Interesting analysis of the ideology that is driving Israel's labor party further to the Left even during a war, from an author who is in the Israeli Right:
Labor Puts its Head in the Noose
Avi Davis
27 November 2002
Since the collapse of Soviet Union 11 years ago, a phenomenon has been evident throughout the Western world. The parties of the left have progressively drifted away from ideologically fixed positions and pulled towards the center. This has been evident in Britain, where Tony Blair´s Labor Party has all but stripped itself of its socialist heritage. It is also the case in Eastern Europe, where communism has been rapidly replaced by a vigorous consumer culture and free market economies. It is even so in China, where communism has become a fig leaf for aggressive commercialism and entrepreneurship. In country after country where a leftist agenda once reigned , ideology has been replaced by the pragmatics of economic opportunity and political moderation.
In Israel, too, the Labor Party, once steeped in socialism has undergone its own metamorphosis. No longer does the party that dominated Israeli politics for the first 30 years of its existence preach the platitudes of socialism. Rather, the Labor Party has transformed into the party of the elite and wealthy, representing Israeli patricians - children and grandchildren of founding fathers; artists, academics and intellectuals. It is overwhelmingly dovish, laissez-faire, intellectual and secular.
Yet never was it clear that it also harbored a secret death wish, but that became obvious last week when the party chose Amram Mitzna as its candidate in the upcoming Israeli elections. A relative unknown, Mitzna easily defeated Binyamin Ben-Eliezer for the party leadership. It should have come as little surprise. Ben-Eliezer´s efforts to stem a shift of his party to the far left ended in failure and humiliation when the party rejected his centrist leadership. Rather than blame its steep decline in the polls on its own failed policies, the party faithful turned their wrath on the man who had become the symbol of the despised national unity government and its obdurate policies.
Mitzna soon made it clear where he stands: Immediate and direct negotiations with Yasser Arafat would be followed by the arrival of a final settlement, even one reached under fire. Failing the success of negotiation, he would order unilateral withdrawal from most of the territories. No Israeli leader has ever advanced such a provocative agenda as this - announcing the outcome of negotiations before they begin . It immediately had Israelis scratching their heads. If he is already revealing his final position, what incentive is he giving Arafat to negotiate at all? For such a man as Arafat, one who rejected negotiation for the benefits of a terrorist campaign in the fall of 2000, wouldn´t this be a sure signal that terrorism not only works, but is an inspired option?
That´s certainly what Hamas thinks. Two senior Hamas leaders, Dr. Abdel Aziz-Rantisi and Dr. Nizar Rayyan, leading a demonstration in Jabalya, declared that Mitzna´s platform was a confirmation of the success of their strategy. Arafat´s spokesmen were just as quick to applaud Mitzna. Mitzna, undaunted by the endorsement of these leaders (who had just commissioned the slaughter of 11 Israelis in a bus bombing in Jerusalem) told Israel Radio: "If the biggest of our enemies is congratulating me on my election, perhaps that is a sign that in the future there will be someone with whom to talk." He seems unable to understand that this is much like having Hitler endorse Neville Chamberlain for prime minister of England after Germany´s invasion of Poland. Mitzna is also unnervingly oblivious to the fact that such a statement almost guarantees that he will be perceived as running on a joint Labor/ Palestinian ticket. This bodes disaster for his party.
The question, then, is why? Why has the Labor Party, with such a storied legacy of Zionist endeavor and success, so willingly transformed itself into the party of appeasement and surrender? Why the retreat into pre-Oslo ideology, as if the death and injury to thousands of Israelis had not occurred? What has changed within the organizational structure of Labor to return it to failed policies and old resentments?
An answer may be found in examining how the Oslo process and its die-hard adherents always stood for more than simply peace with the Palestinians. The motivations behind the peace process were never tied exclusively to peace with the Arab world. It was designed to have a transformative impact on Israeli society itself, by rejecting the most fundamental ethos of Zionism. The new State of Israel, emerging from its years of crippling wars, would be reborn as a country of freedom. Shedding its particularistic Jewish skin, it would metamorphose from an anemic Jewish State into a full blooded state of all its citizens.
Of course, this would mean more than just equal rights for all Israeli citizens. It would mean the elimination of preference based on race or religion. It would mean the end of the domination of religious law over life cycle issues. It would mean the revocation of what is perceived as the moribund Law of Return, which had for decades opened the floodgates to millions of destitute Jews from all over the world. In the end, post-Zionist Israel would be a polity that would turn for inspiration not to Zion and 3,000 years of Jewish history , but rather to the example of the 225- year- old United States of America - secular, pluralistic and blessed with a judiciary whose only obligation is to the rule of secular law. A fine model, perhaps, but it is not exactly Zionism, which has always argued for a distinctly Jewish state with an assertive Jewish character.
Of even greater significance is the urge for justice and restitution. The generation that has come to accept post -Zionism as its creed is also one raised on liberal humanism. Driven by the guilt that has gripped most prosperous western democracies since the end of the Second World War, it views the occupation of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as morally compromised , if not evil. It sees the peace process as a long overdue recognition of Israel´s payment of its debt to the Palestinian people. And it views any opposition to its doctrinaire agenda as a retreat into tribalism.
The collapse of the national unity government was therefore greeted with approbation by the far left, because in their view the real enemy is not the Palestinians and their murderous terrorist campaign, but the right - settlers, nationalists and the religious. It is these elements, with their unwanted settlements, their slogans about Jewish rights and their insistence on reprisals over negotiation, who have brought terror upon Israel. Speaking to members of the far left six months ago, I was startled to find an acceptance that the disproportionate casualties suffered by settlers was well deserved and should have been expected. I found many who believed that settlers had it coming to them - and there was even a glint of satisfaction that Arafat had achieved some success in making their lives so difficult.
Mitzna´s ascendancy, then, reflects the re-emergence of a contagion of disaffection that was all but eliminated by Arafat´s terrorist war, yet survived to become even more implacably committed to its agenda. It is a desperate demand for simple solutions where none exist; it is an assertion of independence from the facts of recent history and it is a rejection of Jewish nationalism . While its vision might have seemed attainable during elections for Ehud Barak and Yitzchak Rabin in 1992 and 1999, this time there is no popular movement to back the agenda and no Israeli populace willing to buy into false illusions. There are few who believe that unilateral withdrawal will appease Yasser Arafat, but there are even less who believe that it will appease Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups who reject Israel´s right to exist and yet are given free reign in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.
Having chosen their man, Labor must now live with him and run the risk of a crushing marginalization. In the end, the inevitable electoral defeat might arouse some sober reflection. At the very least, it will acknowledge that every Israeli election is fought, not over social security or lock boxes, but on issues of security. History may well record Amram Mitzna as the one Labor leader, despite his own denials, for whom security was a far less compelling issue than ideology. That will provide the explanation for Labor´s political tragedy and the cause of its ultimate historical downfall.
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