Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: The evolving centrism

THE MIDDLE EAST is the cradle of our civilization.

From its bosom have grown three of the great religions of man, Christians, Moslems and Jews. And from the earliest of recorded times, the history of man has been written as life and law and living has spanned across the Earth from that tiny, yet so very important, part of our planet.

But it is not just history and tradition that the human race has drawn from the Middle East. For certain, the Judeo-Christian tradition has given us the laws by which we live and the powerful concepts of religion that have guided our morality in a world that sometimes seems lacking. But there is more. It appears that we are learning about our future from this land of ancient past.

The world being round, I suppose, has given us in the United States a perspective that few others have been able to achieve. We seem to see ourselves coming and going so that we will know where we have been before we get there and, more importantly, we will know the way of tomorrow before it comes. In no facet of our human existence is that more true than in the realm of things political.

When President Ronald Reagan rode onto the scene of American politics he was not alone in this world. There was a conservative movement already under way, the most obvious manifestation of which lay just across the Atlantic Ocean. Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain was a Reagan soulmate whose rise to power was quite similar to that of her actor friend. The politics of the left had so bankrupted treasuries and individual accountability that people who spoke of the principle of responsibility -- in government and in our daily lives -- captured the imagination of the voters and were swept into office with the promise of change back to times better remembered.

It would be many years before the pendulum would swing the other way. But swing it did and in 1992, riding a wave of new optimism in the face of a quickly changing world -- one in which a century-long enemy evaporated and in its wake left political, economic and social upheaval throughout the world -- Bill Clinton led a more centered Democratic Party back into the American White House. He did it based on his own vision but he was helped by a Republican Party fracturing from within by friction caused by the forces of religious fundamentalism rubbing hard against those who believed in individual freedom and small, unobtrusive government.

And soon, Great Britain followed suit. Prime Minister Tony Blair's election in the middle of President Clinton's Administration proved that pendulums swing both ways on both sides of the Atlantic. The same kind of centrist-moving, left-leaving political vision that elected Bill Clinton helped change the face and the politics of our closest ally and the well-spring of our own political thought. Great Britain had firmly moved to the center, a place of comfort for most people free enough to decide the direction of their lives themselves.

But now, I believe we are about to learn another lesson in political life. This time, though, it will not come from Mother England, where expectations would run high that it would. No, this time the lesson for American politics of the future is being taught in the very place from which our religions have been born and our greatest traditions have been nurtured. This time it is from Israel that the United States will learn its next political lesson, a lesson we have refused to learn on our own.

Unlike this great country of ours, where life is so good that we have the time and inclination to squander some of the greatest opportunities ever afforded the only economic and military superpower on earth, Israel is consumed with only one overriding concern. Peace.

For without the blessings that a peaceful future with her Arab neighbors will bring, the thought of war forever more, coupled with the great and tragic loss of lives on all sides that would continue through the generations, is too much for even the most optimistic people on the planet to endure. So peace, not war, is the guiding light of most Israeli thought. It is, however, a flickering light at best.

With an overwhelming majority of Israelis pushing hard for peace with the Arabs -- yes, knowing full well that land will be exchanged as the price for no more war -- the question of how that is to be achieved will be answered when that country votes for a new Prime Minister on May 17. The early elections were called by embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he saw his ruling coalition crumble over both his efforts to seek peace with the Arabs and his intransigence in making good on his commitments made in the face of resistance from the right wing of his party.

May's elections will support a peaceful solution with the Arabs. The question will be which leader, and which party, will lead Israel to that greatest of promised lands. In a move that has threatened to clutter an already cluttered field for the prime ministership, one of Netanyahu's top ministers, Yitzhak Mordechai, has thrown his considerable hat into the political ring. The popular defense minister was fired by Netanyahu in a very public way shortly before the centrist-leaning, security-conscious military man made himself a candidate against his former boss. The split was not along ideological grounds. Mordechai believes that commitments made with the Arabs should be kept and commitments for the sake of peace should be made.

What is most interesting here, though, is that Mordechai has moved from a comfortable place on the right side of the political spectrum to a more comfortable place in the center of Israeli political thought. And he was pushed that direction by those so overzealous in the pursuit of ideology to understand that they were forfeiting their chance to lead.

Is there a lesson from the cradle of civilization, the giver of laws and the motherland of morality that has application in these United States?

None. Unless, of course, you have been paying attention to the rise to power within the Republican Party of a very zealous group of ideologues -- religious and otherwise -- who have captured the organizing efforts of the GOP and now control enough of the party to hold hostage the sense of a better way that has heretofore made the Republican leadership seem like home to concepts like common sense and political reality.

But just like the zealots in Israel have done all they can to destroy the majority's desire for peace with its Arab neighbors, and done so from within the rank and file of its major conservative party, so, too, has the fundamentalist right of the GOP done almost all it can to destroy whatever good had been promised and hoped for by a Republican resurrection in 1994.

And just like Mordecai's move from Likud to the center of Israeli thought may bring a new sense of power to a centrist leaning Labor Party (having learned the error of its too liberal ways like the Democrats in the United States have done), so, too, may a dispirited Republican middle look for a more fertile and less strident life amidst the center of American political thought. And once done, such a move will change the face of American politics for at least a generation.

Don't say it can't or won't be done. We are watching it happen in Israel and we are watching the makings of such a revolt take shape in Europe. There is no reason to think that it won't happen here. Especially if the outside wings of the parties -- left and right -- are allowed to direct the flight of the party itself. That is no longer the case with the Democrats. Clinton and Al Gore have managed to move their ideas, if not their hearts in full, to the center where America likes to live.

This impeachment debacle and the year 2000 election cycle will tell the rest of the story about the Republicans. If they can't end their blindingly malicious effort to "get Clinton" and get it together soon, there will be an American Yitzhak Mordechai, a man of principle and vision from within the Republican Party, who will make the move to the center. And with him will go a GOP that had the chance and blew it to lead the way.

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