Volume 28, Number 13 · August 13, 1981
The Victory of the New Israel
By Bernard Avishai
The Palestinian scholar Walid Khalidi said to me recently that Menachem Begin may yet succeed where Nasser failed in bringing unity to the Arab world. No doubt this is why Yasir Arafat expressed satisfaction in June at the good prospects for Begin's reelection. Yet the diplomatic and military pressures now mounting against Israel from Arab rejectionists, European leaders, and State Department officials have not united the Jewish state. The mean-spirited campaign that preceded the June 30 election has in fact revealed a country passionately divided by ideology, class, age, attitudes toward Orthodox faith and law—and crucially, ethnic origin. The ingathering of the exiles, it seems, has been a simpler matter than consolidating the nation.
Feature, 8207 words
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