http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=46469&mador=4&datee=5/16/99
Ha'aretz, May 16, 1999
Choosing Barak, in spite of everything
By Gideon Levy
So how is a true left-winger, a supporter of peace
and human rights, supposed to vote tomorrow? And
how is the Arab citizen, for whom equality and
justice are still elusive, supposed to behave?The
decision is difficult, particularly as far as
choosing a candidate for prime minister is
concerned. If the choice before us in the Knesset
elections is more varied and precise - Meretz,
Hadash or one of the Arab lists, according to
preference - in the prime ministerial elections
there is no obvious candidate for whom a person on
the left can vote from a position of deep
identification or conviction. Netanyahu is
Netanyahu, Yitzhak Mordechai the ex-Likudnik has
no chance, Bishara has at the time of writing one
foot out of the race and Barak has done virtually
everything he can to be as disliked as possible on
the left.
What remains? A blank slip. But a blank ballot is
a luxury lacking any true value, childish and
ridiculous. It has no political meaning and, in
the end, may even leave Netanyahu in control.
Arabs who choose to stay away from the polls
tomorrow will be distancing themselves even
further from the peace and equality that they
deserve.
It's easy to understand those Arab citizens who
are considering this option. A state that does its
best to alienate them, along with a "Peace Camp
Candidate" who boasts principally of his fighting
military past and, like a burned child, distances
himself from the heat of contact with the Arabs
(excepting Jordan's King Abdullah), is undeserving
their vote.
It is also easy to understand Jewish supporters of
the Peace Camp who are considering a blank ballot
given their "left-wing" candidate, a person who
would perpetuate Ofrah and Beit El, who fudges his
position (he did not even firmly protest the
possible closing of the Orient House), whose
rhetoric is security, whose record includes not a
few military adventures (some of which were cruel
and unnecessary), and who insists on a Jerusalem
united "forever."
For those who believe that the road to peace
passes through the 1967 borders, that Jerusalem is
the city of two peoples, that the settlements are
all a dangerous obstruction, that Israel must be a
state of all its citizens and that at long last
the time has come to right an historic injustice
done to the conquered and bleeding Palestinian
people, there is no suitable candidate for prime
minister. But is a blank ballot a suitable answer?
Not today, not now.
Israel today needs a civilian prime minister,
sufficiently sure of his power to make painful
concessions; one who has the ability to lead, who
can initiate the courageous steps needed without
fear, excepting the fear of further bloodshed in
the region. A prime minister filled with a sense
of justice, who will understand that the
Palestinians are human beings just as he is, that
their cup of suffering has long since overflowed,
and that they are now entitled to at least a
partial fulfillment of their rights in this
divided land. A prime minister who will understand
that this ceased long ago to be a zero-sum game,
that not everything that the Palestinians (or the
Arabs in general) gain Israel necessary loses, for
whom peace does not mean separation but
conciliation and reconciliation, and for whom
human rights are as supreme a value as any other.
A prime minister who will understand that the need
for security is not confined solely to Israelis -
it is as essential for the Palestinian mother who
sends her child out onto the street, and for the
Palestinian farmer who wants to reach his piece of
land. A prime minister who will internalize the
fact that we have caused sufficient wrongs to our
neighbors, that we can no longer destroy their
houses, take over the remnants of their land,
impose strange demands upon them and arrest their
children without cause and without trial. A prime
minister who will recognize that the existential
need of the Palestinians for peace is as great, if
not greater, than our own; that the majority have
come to terms long ago with Israel's existence and
now only wish for a little normalcy and peace in
their hard everyday lives. A prime minister who
will know that the Palestinians have already,
painfully, given up part of their land, have had
400 of their villages and towns destroyed, have
lived for 32 years under a vicious conquest, who
are mostly penniless refugees, and who now must be
given what remains for the surviving remnant.
Unfortunately, no such candidate for prime
minister is to be found. Maybe his day will come,
maybe he will grow up some time in a different
Israel, perhaps only after another terrible
bloodletting. Today, however, Israel is not
sufficiently adult to produce him.
Ehud Barak certainly does not answer these
longings. But now is the time to vote despite, not
because. At his left hand, for all that, are
Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Shlomo Ben Ami and
Haim Ramon - among the most enlightened of
politicians; there are also grounds for hoping
that the coalition that he will build will be
based on Meretz and the other peace parties. It is
even possible to hope that he will know how to
channel his courage, of which he is so proud, into
new directions, no less than Yitzhak Rabin did.
Ehud Barak, therefore, is the least worst
candidate. There is no choice but to vote for him.
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