From Challenge # 77 January-February 2003

editorial

Manipulations

The anticipated war on Iraq has penetrated the Israeli election campaign. Not as in Germany, where Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to war saved him from defeat at the polls. Quite to the contrary, Ariel Sharon is counting on the winds of war to deliver him a handsome victory.

 

Not long ago the sky seemed the limit for Sharon. The Labor Party quit his national-unity government, but this only seemed to bolster him. In the contest for the Likud leadership, he thrashed Binyamin Netanyahu. Surveys showed the Likud winning 40 seats of the 120 in the Knesset, compared with 19 in the last parliamentary elections (1999). His relationship with US President George W. Bush was blooming. And fewer suicide bombers were getting through.

 

Then a cloud appeared. On December 8, the Likud's Central Committee held primaries to determine its list of candidates for the Knesset. Strangely, several unknowns won places near the front. Of the top 40, 19 were newcomers. A police investigation is turning up evidence of massive corruption, such as would make even Arafat blush. The Likud primaries were "crimaries," in the phrase of Amir Oren. (Ha'aretz Jan. 1, 2003). As if Israel did not have enough on its hands, a new specter has arisen: that the members of Israel's next government will owe their seats to organized crime. (See box.)

 

Sharon is attempting to appear above it all, but the line of illegality may end up pointing to him. He urgently needs an issue to unite the country behind him. The upcoming war is a natural.

 

It is not surprising, then, that tidbits coming from well-placed sources have occasioned a countrywide obsession with gas masks and smallpox. The Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot led the way. On December 20, its weekend issue bore the huge headline: "US sends 1000 soldiers with rockets to Israel." Under this came a subhead: "On January 15 Israel will go on a high alert, 'Red Hail' – Then will begin the countdown to America's assault on Iraq." For the next ten days, Israel's civilian institutions were told to prepare for a chemical attack. Soldier-lecturers went to the schools and described the effects, instilling hysteria among the pupils. People began to complain that it was a bad time to hold elections.

 

Thus, while America and Europe settled down to a cozy Christmas, the citizens of Israel lined up for their masks.

 

Even if Sharon was tricking the public, he will definitely win points at the White House, which seeks to persuade a recalcitrant world that Saddam is the anti-Santa. For the present, only the people of Israel take the message seriously.

 

Sharon is by no means alone in manipulating national opinion. Bush faced congressional elections in November 2002. By beating the war drums in September, he diverted attention from financial scandals and a sluggish economy.

 

Bush has reasons to attack Iraq, and Sharon has reasons to support him. None  is related to any real threat. Their manipulations of fact have become so crass that criticism is mounting.  

 

Bush has had difficulty selling the public on the need for war, especially a war that the US might have to wage alone. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration, published his criticism in the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 23). The US, he points out, has failed to justify the war to its allies. Outwardly, America claims it wants Iraq's disarmament, but what it really seeks is regime change, a goal that many don't share.

 

Another recent example comes from the pen of Michael Dobbs in the Washington Post (Dec. 30). He informs us that the present Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was the first high American official to meet with Saddam Hussein. This occurred on December 20, 1983. Rumsfeld, then with the Reagan Administration, expressed America's readiness to renew full diplomatic ties with Iraq, precisely at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iran on a daily basis. The US proceeded to rescue Saddam from defeat, sending him weapons (chemical included), as well as intelligence information. Parts of Dobbs' article appeared the next day in Israeli papers.

 

Here, too, after an overlong honeymoon, the manipulations of Bush have finally drawn fire. Leftist pundit B. Micha'el wrote in Yediot Aharonot on Dec. 24: "It is astonishing to see how America's triple spearhead leads its people, as well as choice bits from the rest of the world, toward an unprovoked war that is devoid of grounds or logic. With a growing disregard for truth or even the need to explain, the trio acts like a spoiled child refusing to part from its toy… There is something even more astonishing, though: the passionate eagerness with which Israel joins in the game.

 

"This eagerness is twofold. First, it [the government – Ed.] wants to aid the Americans in marketing the war. Second, it wants to make sure that the voter's head, in the next few weeks, will be steeped in security-hysteria… Such hysteria always helps Sharon and Company at the ballot box."

 

In a similar vein, Nahum Barnea, the senior pundit of Yediot Aharonot, came out on New Year's Eve with a sarcastic critique of Bush. Rarely in Israel does one read the word "imperialism" in association with the US. Here is one of many instances: "The imperialism of George Bush was born … from the trauma of September 11. Before that, his interest in mending the world was close to zero. If the wars of 2003 exact high prices – in dead American soldiers and damage to America's economy – we may doubt whether Bush will persist in them. Empire is a wearisome burden."

 

It is refreshing to find that Bush does not fool all the Israelis all the time. One may wonder, though, why the awakening has taken so long. The American president, after all, has been pounding the drum for months. Two possibilities suggest themselves:

(1) The Left dislikes Bush because he has found a common language with Sharon. Just when a nice juicy scandal comes along, Bush's war mongering gives Sharon a chance to evade it.

 

There is room for hope, nonetheless, that (2) rays of sanity have begun to penetrate the Israeli public. Its ruling axiom has been that an American war against Iraq contains the key to squelching the Intifada. (See "Sowing the Whirlwind," Challenge # 76.) When Saddam Hussein falls, Arafat is supposed to fall too. The latter, Israelis hope, will be replaced by someone more docile, e.g. Abu Mazen. Now, however, some have begun to recognize that if Israel balked at bringing down Arafat, although twice it surrounded his rooms with tanks, America will find it no simple thing – and perhaps, in the end, no advisable thing – to bring down Saddam Hussein. In the present White House view, however, toppling Saddam is a step toward its manifest destiny.

 

As Bush's manipulations endanger the world, so Israel's deeds in the Territories endanger the region. In Israel, in the Territories and in the Arab states, there are many who have made it a habit of hating Sharon while licking Bush's boots. But the fish stinks from the head. Not Bush's war, but its prevention, is a precondition for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  n

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The Likud "Crimaries" 

On December 8, the Likud held primaries to determine its list of candidates for the Knesset. Strangely, several unknowns won places near the front. Of the top 40, 19 were newcomers. (Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert had hoped for the third spot, after Netanyahu. Mofaz came in 12th and Olmert 34th, behind a cocktail waitress with a wealthy father who runs gambling jaunts to Turkey.) Some of the losers went to the media and the police with reports of foul play: they had been asked to pay big money ($70,000 - $200,000) in return for the votes they would need to get good positions on the list. The government's legal advisor announced an investigation, and the police began interrogating. They questioned Deputy Minister for Infrastructure, Naomi Blumenthal, who came in ninth. She invoked the right to be silent. Sharon promptly fired her from his cabinet.

Sharon himself had played a role, however, in making his party vulnerable to corruption. Throughout his premiership, he had been dogged by Netanyahu's popularity in the Likud. Starting in the summer, Sharon supporters – especially his son Omri – crisscrossed the country, registering prospective Sharon supporters as new Likud members. They went to large families (clans). They got people to register more people. In this way, they doubled the number of registered Likudniks to 300,000. These included 800 collaborators of the South Lebanese Army (SLA), who presently sojourn in Israel, and ominously, large clans with links to organized crime. The registration campaign succeeded in shifting the rank-and-file support to Sharon: he beat Netanyahu in the nationwide primaries of November 28. But the same new Likudniks had the major role in electing the members of the Central Committee, which chooses the Knesset list. The new Likudniks got many of their own into the Committee. These were often people without roots in the party, having no substantive reason to prefer one or another candidate. Their votes were available, therefore, whether through cash or favors or promises. The Likud primaries became "crimaries," in the phrase of Amir Oren. (Ha'aretz  Jan. 1, 2003). As if Israel did not have enough on its hands, a new specter arose: that the members of Israel's next government would owe their seats to organized crime. (Return to main text.)