Summary
Number Two in Mapam whose declaration at the 24th Zionist Congress in April 1956 — “Whoever calls for war today is a criminal against the Jewish people” — Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace turns against his own party in Chapter 7’s “Three bankruptcies”, once Mapam’s ministers had taken full responsibility for Operation Sinai (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.397-398, 401).
Details
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Speaking after Menachem Begin had categorically demanded war at the 24th Zionist Congress (Jerusalem, April 1956), Hazan said: “Honourable Congress, we will not disregard Mr. Begin’s speech. Whoever calls for war today is a criminal against the Jewish people (uproar on the floor) and that is the case as long as it is possible to rescue the peace” (Stenographic report of the 24th Zionist Congress, p.71, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.398).
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Herut demanded the Mapam leader take back his words, but “the courageous Hazan stuck to his position”; the book takes his premise — that in April 1956 the peace could still be rescued — and applies it to 27 October 1956, when the Mapam ministers Barzilai and Bentov opposed Ben-Gurion’s invasion proposal yet announced they would take full responsibility for it if decided: “Logic and morality both demand that if the call to execute a certain action is a crime, then full responsibility for the execution of that action is a far worse crime” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.398, 401).
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In Chapter 7’s conclusion Hazan is quoted in the Knesset on 22/2/57, in the same speech, calling Sinai “the glorious military campaign” whose “just” results the political campaign threatened to eliminate, and fixing Mapam’s Gaza line: an Israeli civil administration there in close coordination with UN representatives is “the outer limit of our concessions” (Knesset Records, cited 21/1149 and 12/1148 as printed) (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.408).
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On the Eisenhower Doctrine (Knesset, 3/6/57) Hazan gave what the book calls a classic Mapam speech: the exchange of declarations with Richards had taken Israel down “a path paved with dangers”, yet “We will not support the exchange of declarations. We have decided to abstain from voting. Abstention is, in its essence and based on its content, a vote against”, the balance tipped by the wish not to burden Israel with a government crisis and by the hope that remaining in the government would strengthen hands against the Doctrine’s slope (Knesset Records, 22/2058) (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.424).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Mapam, Meir Yaari, Menachem Begin, Operation Sinai