594
PARTISAN REVIEW
There was coverage of the Peace Now demonstration-but no one
attending could be interviewed.
(It
should not surprise us that
Jacobo Timmerman attended the rally with his first Israeli-born
grandchild wearing a "Peace is Better than Greater Israel" T-shirt.)
Commentators like Labor's Chaim Herzog, who was actually quite
close to the government position in this war, were kept off the air as
much as possible. Some Likudniks attacked the role of the media as
"poison," and the entire level of public debate has become infected
with the increasingly virulent polarization. Coalition MKs attacked
the Labor opposition for" giving aid and comfort to the enemy." A
lonely group of progovernment and prowar professors picketed TV
House in protest against the "biased" coverage of the war; they
wanted to show that the opposition does not have a monopoly on the
intelligentsia.
The fever is upon us; one hopes that Israeli democracy will
endure. There are no frontal assaults, save for the Kleiner initiative,
but rather a thousand hit-and-run attacks; and the jingoistic patrio–
tism normal to any country at war is supportive of attempts to curb
dissent.
The Peace Now demonstration, and remarks by the opposition
against the use of the military option in Beirut, did strengthen
Arafat's hand in Beirut; the less likely Israel is to use the option, the
less pressure on Arafat to negotiate a way out of the city. But the
alternative-to sit quietly while we perpetrate a slaughter in a major
Arab capitol-was the greater of the two evils. Sharon should not
have over-reached himself and entangled Israel in the Beirut con–
frontation; the moderates cannot be faulted for counseling
moderation.
The debate reached its highest pitch over the interview Arafat
gave Uri Avneri. The Justice Department investigated whether or
not to try Avneri for treason, but they have decided against it. Were
he to be tried for lack of common sense and for a self-hate common
to minority groups and colonial peoples, however, I would find him
guilty on all counts. The interview lacked taste and judgment.
Above the picture of Arafat conversing with Avneri, it says , "The
interview with Arafat." Underneath it says, "We Recognize
Israel!" But a reading of the interview reveals that the following
exchange is the nearest one comes to finding a PLO recognition of
Israel. Like an elusive, desert mirage, Arafat's recognition of Israel
disappears as soon as one draws close for a drink.
