BY MARTÍN KOPPEL

Big-business pundits predicted the May 29 Israeli elections would mark a sharp shift in government policy. The new prime minister, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, a "hawk," would supposedly swing away from the so-called peace process led by Labor's Shimon Peres, a "dove."

The elections, however, reflected a weakened Zionist state that is constrained by the same relationship of class forces, at home and internationally, that dictated the policies of the Peres regime. Just a week after the elections, a New York Times report noted that "Netanyahu's tough campaign language began to yield today to a more gingerly approach to Israel's problems."

Probably the most decisive event in recent months was Tel Aviv's failure to crush popular resistance in southern Lebanon despite a large-scale Israeli bombing campaign in April and May. Israel's divided capitalist class lost confidence in Peres's ability to contain the Palestinian struggle for self- determination, symbolized in a series of suicide bombings by young Palestinian fighters.

Meanwhile, economic and social instability grows inside Israel. The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish rightist shook up many Israelis and underlined the polarization there. Peres replaced Rabin.

Netanyahu's campaign had criticized the Labor Party government's 1993 agreements with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which began a process of limited Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank. He vowed to freeze the Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank for several years.

The Likud chief said he would allow troops to invade Palestinian-ruled areas to pursue "terrorists." He stated he would not honor the government's freeze on Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Netanyahu had also publicly rejected a commitment to discuss the Israeli occupation of east Jerusalem. He said Tel Aviv would not return the occupied Golan Heights to Syria.

The 1993 agreement was the result of the Zionist rulers' inability to suppress the decades-long Palestinian fight for a homeland. It also reflected the increasingly bourgeois character of the top PLO leadership, which over time abandoned its revolutionary perspective and now seeks an accommodation with Tel Aviv. Given their own weakness, decisive sections of Israel's ruling capitalists decided to try to coopt the PLO leadership and get it to police the Palestinian workers and farmers in Gaza and the West Bank.

To help Peres win the elections, PLO chairman Yasir Arafat accepted the government's delay in the scheduled Israeli pullout from Hebron and did not protest the tightened election-time closing of the occupied territories.

For months Tel Aviv's troops have blocked Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza from their jobs in Israel, devastating the Palestinian economy. "We hope after the elections everything will be removed and that everything will go smoothly," Arafat told reporters June 2.

On the other hand, some Israeli capitalists, especially those who backed Netanyahu, are not confident the PLO can keep Palestinian working people in check. They prefer to rely on more direct use of military force. "Arafat has shown that he cannot deliver peace because he cannot control the armed Islamic factions that regard themselves at war with Israel," wrote Conor Cruise O'Brien in a June 5 New York Times column praising Netanyahu. O'Brien is a pro-British politician in Ireland.

Netanyahu bumps into reality
The prime minister-elect quickly bumped up against political realities, including Washington's none-too-subtle support for Peres and his policies. "Pressure grows on Netanyahu to pursue Mideast peace talks," read a June 4 Financial Times headline.

Netanyahu immediately sought meetings with government leaders from Jordan and Egypt. He declared his regime would not reverse the main policies of his predecessor. "The Arab states, not to speak of the Western states, understand that the public in Israel determined that there will be a continuation of the peace process based on our policy," he told Likud members in parliament June 3.

Hebron will be one litmus test of the new government's policy. Softening the virulent edge of his campaign speeches, Netanyahu now says he will "study the issue" of Hebron. Under the Israel-PLO accords, most Israeli troops are to withdraw from that city, as they already have from several other West Bank towns.

Netanyahu's wafer-thin victory over Peres - less than one percent - reflected discontent among Israeli workers and the middle class with both Labor and Likud.

Despite Zionism's promise of peace and prosperity under a Jewish state, Israel has been in a perpetual state of war and growing economic crisis. The Palestinians' refusal to give up their fight has made growing numbers of Jewish workers open to acknowledging the Palestinians' national rights. Others have been drawn toward the Zionist settlers and other rightist groups.

While Israel's Labor Party is often portrayed as liberal and the Likud Party as right-wing, both are founded on reactionary policies - the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people.

"Israel was created to be not only democratic but a Jewish state whose fate and security were to be in Jewish hands," New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal stated in a pro-Netanyahu piece, without a trace of irony in his reference to a "democracy" based on one ruling nationality and religion.

Two sides of one coin
Labor and Likud have alternated in the government for decades, and in 1984-92 ruled as a coalition government. In his memoirs, "Shepherd of Peace" Rabin acknowledged his role in driving 50,000 Palestinians out of their homes during the 1948 Zionist war of conquest. As defense minister in 1987, he bragged about his "iron fist" policy against the Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Both Labor and Likud governments have legally sanctioned "moderate" torture of detainees.

While many Palestinians favored Peres over Netanyahu as a lesser evil, there was little enthusiasm for either in the impoverished towns of Gaza and the West Bank, which have been sealed off by Israeli troops for months, causing mass unemployment.

"Labor and Likud may differ in style, but their goal is the same," said Muhammad Ismail, a student in East Jerusalem. "They want to insure Israeli control over the Arabs. I felt neutral when I heard the election results."

"They are two sides of the same coin," commented Mohammed Abed, a grocery store owner in Gaza, right before the vote. "The Likud says up front that it is your enemy. Labor tells you that it wants peace, but stabs you in the back."

"There were plenty of land confiscations under Peres, so Netanyahu doesn't scare us," said Tareq Jabber, 25, a gas station attendant in Hebron.

On June 3, youths in Hebron threw stones at Israeli troops, angered after the soldiers lined Palestinian police against a wall and searched their vehicle.

Meanwhile, clashes erupted again in southern Lebanon in late May, as Hezbollah guerrillas fought back against Israeli occupation troops near the town of Soujud.  
 
 
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