Revisionist Zionism - Ideology

Ideology

Revisionism was distinguished primarily from other ideologies within Zionism by its territorial maximalism. While not the only group to do so, they insisted upon the Jewish right to sovereignty over the whole territory of Eretz Yisrael (originally encompassing all of Mandatory Palestine). The British establishment of Transjordan (modern day state of Jordan) adversely affected this goal and was a great set-back for the movement. After this and until statehood, Revisionist Zionism became known more for its advocacy of more belligerent, assertive posture and actions against both British and Arab control of the region.

Revisionism's foremost political objective was to maintain the territorial integrity of the historical land of Israel and establish a Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both sides of the River Jordan. Jewish statehood was always a major ideological goal for Revisionism, but it was not to be gained at the price of partitioning Eretz Yisrael. Jabotinsky and his followers, therefore, consistently rejected proposals to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Menachem Begin, Jabotinsky's successor, therefore opposed the 1947 United Nations partition plan. Revisionists considered the subsequent partition of Palestine following the 1949 Armistice Agreements to have no legitimacy.

During the first two decades after independence, the Revisionist Party, Herut, remained in opposition. The party slowly began to revise its ideology in an effort to change this situation and gain political power. While Begin maintained the Revisionist claim to Jewish sovereignty over all of Eretz Israel; by the late 1950s, control over the East Bank of the Jordan ceased to be an operative element within Revisionist ideology. Following Herut's merger with the Liberal Party in 1965, references to the ideal of Jewish sovereignty over "both banks of the Jordan" appeared less and less frequently. By the 1970s, the legitimacy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was no longer questioned. In 1994, the complete practical abandonment of the "both banks" principle was apparent when an overwhelming majority of Likud Knesset Members (MKs) voted in favor of the peace treaty with Jordan.

On the day the Six-Day War started in June 1967, the Revisionists, as part of the Gahal faction, joined the national unity government under Prime Minister Levi Eshkol; this resulted in Begin serving in the cabinet for the first time. Ben-Gurion's Rafi party also joined. The war also brought to an end Labor's previous efforts to delegitimize Revisionism, because on the eve of the war, the dominant party felt it had to include the Revisionist opposition in an emergency national unity government. This step not only made the opposition views acceptable in the eyes of the public. It also showed that the dominant party no longer felt that it could monopolize power. This unity arrangement lasted until August 1970, when Begin and Gahal left the government. Some sources indicate the resignation was due to disagreements over the Rogers Plan and its "in place" cease-fire with Egypt along the Suez Canal,; other sources, including William B. Quandt, note that Begin left the unity government because the Labor party, by formally accepting UN 242 in mid-1970, had accepted "peace for withdrawal" on all fronts. On August 5, 1970, Begin himself explained before the Knesset why he was resigning. He said, "As far as we are concerned, what do the words 'withdrawal from territories administered since 1967 by Israel' mean other than Judea and Samaria. Not all the territories; but by all opinion, most of them."

Following Israel's capture of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war, Revisionism's territorial aspirations concentrated on these territories. These areas were far more central to ancient Jewish history than the East Bank of the Jordan and most of the areas within Israel's post-1949 borders. In 1968, Begin defined the "eternal patrimony of our ancestors" as "Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Judea, Shechem " in the West Bank. In 1973, Herut's election platform called for the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. When Menachem Begin became leader of the broad Likud coalition and, soon Prime Minister, he considerably modified Herut's expansive territorial aims. The party's aspiration to unite all of mandatory Palestine under Jewish rule was scaled down. Instead, Begin spoke of the historic unity of Israel in the West Bank, even hinting that he would make territorial concessions in the Sinai as part of a complete peace settlement.

When Begin finally came to power in the 1977 election, his overriding concern as Prime Minister (1977–1983) was to maintain Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza. In 1981 he declared to a group of Jewish settlers: "I, Menachem, the son of Ze'ev and Hasia Begin, do solemnly swear that as long as I serve the nation as Prime Minister we will not leave any part of Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip." One of the main mechanisms for accomplishing this objective was the establishment of Jewish settlements. Under Labor governments, between 1967 and 1977, the Jewish population of the territories reached 3,200; Labor's limited settlement activity was predicated upon making a future territorial compromise when the majority of the territory would be returned to Arab control. By contrast, the Likud's settlement plan aimed to settle 750,000 Jews all over the territories in order to prevent a territorial compromise. As a result, by 1984, there were about 44,000 settlers outside East Jerusalem.

In the diplomatic arena, Begin pursued his core ideological objective in a relatively pragmatic manner. He held back from annexing the West Bank and Gaza, recognizing that this was not feasible in the short term, due to international opposition. He signed the Camp David Accords (1978) with Egypt that referred to the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians" (although Begin insisted that the Hebrew version referred only to "the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael" and not to "Palestinians"). Begin also promoted the idea of autonomy for the Palestinians, albeit only a "personal" autonomy that would not give them control over any territory. But his uncompromising stance in the negotiations over Palestinian autonomy from 1979 to 1981 led to the resignations of the more moderate Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, Foreign and Defense Ministers, respectively, both of whom left the Likud government.

According to Weizman, the significant concessions Begin made to the Egyptians in the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian—Israeli peace treaty of the following year were motivated, in part, by his ideological commitment to the eventual annexation of the territories. By removing the most powerful Arab state from the conflict, reducing international (mainly American) pressure for Israeli concessions on the issue of the territories, and prolonging inconclusive talks on Palestinian autonomy, Begin was buying time for his government's settlement activities in the territories. Begin continued to vow that territory, which was part of historic Eretz Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, would never be returned. His adamant stand on the territory became an obstacle to extending the 1979 peace treaty.

The Revisionist ideological stand concerning the territories has continued, although it has moderated somewhat and become more 'pragmatic' in the years since, as discussed below.