From the Editor

Flight from the Golan

Even before the elections, Israel's major parties are signalling their intention to abandon the Golan. The casualties in Lebanon, rather than leading Israel to act against Syria, which exercises control over the terrorists, are producing precisely the effect Syria desires: increasing pressures within Israel to abandon both the security zone in Lebanon and the Golan.

Supposed "hawk" Ariel Sharon urges immediate formation of a "national emergency government" combining Labor and Likud to stage a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. Labor Party leader Ehud Barak announces the only way to get safely out of Lebanon is to negotiate Israel's withdrawal from the Golan. (Departure from Lebanon will merely encourage Syria to terrorize northern Israel, since Assad will not have achieved his more important goal of gaining the Golan.) Shas leader Aryeh Deri predicted "a broad national unity government will be formed after the elections, and it will enter into direct negotiations with Syria, which will exact from us a painful price [withdrawal from the Golan] and the sooner this is done the better." Netanyahu engages in his usual doublespeak. Asked if he would forfeit the Golan for "true peace" with Syria, he declares there are "some vital assets" including Mt. Hermon and other strongholds -- presumably the many Israeli communities on the Golan are not among them. Indeed, so successful is Netanyahu at double-speaking, that a recent Gallup poll found that both those who support complete withdrawal from the Golan and those opposed to withdrawal believe Netanyahu agrees with them!

Aaron Lerner of IMRA (Independent Media Review and Analysis) sums up the situation in simple terms that Israel's leaders lamentably seem unable to grasp. Says Lerner: "It is impossible to relieve pressure by bending to it...If the Jewish State doesn't have the stomach for casualties in Lebanon...and reacts to the situation not by repositioning for purposes of efficiency but rather withdraws from fear -- then the best way to advance the interests of the Arabs at any stage of the negotiations is through renewed violence. The 'Four Mothers' [a pro-retreat group] pushing us out of Lebanon will then push to leave the West Bank and Gaza. And it won't stop there. Because once the pattern is set, once the weakness is shown, only a fool would not continue to exploit it. And the Arabs are not fools."

The Third Way's Coma

Even now, when it is too late, the intellectually-challenged members of this one-issue party seem to have trouble awakening to the obvious: their eagerness to turn Judea and Samaria over to Arafat did not foster Israel's determination to keep the Golan, but has rather hastened the day when her leaders resolve to turn it over to Syria. Uri Heitner, a Third Way activist and member of the Golan Settlements Committee, professed deep concern over Netanyahu's statements, but advocated the usual muddle-headed policies. "It may be that we have an interest in being part of a more narrow, right-wing government. On the other hand, if Ehud Barak becomes Prime Minister, the Third Way would be able to influence policy from within a narrow Labor government." In other words, give us the Ministerial seats and we'll glue ourselves to them whoever is in power and whatever the policies pursued.

Gesher Gets the Gate

The one bright spot in an otherwise dismal electoral scene is that the Gesher Party, the ego-trip of the insufferable David Levy, is disintegrating. Half or more of the party chapters and loyalists are refusing to follow him on his journey from the Likud to Labor. Labor professes not to care. Its spokesman announced that Levy's importance to Labor is not in the votes he brings but as "a symbol of the solution to the social problems of Israel."

Always Negotiate

Thanks to Steven Plaut for the following item (from Robert Smelser's The Sudeten Problem 1933-1938) so apt to the current so-called "peace process."

In the midst of the "peace process" leading up to Munich, when the Sudeten Nazi Party was nego-

(Continued on p.11)

Outpost               - 2 -               March 1999