Since the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister in 1999, if not earlier, there has been no center left in Israel. Of course, there has been something referred to as “center left” but that was only relative to the so-called right of the Likud, Kadima, Shinui, Yesh Atid, and defunct parties whose name I forget. Former prime minister, Ehud Barak managed almost single-handedly to destroy the center left, which had supported recognition of the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, and which had viewed moderate Israelis and Palestinians as partners for peace against the extremists of both sides. With Barak, even before the total collapse of the peace process, the motivation for a settlement with the Palestinians was to separate the populations, to keep the West Bank and Gaza under direct security and indirect economic control of Israel, and to grant limited autonomy to Palestinians. Barak’s views differed little from Netanyahu, which explains in part his ability to serve as Defense Minister in Netanyahu’s government.
The Barak Doctrine was simple: separation from the Palestinians (“We are here; they are there”); Israeli security and economic control over the West Bank and Gaza; limited Palestinian autonomy with Israel’s security being contracted out, in part, to the Palestinian Authority. Israel would help facilitate, or at least would not stand in the way, of Palestinian economic growth in areas that did not threaten the Israeli economy. The difference, perhaps, between Barak and Netanyahu was the extent of expansion into the West Bank they thought possible. Both were willing to allow settlements even outside the settlement blocs to grow without taking steps to curb them.
The Barak Doctrine should now be known as the Herzog Doctrine; in fact, I cannot see any difference between them. From Barak’s Labor Party to Herzog’s Zionist Union, there has been a consistent vision of the status quo and the endgame; the party’s criticisms against the right have generally been more of style than of substance. Herzog has often criticized Netanyahu for alienating Israel’s allies, and for his relying on the extreme right wing. Instead of presenting the Zionist Camp as an ideological alternative to the Likud and the other right wing parties, he has presented himself as a more effective political leader than Bibi. He will do what Bibi would like to do, only better – because he will do it with the understanding of the US and Europe.
It is the failure of the Zionist Camp to offer a center left alternative that has led people like Haaretz’s owner, Amos Schocken, to suggest that only international intervention will preserve the state of Israel. Were there to be a center left, even were it to be in the opposition, Schocken would not have written his powerful piece.
So one should not blame the leftwing activists, intellectuals, and journalists who call for international intervention, or who display Israel’s human rights abuses for all the world to see, for the demise of Israel’s center left. That is getting the story backwards. Were the Zionist Camp to offer a party around which people could rally – not because the party doesn’t like Bibi and the rightwing, but because it doesn’t like his vision and his policies – then there would be an address for political action within Israel. Even the so-called extreme left would support it, as it supported Rabin in the early stages of Oslo.
Can there be a center left political alternative in Israel? Some people think that it is not possible. I am not sure, but I don’t think giving up on it is a good idea. For the Palestinians to achieve even partial liberty, for the current phase of the Occupation to end, there must be a political constituency in Israel that articulates a different vision from that of the Likud and its various imitator policies.
Personally, I cannot accept the ideology of even a reformed, progressive, Zionist Left. But I can recognize its practical importance in the evolution of Israeli thinking towards the Palestinians. So any steps that are taken to create a real ideological and political alternative to the anti-Palestinian Center should have the support not only of the Zionist Left, but of all people who want justice for the Palestinians.
This is not a time for ideological purity. There is an overriding goal and that is ending the Occupation, and bringing justice and security to the Palestinian people. For this to happen, there must be at least three things: a strong Palestinian movement; a strong Israeli political movement advocating for change; and international incentives and pressure, including boycotts and sanctions. These three groups will have different aims, and they certainly will not be coordinated. For example, the Israeli political movement cannot and should not call for international intervention. But it has the obligation of warning the Israeli public of that intervention.
There has to be an Israeli political movement that is truly center left. I don’t know how or whether that will come about. But I can tell you right now, I will support it, despite any skepticism I may have.
3 comments:
i would like your permission to post this powerful and compelling article on The Jewish Pluralist as first published in Magnes Zionist and include a link
http://thejewishpluralist.net/about/
I'm intrigued by your comment "Personally, I cannot accept the ideology of even a reformed, progressive, Zionist Left. But I can recognize its practical importance in the evolution of Israeli thinking towards the Palestinians. So any steps that are taken to create a real ideological and political alternative to the anti-Palestinian Center should have the support not only of the Zionist Left, but of all people who want justice for the Palestinians."
Does that mean that you don't define yourself as a Zionist, but rather a bi-nationalist? As a graduate of Hashomer Hatzair, which supported a bi-national approach before the creation of the State of Israel, I agree with the aspiration for a bi-national state. But I'm afraid it will have to be arrived via a dual-national (Israeli state and Palestinian state) path. Thus, the first challenge, as you say is to "create a real ideological and political alternative to the anti-Palestinian center", to end the occupation and achieve the mutual Jewish and Palestinian right to national self-determination, i.e. a two-state solution.
Before one can accept the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, one must ask what anti-Zionism and what anti-Semitism are if there is to be a reasonable discussion.
Zionism is a particularly vicious racist genocidal colonialist extreme organic nationalist political ideology. Anti-Zionism is opposition to this political ideology.
But what is anti-Semitism? Lindemann points out in Esau's Tears that there was strong opposition in France to emancipation of people descended from Ashkenazi Jewish communities, but no comparable French opposition to emancipation of people descended from non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities.
In Polish and Czarist territories, people descended from Ashkenazi Jewish communities often resided in regions with Jewish Tatars, who often criticized the former population in terms indistinguishable from alleged anti-Semites.
Lindemann points out that Emma Lazarus, who was of upper class US Sephardic background, agreed on the basis of personal observation of E. European immigrants to the US with Czarist officials reputed to to be anti-Semites and doubted whether descendants of E. European Jewish communities were fit immigrants for the USA.
Is it anti-Semitism when Jewish people express it?
Is it anti-Semitism when non-Jewish people make explicit distinction between those of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and those of non-Ashkenazi Jewish heritage?
Emma Lazarus wrote the following poem, which can be found at the base of The Statue of Liberty.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
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