"Israel has no foreign policy, only a defense policy."
-- Moshe Dayan
"Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic political system."
-- Henry Kissinger
The historian Isaiah Berlin is reported to have said that Yitzhak Shamir is like a wall and that while walls have uses, being talked to is not one of them. Listening to Shamir, however, is revelatory. For in common with several other world leaders (Saddam Hussein comes quickly to mind), the Israeli Prime Minister has always said exactly what he thinks and more often than not has done exactly what he has said he was going to do.
Several years ago, I asked Shamir about the Dayan and Kissinger observations. Both were correct, he said, admitting that his nation's obvious security needs and geography combined with an increasingly conservative politics to support his own heartfelt suspicion of the Arabs in Israel's midst. "But there is more," he added calmly. "You see, I just don't believe in trading land for peace. I mean I don't believe in it."
Since then, and despite his willingness to attend the peace conference that James Baker has been trying to arrange, Shamir has not changed his mind. "It is not a religious notion for him," explains the Israeli philosopher David Hartman, "but rather a deeper commitment to a historical consciousness that says a vital people has been too long denied its rightful place on all of the land of Israel." What is politically significant, says Hartman, is that "the people trust Shamir to stick to his guns. They know he is not out to win a Man of the Year award, that he's not interested in having cocktails with the goyim. The polls say a majority would favor trading land for peace, but they know that if it is Shamir who cuts a deal, it will be because it is smart to do so, not simply expedient."
A deal? Only dreamers still hope that the Prime Minister's hard line is a negotiating gambit. Realists know better. Most skulk away depressed. Some summon the courage to strike back, as George Bush is doing.
For Shamir, a territorial compromise that could realize the hope of most Israelis to live in peace is not a dream at all, but a nightmare. "Peace for peace" is what Shamir wants, a pledge of Israeli cooperation with her poorer Arab neighbors in exchange for an end to the Arab boycott of corporations that do business with Israel. Beyond that, Shamir is perfectly satisfied with the status quo. To him, Israel appears blessed: Saddam is defanged, Syria has been humbled because its longtime patron, the Soviet Union, is consumed with its own problems, and the Palestinian intifadeh, while a nuisance, rarely intrudes on the daily lives of most Israelis.
Understand Shamir's basic intransigence on the central question and you can appreciate why Israel precipitated the latest settlement dust-up. And make no mistake about it: it was Shamir, not Bush, who started it all -- intentionally. "At some point, the Issue -- we capitalize it -- will really be joined," says a Shamir adviser. "Whenever that time comes, the Prime Minister's 'no' could kill the chance of U.S. aid in the settling of Soviet Jews. So we decided to try and get the money first. Given our underlying position, we reasoned it would be harder later, not easier."