Without major transformations in the next twelve years, the twenty-first century will dawn upon an Israeli state that faces a consciously ungovernable mass of Palestinians, a crippling domestic impasse, and less accommodating patrons abroad. The state of no-war, no-peace and the open-ended occupations that have lasted for a considerable period of Israel's existence are likely to become much more untenable, short of a major restructuring of Israel's domestic and foreign policy consensus, already severely constrained. Israel's pursuit of the role of regional police, emphasized by Ariel Sharon's 1981 doctrine claiming a "zone of influence" extending from Turkey to the Sudan and from Pakistan to Morocco, has had its ups and downs. The Israeli bombing of Baghdad's nuclear research facility in 1981, the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunisia in 1985 can be seen in the context of that doctrine.
Even then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig had to ponder the impact of a new imperial power in the Middle East. The Lebanese balance sheet, which revealed the exorbitant cost of hegemony, impelled an admission that Israeli "invincibility" had suffered a setback.
Most of Israel's war gains were erased as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew. But Lebanon's sobering effect had no effect on Israel's 1967 occupation. The stronger the attempt to regularize that occupation, the stiffer the resistance, the more brutal the repression.
A picture of the future
Under these circumstances, let us consider Israel in the year 2000. The 1987 uprising is a full-scale revolt. Israel's iron fist policy of might, force, and beatings had failed to restore the deterrent credibility of the IDF. The Palestinians are far more united and much less susceptible to segmentation. Terms such as "West Bankers," "Gazans," "Israeli Arabs," "Arabs of Eretz Israel" have largely disappeared. Irrespective of their location, they are known as Palestinians. The so-called Green Line separating Israel from the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, that has been fading steadily under the impact of de facto annexation, is restored and reconfirmed. Although it was physically bruised, it remained psychologically intact.
From terrorists to yuppies?
An ungovernable mass of Palestinians realizing its demographic potential and utilizing its economic power and self-help organizational network has almost totally erased Israel's David-image. Israel's new enemies are neither desperadoes showering airline pavilions with bullets, nor "border infiltrators" in search of civilian hostages. They are organized components of a grass roots movement aiming to maintain social order, run the economy, manage the educational system, allocate scarce resources, create a viable health infrastructure, and develop community-based solution to social and economic needs. Israel's primary enemies have enrolled in a collective endeavor whose goal is to meet Palestinian needs by Palestinians. They are trying to out-administer, not out-fight, the occupant of their land, working toward the ultimate creation of a social reality that would make Palestinian independence necessary, not merely desirable.
Israel confronts Palestinians struggling against inequality. Two
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