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PARTISAN REVIEW
1984 results as a cry from a confused and divided nation for a truce
in the stridency of the rhetoric and debate which were pulling the
country apart. The process of breakdown was accelerated by the spi–
ralling inflation as well as by the great debates over the future of the
West Bank and Gaza, which, after so many years, had produced a
messianic and apocalyptic rhetoric not less inflated than the currency.
Nor was the left immune to the collective breakdown of the body
politic. As Yehoshua explained: just like the right and religious com–
munities slowly succumbing to their own extremists, "part of the left
is going crazy."
Oz and Yehoshua argued that the election results demonstrated
the left's inability to reach enough of its fellow citizens; and that rather
than worrying about the "rehabilitization" of Ariel Sharon, the left
should rethink its own rehabilitation among the broad middle group
of voters which, despite the compelling evidence of Likud's failed
economic and defense policies, did not swing over to support the left.
Those further to the left saw the issues in terms of "class war"
and still clung to "civil war" as a social goal. Democracy means com–
promise, and compromise means muddling through to consensus on
the great controversial issues rather than reaching the great cleansing
clarification of a final reckoning. The political rhetoric- both religious
and secular-reflected apocalyptic thinking, and after the 1984 elec–
tions, political reality overtook political rhetoric, leaving many writers
behind.
Both on the dovish left and on the annexationist right, there
was periodic talk of "civil war." Thus, when Shimon Peres returned
from delivering his flexible and forthcoming speech to the United
Nations General Assembly in October 1985, the right-wing Council
ofJewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza resolved that any
diplomatic giveaway would result in civil war. Comparing Peres to
Petain, they vowed to become Israeli De Gaulles. (Later, the author
of the resolution told me that he meant to threaten the government
with nonviolent civil disobedience, not with civil war. But De Gaulle
didn't model his resistance after Gandhi.)
Part of the left welcomed the threat because it confirmed their
own extreme worldview. This habit of thought inflates the political
rhetoric so that when in discussions of the relationship between reli–
gion and state, for example, one's intellectual seriousness now is
measured by the ritualistic affirmation that Israel already is experi–
encing "cultural civil war."
