All or nothing
ecause Mr Menachem Begin has I./dominated Israeli politics for the past six years, it is difficult now to remember the respect that Western liberal opinion used to hold for Israel. For the first 25 years of its existence, Israel was held up in the West as a model of democracy, modernity and classlessness. For many, its equality and the common ownership of the kibbutz were considered the best existing examples of socialism. Now, partly due to Israel's military strength, but even more to Mr Begin's attitudes and actions, Israel is isolated, spoken of in the same breath as South Africa. Israel is associated in people's minds with ruthlessness, not with freedom or justice.
It is certainly true that Israeli conduct towards its enemies and the people whose land it has occupied has been, by the stan- dards of such things, civilised. The people of the West Bank, though oppressed, are not terrorised. The massacres carried out in the Sabra and Chatila camps by Christian Lebanese without Israeli intervention were peculiarly shocking because Israeli stan- dards in such matters are high. In other parts of the world, such events could have passed almost without comment. In Israel itself, free institutions are intact, although the rise of the Oriental Jews has made theft and tax evasion problems for the first time in the history of the state.
But there is no doubt that Mr Begin, rattier than resorting to military means in dire necessity, has always revered violence. This is not to say that he is a bloodthirsty lunatic, but that, like many of the founding fathers of 20th-century states, he has seen terrorism as an expression of his nation's glory and a vindication of its right. He sees the history of the Jews as a story of persecu- tion which can only be altered by the oc- cupation and inflexible defence of Eretz Israel.
So many in the West have been appalled by Mr Begin's bigotry that they have not troubled to ask whether his tenure of office, now ending, has been successful, In fact, very few of Mr Begin's actions have been impulsive or vainglorious. He has shown the political skills of a Kenyatta or a de Valera, not the wildness of a Gaddali. it was Mr Begin who discovered that the loss of enlightened Western approval did not mean the loss of American support. Indeed, he was even able to turn his rows with America to good effect at home, confident that the money and the diplomatic aid would always be forthcoming in extremis,
Nor has he shown himself inflexible in every situation. He was much criticised for his grudging attitude towards Egyptian overtures, and he chose to launch the air at- tack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor the day after one of his meetings with Mr Sadat; but if he had appeared more enthusiastic he would have lost the support of too many Zionists. He perceived that Mr Sadat badly wanted a settlement and would make one without effusive encouragement. The result was Camp David, and a peace which has endured more successfully than many agreements made by less belligerent men.
Mr Begin has also come near to achieving two of his greatest aims — Jewish annexa- tion of the West Bank and the driving of the PLO from Israel's borders. Although the hatred of his country has deepened and the suffering of the West Bank Palestinian in- creased, Mr Begin leaves office with his country surrounded by physically (though not morally) defensible boundaries, and with its enemies more divided and cowed than everbefore, For a country whose main aim still has to be survival, that is a great achievement.
The survival of Israel, however, cannot depend solely upon its military capacity. Because of his history as a founder of his country and because of his temperament, Mr Begin has little interest in or experience of the art of peace. No country, not even Israel, can be exclusively composed of peo- ple devoted to a vindication of their vis- ionary view of themselves. It also needs people who want to make money and peo- ple who want to live quietly and bring up families, people who prefer their gardens or their books or their trade to incessant fighting. Under Mr Begin, Israel has become less attractive to such people. Im- migration has dried up, and a number of Israelis are now leaving. Taxes are terribly high. The good things of life, readily available to Jews in the West, are scarce in Israel. The economy, too highly regulated and weakened by gigantic defence spen- ding, is in ever poorer condition. There is inflation of 130 per cent. The settlements fn Mr Begin's beloved Judaea and Samaria (the West Bank) are expensively subsidised and produce an entirely artificial popula- tion of beleaguered and often fanatical Jews sitting on 750,000 rebellious Arabs. The Israeli occupation of Lebanon, though successful in repelling the terrorists, has cost many Israeli lives, and is not the quick, clean operation that was intended. Thanks to Begin, Israel is a more tense place than
ever.
The motto of the Betar youth movement which Mr Begin led was 'Only Thus'. Like Sinn Fein (`Ourselves Alone'), it expresses a state of mind hostile to successful statecraft because it deliberately isolates itself, and so attracts fewer people than it repels. it re- mains Mr Begin's attitude, and it is what makes him one of the least likeable democratic politicians of our time. But Israel is a state founded upon implacable and exclusive claims, of which Mr Begin has proved himself a most skilful and determin- ed upholder. The question is whether a peo- ple seeking all or nothing are not more like- ly to end up with nothing.
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