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shifting alliances. Labour continued to argue unequivocably for
dropping the demand that Syria withdraw simultaneously. But the
moderate left and the peace movement in Israel are neither anti–
American nor neutralist . Their differences with Washington con–
cern the attempt to link United States goals to Israeli interests.
(Whether or not the United States has a valid set of interests as
perceived by the current administration in Washington is a domestic
United States debate .) Israeli concerns are local and regional, rather
than global. The nuclear issue, for example, is not a major concern.
This does not indicate any parochialism of spirit but rather the over–
whelming complexity and all-encompassing nature of the local con–
flicts.
As the question of how to get out of Lebanon became primary,
Peace Now, which has been nominated for a Nobel Prize, began to
avoid the issue, focusing more on the West Bank. This reflects the
inability of their concensus-oriented leadership to agree on a
strategy for withdrawal.
But Peace Now and the moderate Labour movement favor
withdrawal; yet they also fear the return of the PLO to within strik–
ing range of Israeli settlements, and they would like to prevent that
possibility . They are serious, however, about getting the IDF out of
Lebanon and back into Israel. What happened is that a demand for
a more "radical" approach, immediate unilateral withdrawal, found
expression through other issues. One was the more radical Yesh Gvul,
which advocates that reservists go to jail rather than serve when their
units go to Lebanon. They also fear that the Likud government may
be tempted to escape its political predicament by provoking a way to
dislodge Syria from Lebanon . (Labour warns that the government's
continued reference to the demand that Syria leave Lebanon threat–
ens to entangle Israel in a new war, but not that the government
might consciously provoke it.) Kibbutzim, however, which still com–
mand a diminished but powerful moral legitimacy which other groups
on the moderate left lack, have been sending their members, one
kibbutz at a time , to demonstrate outside the prime minister's office,
during the weekly cabinet session.
Israeli intellectuals, Peace Now, and Labour activists are
somewhat unique among their counterparts in the West in that they
have from their own experience learned to take threats seriously.
They always recognized the legitimate roles of security and defense,
and they were never tempted to dismiss war as an unacceptable
