Assuming that these allegations are true, this means that at least one member of the Labour cabinet, and the current head of the Histadrut, broke Israeli law twice. First, he met with members of the PLO, which was at that time illegal, and second, he allowed an enemy of Israel to have a demonstrable effect on the outcome of Israeli elections, in effect allowing that enemy to decide the course of Israel's future. What remains to be seen is how deep this treachery has reached within the Labour hierarchy. Was Rabin involved in sanctioning Ramon's meetings with the PLO? Did he know about them? What about Peres?
I find it not at all surprising that Labour would bend so low as to bargain Israel's future just for the chance of achieving power. After all, they have certainly done so following the election. What I find most bothersome is the willingness of the Israeli electorate to sanction this kind of behaviour on the part of their leaders. The Ramon meetings were not the only instance of Labour leaders breaking Israeli law to meet with the PLO. Such meetings were illegal until September 9, 1993 when they were officially sanctioned as part of Israel's recognition of the PLO. Prior to that time, Israeli political leaders ranging from Yael Dayan all the way up to Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met with representatives of the PLO in Oslo and other locations in efforts to hammer out the Oslo Accord. Instead of being forced to resign for the treasonous acts they have committed, they have become honoured heroes of Israel's left-wing establishment.
This is a perfect example of the dangers of breaking laws that are apparently based on nothing more than ideology. As a result of those meetings, and the accord which was born of them, 112 Israelis have been killed in sixteen months -- quadruple the total of any other similar period in Israeli history. But the treachery does not end here.
To begin the new year, two members of the Knesset who had left the opposition Tsomet party to form Yi'ud joined the government coalition. In an even clearer case of treachery than Haim Ramon's treason, Haim Goldfarb and Gonen Segev left the opposition to assume more powerful positions within the Israeli cabinet. Segev was made energy minister, and Goldfarb deputy housing minister. This move represents not only an abandonment of their ideology, of their love for Israel, and of their Zionism, but also an abandonment of their moral responsibility to their voters. The people who put Segev and Goldfarb into the Knesset in the first place did so out of support for the right-wing ideology and party policy of the Tsomet party. That these members of Knesset left the party and stayed in the Knesset is a theft of the support they were given in the elections. That they have now joined the government is an insult to their voters and another nail in the coffin of both Zionism and Israeli democracy.
Segev and Goldfarb should resign not only from the coalition, but from the Knesset as well. To do otherwise is immoral and inexcusable.
Copyright 1995. Reproduction in electronic or print formats by permission only.
