My Story 32

The 1984 elections resulted in the formation of the "National Unity Government", with the two major parties sharing power, and their heads, Peres and Shamir, alternating as Prime Minister. Rabin served as Defense Minister. The two leaders were constantly working against each other, and almost nothing was accomplished during those four years. However, two major things were done in the first year of this government. Shimon Peres instituted policies that, while harsh, brought the inflation rate down from over 400% to almost nothing. A far more negative development was the "Jibril Deal" The terrorist group headed by Ahmed Jibril, had captured three Israeli soldiers, who had been playing basketball while they were supposed to be doing guard duty. Israel has a policy of "no man left behind", and almost 1,200 convicted terrorists were released in exchange for their freedom, including many who had killed Jews. Criticism of this deal was twofold. One was that other Israelis who had been captured were not part of the deal, and it was only these soldiers' parents' pressure that made Shamir favor them. Secondly, many thought that returning 1,200 terrorists into the community was a very bad idea. The government issued assurances that they would be carefully watched. In fact, this never happened. The released terrorist began forming the backbone of Palestinian resistance, leading up to the 1987 Intifada. No one knows for sure exactly which incident sparked the Intifada. It had long been the situation that clashes with the army would spark a few days of rioting in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. These rarely lasted more than three days. But, in the fall of 1987, that all changed. A real, organized, sustained uprising occurred, fought with stones and firebombs. Several events may have sparked it. One, Ariel Sharon had purchased an apartment in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. This infuriated the Arabs. A few days later, a single terrorist, flying on a hang glider, infiltrated an army base. The soldiers, instead of following procedures for such cases, made a chivalrous attempt to bring the female soldiers to safety, resulting in many casualties. The terrorist managed to kill six soldiers, and wound eight, before he himself was killed. Euphoria swept through the "Palestinian" community. One determined Arab could strike a deadly blow against mighty Israel! The next day, an Israeli trucker in Gaza lost control of his vehicle, plowing into a crowd, killing six. This was widely seen as a revenge attack for the hang glider incident. Riots erupted all over the "territories".The released terrorists became the organizers and leaders of these riots. An emergency meeting was called in Beit El, with the rabbi of the community set to speak. I imagined that a militia would be set up to protect the community. I might be called upon to lay down my life for my country. I felt tremendous pride walking into that meeting. The rabbi said that we should ignore what was happening. It was the "Arabs' last gasp", knowing that they were defeated. We should stop listening to the radio. It took me a few days to digest what I had heard. I finally realized that our leadership was delusional. In the meantime, Defense Minister Rabin, in Washington at the time, did not take the situation seriously, and did not return home for a week. Not seeing any meaningful response to their riots, the violence escalated. When Rabin did return, he found a situation that was out of control. He gave the order "break bones". Many rioters were captured, and had their legs broken by IDF soldiers. Sima was on a bus coming back from Jerusalem, when she saw this being carried out on an army truck just ahead of the bus. There was as much screaming coming from the Israeli women on the bus, as there was from the truck. My friend, Hussein, told me "two weeks ago, 90% of the Palestinians were satisfied with the situation of Israeli rule. Now, 90% see Israel as both vulnerable and cruel.".The first actual Jewish victim (other than the accidental death of a girl, shot by an Israeli when a stone hit his head) was my neighbor, Dov Kalmanovitch (later deputy mayor of Jerusalem). A firebomb hit his car, and he was burned over 70% of his body. He did survive, and became active in politics. The head of Central Command of the IDF, Amram Mitzna, came to Beit El to speak. I expected a riot. But Beit El was a community that literally saw government as sacred. When Mitzna walked into the room, everyone stood up out of respect, as they would for a great rabbi. There had been talk of organizing a militia. He said that such a move would amount to a vote of no confidence in the IDF. Everyone applauded. He went on to say that some people thought that the army should be doing more to protect us, some thought it should be doing less. He was taking the middle road and acting by national consensus. I was outraged. My safety, the safety of my family and my community, would be decided by the people of Tel Aviv and Haifa. Lovely. But, to my astonishment, everyone applauded again! He said "anyway, don't worry. Now it's just rocks and firebombs. But if they take to weapons, we "take the gloves off".(This proved to be a lie). The feeling began to grow inside me that I had "bet on the wrong horse" in moving to Israel. In 1988, new elections brought a Likkud government to power. Yitzchak Shamir's policies were generally to keep violence on a low burner, rather than confront it. Occasional killings of Jews were tolerated, with minimal response. In 1988, President George H.W. Bush pressured Shamir into direct talks with the "Palestinian" leadership. Shamir told everyone who would listen that Bush was a rabid antisemite, but he had no choice other than recognize the terrorist leadership. (He denied saying this when questioned by the media, but I knew people who heard him say this). Talks were held in Madrid. In true Shamir style, he insisted that they only meet once in two weeks. This was a stalling tactic. Many of his coalition partners quit the government at this point. Shamir was forced to form a new coalition with some of the Hareidi parties, whose primary concern was funding for their institutions. In 1990, Peres organized what became known as the "Stinking Trick" (targil hamasriach). He offered the Hareidi parties money and influence, in order to bring down the Shamir government in a no-confidence vote. Rabin, who hated Peres (he called Peres the "tireless subversive") warned vociferously that it would not work. But the day that it was to come to a vote in the Knesset, the Lubavitcher Rebbe issued a ruling that this must not be done. Two Hareidi Knesset members withdrew their support for the no-confidence vote, and it failed. Peres, for the meantime, lost his leadership position in his party, and Rabin took his place. Rabin immediately began a campaign for reaching a compromise with the Arabs, and delegitimizing, or even demonizing, the Jewish residents of the "territories'. Eventually, a strange alignment of ultra-Left, that saw the Shamir government as not going far enough in negotiations with the Arabs, and the ultra-right, that saw recognition of the PLO going much too far, succeeded in bringing down the government. Elections were held in 1992. Rabin won handily, running on a campaign of land for peace, and portraying the settlements, and Israel's occupation of the "territories" as the cause of all of Israel's problems. Political fliers featured Shamir, with the caption "you are disgusting".A wild card in the elections was the Russian immigrants. A million and a half had come since 1990. At first, they were Right Wing, having experienced Socialism firsthand in the Soviet Union. But by election time, they were convinced that their economic and social problems were due to Shamir's ineptness. They voted Left. While campaigning, Rabin was careful to say that he would not go so far in compromising so as to endanger Israel's security. But coalition talks negated those promises. Within hours after the election, he had made a pact with the ultra-Left Meretz party. He told its head, Yosi Sarid (who had outed Rabin's drinking problem almost twenty years earlier) "I will be Prime Minister, but will act on your policies". Everything was now on the table. For the Right, and eventually for most Israelis, the nightmare had begun.