DAVID TWERSKY
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ogy (In Karl Mannheim's sense) of the Likud, history is being mobi–
lized and rewritten, especially the history leading up to and in–
cluding the war of independence. Begin was the commander of the
Irgun, the major right wing armed underground in the forties; It–
shack Shamir was the commander of the Lehi, the even more ex–
treme underground. Their rehabilitation requires the opening up of
the debates of that period, and their retroactively awarding them–
selves their "proper" place in the national myth of achieving in–
dependence.
The hardening of attitudes in Israel is due in large part to the
collective Arab inability to offer Israel a peace. This stark fact and
the invisible barriers of hostility which surrounded Israel on all sides
helped legitimize the Likud and ease its way into power. In countless
arguments with Israeli hawks and annexationists, doves are asked,
"Yes, but who besides you is talking about peace? We are left, as it
were, holding the bag."
We know that there have been changes in Arab thinking as well
since the 1967 war, but they do not appear to progress in a straight
line. For every murmur by Jordan's Hussein and every hint by the
PLO's Arafat, there is the unambiguous hostility of Syria's Assad and
(his) PLO men like Abu Musa. In this respect, the recent diplomatic
moves by Egyptian President Mubarak are double-edged. On the
one hand, Egyptian involvement may help Arafat bridge his dif–
ferences with Hussein and cosponsor a peace initiative on the basis
of 242 or the Reagan plan: that is, with a clear statement regarding
Israel's right to exist. On the other hand, Mubarak's reported state–
ments to the effect that "Camp David is dead," his refusal to return
the Egyptian Ambassador to Tel Aviv, are pounced upon by the Is–
raeli right. Those who always opposed Camp David, a group in–
cluding the three leading members of the current government–
Prime Minister Shamir, Defense Minister Arens, and Finance Min–
ister Cohen-Orgad did not vote for it in the Knessett - see the drift
as evidence of Egyptian duplicity: as soon as they got the Sinai back,
their enthusiasm for peace waned. There were those like Begin, who
saw Camp David as a way to resolve an "external" conflict by com–
promise precisely in order to create the conditions for an adamant
refusal to yield on the "internal" conflict, namely to trade Sinai for a
free hand on the West Bank. They now have transformed the term
"Camp David process" into an excuse to do nothing, and a synonym
for a
permanent
autonomy.
