45 years ago/May 17, 1977

The Right-Wing Won the Elections in Israel

Almost exactly ten years passed after the glorious victory of the Six-Day War, and Israel saw another historical event. Since the proclamation of the independent State of Israel left-wing coalitions governed the country. It wasn’t a surprise, many of the founders and the Zionist organisations had left-wing roots. This was the reason that the Soviet Union was more supportive before and when the new country was established. Of course, sooner or later it had to happen that the right-wing won, but few could have thought, mainly after the Six-Day War, that only ten years would pass till then. What could be the reasons?

One of the main reason might be that the pioneer mentality of the founders wore out in the daily grind of the political conflicts and decisions. The miracle of building a nation and a country out of almost nothing could give an impact to cover the fractions in a group of people, but when you have to lead a society of a real country, differences can come up. Between groups of the society as well as between the leaders of the country. There were conflicts before as well, even on the brink of the Six-Day War there was a huge pressure on Yitzhak Rabin and Levi Eshkol, but it seems in the 70’s it got worse. Go through quickly what happened in those ten years.

With the victory the whole city of Jerusalem was in the hand of the Jewish state, with the new armistice lines the military vulnerability seemed to ease, not to mention the serious blow hit the Egyptian and the other Arab armies. However, it turned out, that her military superiority wasn’t enough reason for the Arab countries to recognize Israel. The occupation meant a new burden on the country and the army, and they could expect there Arab counterparts would try to take a revenge. Furthermore, the Palestinians got more support and attention, and, by losing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Jordan and Egypt could step up louder for their case.

The Arab countries tried to sort their issues out – Yemen, for example – but it wasn’t fully successful, while in Syria a new leader got into power, who gave the country the long awaited stability. However, the peace didn’t seem to be closer. The War of Attrition came, the terrorist/guerrilla activity grew, then civil wars came, the relationship between Jordan and Syria hit the low, then Gamal Abdel Nasser died, and his successor Anwar Sadat gradually turned the Egyptian foreign policy into a new direction. However, to do so he had to prove he is a worthy successor of Nasser. The best way could be a success against Israel.

This was the Yom Kippur War for him, what he celebrated as a victory. In my opinion, it was bigger military success for Israel at the end, than the Six-Day War. The Israeli troops were not far from Cairo and Damascus – Jordan didn’t participate –, and there wasn’t real resistance in their way. However, they paid a big price for it, and, on the other hand, it showed the limits of the military superiority: what could they win by occupying more Arab territories?

The Yom Kippur War, however, gave a big morale boost to the Arab countries, the success of the first days showed that Israel wasn’t invincible, and that the Arab armies could be a match for them. The war caused turmoil in the Jewish country, and the following investigation even made two emblematic characters to resign: the Prime Minister, Golda Meir – who allegedly was called “the only man” in his cabinet by David Ben-Gurion –, and the Minister of Defense, the legendary Moshe Dayan.

To recover from the blow it seemed to be a good idea to appoint Yitzhak Rabin, the hero of the Six-Day War, who was untouched by the 1973 fiasco – he was Ambassador to the United States – as the leader of the party and the government. However, his personal conflict with Shimon Peres was said to have an important role in the fall in 1977 at last. Another problem was that Anwar Sadat broke the Soviet alliance and turned towards the US, which resulted in bigger pressure from Washington in order to reach an agreement.

On the top of all the problems, scandals, not long before the elections Israeli journalist published the story of the bank accounts of the Rabin family in Washington, which they should have closed when they left. It was a breach of Israeli law, and Rabin withdrew from the leadership of his party and the government. As acting Prime Minister and leader of his party Shimon Peres lead them into the historical defeat. (Interesting fact, that Shimon Peres followed Yitzhak Rabin once more as Prime Minister, after Rabin was killed by Yigal Amir in 1995, and the next summer the left-wing lost to the right again.)

This is a very short summary, how the Israeli left-wing get from the glory of 1967 to the fall of 1977. And the new Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin and his Egyptian counterpart, Anwar Sadat still had some surprises for the next few years.