In advocating opposition to the policies of the Rabin regime in Israel, I have come to hear the common refrain that we outside of Israel have no right to oppose the policies of a government democratically elected by the people of Israel. On the surface, this is a true sentiment, and shows the dichotomy of Judaism. Israel is our homeland, but since we are not living there, we have no right to tell Israelis what to do or think.
The point ignored by many here is that no one has the right to tell Israelis what to do or think, and that includes the government they elect for themselves. Yet we see just this happening in Israel.
Rabin was elected on a platform of strength and security while maintaining some avenue of discussion with Israel's neighbours. He clearly promised in his campaign that he would not withdraw at all from the Golan Heights, believing that the Heights is critical to Israeli security. He pledged never to negotiate with the PLO, nor to create any semblance of Palestinian state. These promises are well within the parameters of Zionism and the belief in the permanence of the State of Israel as a state of the Jews for the Jews.
Had Rabin kept these promises, we in the galut would have no right to oppose him or his policies on the grounds stated above. But all these promises have been broken, in opposition to military leaders and advisors both in Israel and in the US, and in opposition to the United States State Department, whose representative told Rabin in March to stop making concessions to the PLO because even the US would not go as far or expect anyone else to.
In September 1993, Rabin signed and sealed an agreement with Arafat that the people of Israel had not seen or had a chance to discuss. Until two weeks before the signing, they did not even know that any negotiations toward such an agreement were underway. When the cabinet was finally given the opportunity to vote on the agreement two days after its signing, they did so without having first seen it. The Knesset was allowed to see it only thirty-six hours before they voted, and they never saw a complete copy until after the vote.
On May 4, Rabin signed another agreement with Arafat implementing the September agreements. As I write this on May 9, the cabinet, government, and people of Israel have not yet seen the agreements of Cairo, and yet they are already being implemented.
Since the Oslo accord was announced, fifty-two Israelis have been killed and a further 500 have been injured in over one thousand terrorist attacks within Israel's borders. Rabin has acknowledged that he expected this to happen. So, the "democratically elected government of Israel" has knowingly cost the lives and safety of its own citizens -- those who elected him. As a result of the implementation now under way, Rabin assures us that more Jews will die and be injured through increased Palestinian terrorism. To insure that this happens, Rabin has allowed over ten thousand convicted terrorists and murderers to leave Israeli jails and join the new Palestinian "police" army which will have military control over parts of Israel, and over Jewish towns and villages.
As Jews continue to be attacked, and the Palestinians continue to mock Israeli justice, Israel will no longer be allowed to protect its citizens or its interests in the Palestinian areas without resorting to full scale invasion. Rabin has put Israel back not to the situation in 1967, but to the situation in 1958, when nightly raids across the borders to deter terrorism only cost Israel hundreds of dead and wounded soldiers, and did not stop the attacks.
Yet Rabin does not care. He does not care about any of this. He pursues his policies in the name of the people of Israel despite the opposition of those people he claims to represent. He is assured a parliamentary majority through alliances with self-hating Jews and anti-semitic Arabs and communists. Yet, even parliament is not entitled to decide the fate of Israel and the Jews. Rabin alone has that privilege. And he has decided to move backward in the name of progress. He has decided to agree with a disagreeable enemy. He has decided to put Israel's national security in the hands of its most implacable enemy. He has decided that terrorism pays. He has decided that the will of the people is not important when compared with the will of the enemy. He is wrong.
The people of Israel, in 1992, elected a government, not a tyranny. They got tyranny. Over the past year, opinion polls in Israel have shown a consistent drop in support for Rabin and his cadre, to the point where sixty-five percent of Israelis now oppose him and his policies. Rabin is wrong.
When a democratically elected government fulfils its mandate in the spirit of the democratic society in which it was elected, there is no opposition necessary except a loyal one. But when a democratically elected government turns its back on democracy and the very institutions which placed it in power, all opposition is necessary in the name of freedom of will and of democracy. Let us not forget that the Nazi party too was democratically elected by German citizens.
Throughout history, tyranny has been the worst enemy of mankind. In Israel, the same is true today. True believers in democracy must oppose tyranny wherever it appears.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
