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March 1, 2002/Adar 17, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 24
Radical right, left making a comeback
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - They used to say that the idea of Greater Israel was null and void. They also used to say that it would take the Israeli left years to recover from the shock of the Intifada.
Now both political extremes are making a comeback, claiming to offer solutions where the government has failed.
The extreme right has given renewed legitimacy to the idea of "transfer," the deportation of the Arab population to neighboring countries. Radical elements in the left are flirting with the idea of civil disobedience - until now, a rarity in Israeli society.
In the middle, the national unity government has been unable to offer any dramatic breakthrough in the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict, virtually paralyzed by its own leftist and rightist extremes.
Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, who was assassinated last October by Palestinian terrorists in Jerusalem, was the champion of the transfer idea, making it the main platform of his Moledet Party.
As long as Ze'evi was alive, his political power was marginal. In May 1999 - four months before the outbreak of the intifada - Moledet won only two seats in the Knesset.
Since Ze'evi's murder, however, the idea seems to have gathered momentum. A recent public opinion poll conducted by Ma'ariv showed that 35 percent of Israeli Jews support transfer of some kind.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, despair led some 200 reserve army officers to announce that they would no longer serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip "to protect the settlers."
The publication of their open letter, and the subsequent controversy, was followed by a rally of more than 10,000 people in Tel Aviv calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip - and dismantling the settlements there.
Compared with the massive left-wing demonstrations before the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt and after the 1993 Oslo accord, the turnout was relatively small. Still, it was the first time the left had taken to the streets since the shock of the peace process' collapse and the outbreak of the intifada.
A week later, the settlers responded with a massive demonstration in Jerusalem - the first such demonstration after months in which they allowed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to conduct the standoff with the Palestinians as he saw fit.
The right is unified in its solidarity with the settlements and the need to crush the intifada.
However, the right still is divided on the question of transfer. Some speak of transfer by consent; others of an exchange of Jewish settlers moving from the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Israel and of Arabs moving from Israel to the territories. Still others support using the possibility of transfer mainly as a rhetorical threat.
Similarly, the left is divided over the question of whether soldiers can take the law into their own hands by refusing to serve in the territories.
During the demonstration in Tel Aviv two weeks ago, Knesset member Roman Bronfman of the Democratic Choice Party won enthusiastic applause as he expressed his total support for the disobedient officers.
Meretz Party leader Yossi Sarid, head of the opposition, was furious. Despite his unequivocal opposition to the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sarid objects to private initiatives of civil disobedience. When Bronfman came off-stage, Sarid reprimanded him for having violated the consensus of the organizers of the demonstration.
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