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Buttressed by an assumption articulated long ago by Defense Minister Moshe Arens -- "It doesn't matter who the President is as long as we have the Senate" -- Shamir's American allies began their campaign. The conventional wisdom held that no American President would risk precious political capital by vetoing legislation supporting Israel. When Bush threatened just that, the Israelis were stuck. But even those who call Bush an anti-Semite must know that the President is merely anti-Shamir, or more properly that Bush is simply exercising an American prerogative to quarrel with another government's policies.
Is there any way out? Creative diplomacy may resolve the instant crisis. Israel may get the absorption assistance it seeks in some form, at some time. But the Issue will linger, and if the logjam is to be broken, the burden of change should be borne equally by the other side. Too many wars have confirmed that the Arabs' hard line should be taken as seriously as Shamir's.
Many Israelis buoyed by Yasser Arafat's seeming acceptance of their right to exist in December 1988 have had second thoughts. "Beyond everything," says the Israeli author Ze'ev Chafets, "beyond the continuation of terrorist actions, the Palestine Liberation Organization's refusal to amend its covenant ((which calls for the destruction of Israel)), the P.L.O.'s support for Iraq during the gulf war, and the insistence of West Bank Palestinians that their statements and actions be cleared by Arafat, there is a single image that will probably not recede for all of our lives. It was when we were all huddling with our gas masks hoping the Scuds wouldn't hit and the Palestinians were on their rooftops cheering. It will be a long time before anything the Arabs say is trusted."
David Hartman, who has long favored a two-state solution, agrees. "Baker needs to spend less time trying to stop the settlements, which won't happen, and more time convincing the Palestinians that they must prove to us that they understand that we are home, that we are equally entitled to live here. If that ever happens, the hard-line ideologies will fade as controlling political forces, the settlements question will be resolved, and we will be as welcoming of the West Bank Arabs, and perhaps even of the P.L.O., as we were of Anwar Sadat."
If and when Hartman's dream is realized, the Shamirs will be thanked for having helped to keep Israel together for almost a half-century of unending hostility, and then they will be retired. Until then, the rejectionists will rule -- and half in frustration, half in admiration, Israelis will continue to say what they have said for years: Nobody does nothing better than Yitzhak Shamir.