Middle East Analysis: What Has Happened to the Israeli "Left"?

Speaking to Ma'ariv, Israel's Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor Party) said over the weekend:

In the current sociopolitical situation, only a leader from the Right could pass a peace process through the nation.

[Prime Minister Menachem] Begin returned the Sinai. Could a Labor leader do that? Could a Labor leader have dared evacuate Gaza and destroy the settlements?

[Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin was killed just for Oslo [1993 accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization]. Does anyone think I could have evacuated Gaza? Only a leader from the Right could bring such a change. There is nothing we can do. That's the reality. Take it or leave it.

In Ben-Eliezer's mind, the relationship between Israeli right and left is almost independent from each other. The left can show no progress while the right has given all the "concessions" for the sake of the peace process. Indeed, he accused Labor of having a "self-destructive virus" and of failing to develop a new generation of leaders.

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Ben-Eliezer praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the close relationship between the premier and Defense Minister Ehud Barak:

Bibi wants to advance the diplomatic process with the Palestinians more than any leader I know. Despite the pressure he faces, he makes an effort day and night to reach a breakthrough.

Bibi and Barak broadcast the same language. They understand each other. They complete each other.

When asked why the public was heading toward the right, he said that "the nation is tired" and "sick of the Arabs."

The story is not ending up at here. Ben-Eliezer is answering the question of Haaretz's Yitzhak Laor, "Why has the left in Israel vanished?" In his analysis, Laor see the secular-religious consensus in the alliance between Netanyahu and Barak today. Against intimidations and pressures on this consensus, in which religious observers ignore the rights of Palestinians due to "the given rights from God" and secular people ignore the same rights because Israel is militarily and economically more powerful, he accues the masses of being obedient and afraid to oppose their leaders.

How can Mr. Ben-Eliezer explain Netanyahu's decision on declaring Jerusalem as "the eternal capital of Israel" and his insistence on "the natural growth" in the West Bank settlements? This scene is one of the suffering of the "left" in Israel, as elsewhere, since the demise of the Soviet Union and since the post-9/11 era's securitizing atmosphere. Israel can now claim a golden age to embed its policies into aggressive actions, as it did during the offensive in Gaza, and/or to play the "three monkeys", as it is doing right now on the settlements issue.

Is there any chance that the dead can come to life through resistance, as Laor argues, or are we now bound to invest our hopes in the Netanyahu-Barak alliance?

Comments

[Dave]

Obama's hostility toward Israel has driven the left away.

[Peter]

@Dave: Obama isn't hostile towards Israel. What he has done is criticize Israel's continued settlement building on illegally seized land, even as he continues to veto anti-Israeli resolutions in the UN security council, even as he shares sensitive weapons technology with Israel, and even as the US supplies Israel with nearly 3 billion dollars worth of weapons each year. Just because he disagrees with a right-wing Israeli government on a single issue doesn't make him "hostile to Israel".

As far as the Israeli left is concerned, it's been in retreat ever since Ariel Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza resulted in a triumphant Hamas raining missiles on Sderot. Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the center of Hamas's power, combined with his open disdain for negotiations with Palestinian President Abbas played into Hamas's hands. Hamas's argument that peace talks lead nowhere but that armed resistance forced Israel to retreat from Gaza rang true to Palestinian ears. Hamas then played into the Israeli right-wing's hands with all of its rocket attacks causing Israelis to become far less comfortable with the idea of making further withdrawals. Withdraw from "Judaea & Samaria" and there will be rocket attacks from there too the right-wing warns Israelis. And that's why the situation is where it is today. It has nothing to do with Obama.