the basis of which he promised "peace and security" was autonomy for Arabs in Judea and Samaria, giving them, he has said, "control over all aspects of their lives with the exception of the three matters which are the difference between autonomy and statehood: security, borders and international relations." The trouble with this is that the Arabs, in their mind's eye, already see themselves in their new "Palestinian" state, with Jerusalem as its capital, and will scarcely accept as a substitute control over local roads, schools, and sewer systems. Indeed, they threaten jihad if any one of their demands is not met. In the case of Jerusalem, Akrameh Sabri, Arafat's appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, warned on February 14, 1995, "If Jerusalem is not returned to her Palestinian residents, there will be a tremendous explosion, which will engulf not only Palestine, but the entire Arabic and Islamic world." There will be a showdown. But with a leader at the helm who understands the true nature of the "peace process," who wants to preserve the Jewish character of the state, and who resists appeasement, Israel will be in a better position to win it. Outpost is published by Americans for A Safe Israel 147 East 76 St. - New York, NY 10021 tel (212) 628-9400 / fax (212) 988-4065 Editor: David Isaac Editorial Board: Ruth King, George Rubin, Herbert Zweibon. Outpost is distributed free of charge to members of Americans for A Safe Israel. Annual membership: $50.

Outpost               - 2 -               June 1996