In-fighting among the Zionist parties
has forced the Israeli premier, Ariel
Sharon, to call new elections for February. Sharon pointed out that elections are risky for the Zionist state in the current situation. In fact, the economic costs of the war against the Palestinians and the world economic crisis are creating potentially serious divisions among the parties that support the Israeli state.
Sharon blamed the right-wing National Union for the snap elections, claiming that it posed onerous conditions for joining the government. This was certainly true, but Sharon was also pressed by his right-wing rival within his own Likud party, Binyamin Netanyahu, who also demanded snap elec tions.
In fact, even if the National Union came into the government, it would give Sharon only a paper-thin majority, 62 out of 120 seats in parliament, liable to be blown away by the slightest political turbulence. His government majority is already a museum of neo-medieval monsters. The classical right party, Likud, has only 19 of the 55 seats while the others are held by religious parties.
The collapse of the Israeli National Unity government, including both the Likud and Labour Parties, was a result of growing economic difficulties that are making it more and more difficult to reconcile the different interests of the Israeli population and the Zionist rulers.
The immediate issue that brought the cabinet down at the end of October was a budget bill that combined generous subsidies to the ultra-Zionist colonies planted in predominately Arab areas with drastic cuts in social benefits for the Israeli poor and elderty. T War Bank and Ga represent the. tinued goal of the Israeli rulers to 'Judaicize' the entire land of Palestine, and thereby to subjugate or drive out the
But this is a goal that most of the Israeli community is no longer willing to sacrifice for. Israeli polls show that only 20% of the Jewish population supports the settlements. The overwhelming majority thinks that they should be removed to clear the way for some kind of compromise settlement with the Palestinians.
The Palestinian state' offered by the Oslo peace accords, which remains the basis of all attempts to negotiate a settlesettlements are
The liberal Israeli daily Ha'aretz (I November 2002) reported the case of one Arab family, the Abdullahs, whose olive grove borders on Havat Gilad. When they called on the army to protect them from the settlers, it declared the area a closed military zone and forced them out.
After the army had left and the Palestinians were able to return, they found that 80 of their 210 olive trees had been stripped of their fruit and that many had their branches broken. They started picking the remaining olives, but then a group of 20 settlers arrived, five of whom were armed They drove the Palestinians away and took the olives they had picked. Such robbery has become common and a scandal even among liberal Zionists.
Support of the settlers has become the most glaring example of the sacrifice of the interests of the majority of the Israeli population to the long-term Zionist goals that mean endless war. But in general, the Israeli economy is reeling under the weight of the cost of the war against the Palestinians, as well as the crisis of the world capitalist economy, to which Israel has totally mortgaged its future.
The Guardian (22 October) reportTral National Security Council,
Israeli National Security Council, estimated that suppressing the Palestinian uprising was costing the Israeli economy about $3 billion a year. There was no hope, he said, that Israel could solve its financial problems as long as the war continued.
Sharon's answer to the problem is to ask the United States to bail out the Zionist state. The Guardian reported that his govemment was working up a request for $10
in Hebron. Their condition is highly critical. In May 2002, similar events led to the death of 21year old Aisha Ali Hasan from Qibiya. In the same region, a young child, Mohammed Abu Sabha, who was suffering from intermittent bleeding was denied to take immediate action and intervene on our behalf stressing the violation of basic human rights Please send letters to: Offices of the Foreign Minister (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, HaKirya Romena, Jerusalem, Israel 91950) E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: 0972-25303531/3631/530 Fax: 0972-25303506) It's not cheap oppressing a whole nation billion in additional aid. Israel is already the largest recipient of US aid, getting $2.1 billion a year, most of which goes for military equipment.
Tourism revenues have dropped by half and foreign investment by two thirds since the start of the latest Palestinian uprising. High tech industries were the driving force of an economy that is isolated in its region and enjoys no important natural resources Now the bursting of the dot-com bubble has hit Israel especially hard. Official unemployment is over 10%. Inflation is already at 7%
The economy overall not only failed to grow in the past two years but declined by 1.5% for this year and by 0.5% for the year before. But given its demographic growth, Israel needs a growth rate of 1.8% annually as a minimum. Growing unemployment makes it difficult to attract new Jewish immigrants and to maintain the foreign labour force that the Zionist bosses have been bringing in to replace Palestinian workers in agriculture and the building industry.
Moreover, according to Le Monde (15 October), real incomes of Israelis declined by 4.5% in the first seven months of this year and 5.8% for the second trimester.
The government austerity programs have already sparked a series of general strikes by Histadrut (the historic Zionist labour and social organization, which is a pillar of the Labour Party) and prolonged strikes by municipal workers
Under these pressures, Labour's departure from the government could be seen coming from way off. No negotiations or vented from receiving their kidney dialysis treatment We urge our friends in the international community
greatly appreciated. Minister of Interior (Ministry of Interior, 29 Salah aleven the obvious reluctance of the Labour tops to be separated from the fleshpots of the state machine could prevent it The immediate result is a polarisation of Israeli politics. Sharon tried to avoid quick new elections by making an alliance with the ultra-right bloc, the National Union, at least one of whose components, the Moledet party, calls for outright expulsion of the Palestinians. owever, the National Union's conditions for joining the government mean total confrontation with the Palestinians and open defiance of the U.S. attempts to save its face and that of its right-wing Arab allies. The National Union demanded that the government declare formally that the Oslo agreement is dead, that it make a decision in principle for dismantling the Palestinian Authority and disbanding its security forces that it lift the restrictions on continued expansion of the Zionist settlements, and that it declare that under the present circumstances' a Palestinian state is 'irrele vant'. Clearly, the crisis of the Israeli economy is forcing the Israeli population to face the fact that the continuing war on the Palestinians is an insurmountable obstacle to their aspira tions for a better life. Hopefully, that will lead them to look for alternatives. Ultimately, those can only mean giving up the idea of an exclusively Jewish state and seeking a basis for living together with the Arab people of Palestine and of the region. Ambulance wrecked by Zionist tanks Din Str, Jerusalem, Israel 91010 Fax: 097226294750/ Tel: 097226294701) Every letter or call does make a difference and is or see our web-site: www.upmrc.org