Israel’s political doves are bitterly disillusioned, thoroughly embarrassed and, in all probability, gravely weakened by the virtually unanimous support Palestinian leaders and masses alike have given Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in his confrontation with practically the entire civilized world.
The Labor Party, ambivalent for years over how to approach the Palestinian problem and split over whether to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization, has maintained a stolid silence in the current crisis.
But some leaders of the smaller left-wing opposition factions have been less reticent.
Their remarks display the characteristic frustration and fierce anger felt by those who realize they have been betrayed by their own apparent misjudgment no less than by those they misjudged.
Yossi Sarid of the Citizens Rights Movement, a tireless advocate of dialogue with Palestinian leaders, including associates of the PLO, seemed to be washing his hands of them in articles over the weekend in Ha’aretz and Yediot Achronot.
“Sheyechapsu oti” (They can look for me), he wrote of Faisal Husseini, the prominent East Jerusalem Palestinian leader, PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and Abd-el Wahab Darousha, one of the handful of Arab Knesset members with whom Sarid’s party made common cause on certain issues.
All had praised Saddam Hussein, much to Sarid’s disgust.
“The lack of common understanding is so deep that I do not think I shall be sharing a platform with them again in the near future,” he wrote.
His CRM colleague, Dedi Zucker, was some-what less categorical. Harboring a long-term “broigez” would be childish, he observed, using the Yiddish word for grudge. He said he would advocate continuing the dialogue with the Palestinians.
But the consensus on the left of the political spectrum for the time being is that Israeli- Palestinian peacemaking and dialogue has been set back, possibly for years, by the Palestinian community’s enthusiastic rallying for the Iraqi leader, both in Israel and in the administered territories.
Elazar Granot, the widely respected leader of Mapam, the United Workers Party of Israel, said, “The PLO has cast a giant question mark over the prospect of its ever representing the Palestinian people in the future.”
He said the PLO would either have to change its policy or the Palestinians would have to change their leadership.
‘HYPOCRISY, LYING AND POLITICAL IDIOCY’
Amnon Rubinstein, leader of the Center-Shinui Movement and a minister in the former Likud-Labor unity government, called the Palestinian position “replete with hypocrisy, lying and political idiocy,” because “it drastically decreases the chances of a political dialogue beginning.
“It is evil, too, because they are supporting a brutal, unscrupulous tyrant,” Rubinstein added.
He said he thought the PLO would at least be divided over Iraq, considering that the organization has invested so much energy convincing Western and Israeli opinion of its moderation.
The former minister conceded that the peace movement has been gravely damaged, while the far right wing in Israel has been massively strengthened.
The last remaining hope of the dovish camp seems to be what its rivals on the right fear most: If the United States, with cooperation from several Arab states, succeeds in besting Hussein, Washington will press hard for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But the leftists concede that the Palestinians under their present leaders are not a realistic peace partner for Israel.
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