- Immediately after leaving the army, Ariel Sharon created
the Likud. It was 1973, when he realized that the army top brass would
never tolerate his appointment as Chief-of-Staff.
-
- For the creation of the Likud, he had a simple recipe:
to unify all the four factions of the Right: Begin's Herut ('freedom')
movement, the Liberal Party, the 'Free Center' and the 'State List'.
-
- That was quite ridiculous. Herut and the Liberals had
already formed a joint bloc. The two other factions were insignificant
little groups. The 'State List' was a remnant of the party founded by Ben-Gurion
after Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres had deserted him and rejoined the Labor
party. The 'Free Center' was splinter party led by Shmuel Tamir. The big
unification was a sham. Indeed, none of the factions' leaders liked it.
Sharon imposed it by creating public pressure.
-
- At the time, I asked him about the sense of this maneuver.
He explained the logic: the public must be given the impression that the
entire Right Wing is coming together and creating a big political force.
Nobody should be left out. Therefore, even the two small factions had to
be included. There was an added value to the inclusion of the 'State List',
which originated in the Labor movement: it could provide an alibi for former
left-wingers ready to join the Right.
-
- The trick was successful. Only four years later, the
Right came to power - for the first time since the establishment of the
State of Israel, 19 years earlier.
-
- Unfortunately, today there is nobody on the Left with
a comparable recipe. In the Israeli political system, there is a gaping
hole where the Left should have been. The future of Israel may be sucked
into this black hole.
-
- What we see is a terrible imbalance. All the signs indicate
that the Israeli Left is beginning to wake up after three years of stupor
and hopelessness. There are dozens of little indications that the peace
camp is recovering. In the social field, too, leftist tendencies are raising
their head. The resistance to Sharon's policy of oppression and settlement
is gathering momentum along with resistance to Netanyahu's attack on the
welfare state. There is a chance - slight but real, nevertheless - for
a historic change.
-
- But this chance cannot become reality if there is no
political force capable of realizing it. The Labor Party remains a wasteland,
with alley cats squabbling among the ruins. Even the effort to bring Amir
Peretz, the Trade Union leader, back into the fold is meeting desperate
resistance from party hacks afraid of losing their place at the empty bowl.
-
- Since the elections, the Meretz party has been vegetating
in a mood of depression and self-pity, reflected in the tortured face of
Yossi Sarid. The other Yossi (Beilin), the moving spirit of the 'Geneva
Understandings', dreams about a new 'Social Democratic Party' that would
consist of the elitist Ashkenazy group in another guise. It seems that
among its potential founders there is agreement on one thing only: who
not to allow in.
-
- That is the great difference between the Right and the
Left. The power-hungry Right understands the importance of unity. Even
when its factions hate each other, they are ready to cooperate. In order
to hold on to power, 'moderate' rightists are quite prepared to march together
with the fascist fringe.
-
- On the left, the opposite is true. Every group is mortally
afraid of the faction on its left. The right wing of the Labor Party is
afraid of the party's left wing. The left wing is afraid of Meretz. Meretz
is afraid of Yossi Beilin, who was pushed out of the Labor party by Amram
Mitzna and his fellow leftists, but was not offered a safe place on the
Meretz list. Meretz is afraid of Peace Now. Peace Now is afraid of Gush
Shalom and the Israeli Arab factions.
-
- What is the fear all about? It's quite simple. Every
leftist grouping is afraid of not looking patriotic enough. Each of them
says: 'Look at us! We are nationalists! We are Zionists! We are patriots!
We are not like those guys next to us, who are not nationalists, not Zionists,
unpatriotic!'
-
- After the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, a new leftist movement
was born. It called itself 'A Whole Generation Demands Peace' and was led
by the dead man's son, Yuval Rabin. It devoted much of its energy to the
task of preventing people from confusing it with Peace Now.
-
- I remember the following situation: Peace Now had set
up some tents in Ras-al-Amud in order to protest against the creation of
a new Jewish neighborhood in the middle of an Arab neighborhood in East
Jerusalem. A few meters away, Gush Shalom had set up its tents. The Peace
Now people simply ignored the Gush activists. On the second day, Yuval
Rabin appeared at the head of a Whole Generation parade. They looked through
the Peace Now people as if they were thin air. (The Whole Generation has
since disappeared.)
-
- If the Left does not overcome its complexes, there is
no chance of changing the government. A disunited Left, lacking leadership,
self-confidence and a clear national and social program will not attract
the support of the majority on election day, even if the public mood changes
for the better.
-
- There is a need for one big leftist party, in which all
the political and ideological groupings will find a place, from the admirers
(if any) of Ehud Barak to the admirers of Yossi Beilin, from moderate Social-Democrats
to the radical left, based on a minimum common denominator ('Two States
for Two Peoples'). Let a hundred ideological flowers bloom. Let there be
a lively debate, but let there be one political action force capable of
assuming power. If the Labor Party can still fulfil this mission - so much
the better. The merger with the trade unionist 'One People' party could
be a first step. If not, a new party must be founded, in line with Sharon's
1973 recipe.
-
- It would be wonderful if the left had a charismatic political
personality capable of leading this process. Alas, for the time being,
there is none. Failing this, a collective leadership must be set up.
-
- There is not much time left. The leftist public, and
some rightists too, are waking up from the torpor of despair and are ready
to follow whoever calls them to the colors. The state needs a change before
disaster strikes. If the Left misses this opportunity, history will not
forgive it.
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- http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/1975/
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