http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=07/23/00&id=86128
Left far behind
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz, 07/23/2000
In one of the few recent demonstrations by the left, near the Prime
Minister's House in Jerusalem on the eve of his departure for Camp
David two weeks ago, two placards were raised. The one said "Don't
abandon refugees" and the other, "Barak, divide Jerusalem." The life span
of these placards was very brief - the organizers of the demonstration on
behalf of Peace Now ordered that they be taken down immediately. Their
message was too radical for them, and ruptured the line. The left's line is
once again that same stuttering, vague, fuzzy and frightened line we have
known in recent years ever since it, most astonishingly, abandoned its
clear positions in favor of a withdrawal to the 1967 lines, which now have
become unmentionable. At a time when Prime Minister Ehud Barak is
making a number of courageous moves, even if perhaps they are not
courageous enough, and the right is saying sharp and clear things about
them, the Israeli left is continuing to trail behind and dabble in the shallow
waters of its unclear and meaningless positions. At the critical juncture
that should perhaps have been its most important test ever, the Zionist
Israeli left, both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, finds that it is a
factor lacking all relevance. It was already like this back in the days of
Oslo, when of all people Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres left them far
behind, and this is the way things are now, only more so.
Go, for example, to the "peace tent" at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, almost
the only protest site of the left these days: an effectively air-conditioned
tent, where only a few high school girls with sweet expressions were
busy last Thursday writing out bulletins. The bulletins promised an
appearance by singer Ehud Banai and a visit to the tent by a delegation of
immigrants from Russia. In the background hung a few exasperating
placards: "The majority has chosen peace." This is now the left's official
slogan.
The majority has chosen peace? How nice. For this, we don't need the
left and we don't need its tent. The majority chose peace is no different
from "The nation is with the Golan," the right's most widely distributed
slogan, behind which there is also very little. What does it mean, "the
majority has chosen peace?" And is there anyone, apart from the madder
margins of the right, who does not want peace, some kind of peace? Is the
question on the agenda now the extent of the noncommittal longing for
peace, or is it the real question of that "peace" and its conditions? And
what does the left have to say about this? Nothing. The songs of
yesterday: settlement blocs and the unity of Jerusalem, and not a word
about the refugees and the right of return is unmentionable.
Does the Peace Now movement support the return of the refugees or
not? Who knows. Does Meretz support giving explicit sovereignty over
East Jerusalem to the Palestinians and turning the city into the capital of
two nations? Not clear. Anyone who goes ahead and tries to give a clear
answer to these questions ... has his placards folded. When in the council
of Meretz, a supposedly radical peace party, a few members tried to bring
up the question of Jerusalem two years ago, the heads of the movement
hastened to strike the issue from the agenda. This isn't the right time, they
explained.
Now Barak is way ahead of Meretz and is agreeing in Washington to
proposals that go much further than the ones that appear in the Meretz
party platform. This is how Barak has out-Meretzed Meretz: He at least
has paved the way for negotiations on Jerusalem, a discussion that was
prohibited in Meretz. So what relevance has Meretz now? Peace Now?
The Peace Headquarters?
The left committed its original sin when it abandoned its clear, principled,
moral and unambiguous positions in favor of a return to the 1967 borders.
Yes, these used to be the left's positions, even the Zionist left's, and by
their light it was possible to conduct a struggle. But over the years the left
has undergone a process that has always characterized the labor
movement, though this left wished to be more radical than it was.
Positions grew vaguer, in an attempt to swell the ranks. The irony of fate:
What happened is that this attempt has led to a decline in the strength of
the left and not to a swelling of its ranks. A left that mumbles slogans
about the people's desire for peace has no chance of drawing crowds and
being of any significance.
The questions now on the agenda concern the conditions of the peace.
The left must give clear and sharp answers. Now that it has once again
turned out that only with the traditional positions of the true radical left
will it be possible to reach an agreement - even Ehud Barak has apparently
begun to internalize this - the Zionist, consensual left must speak its piece.
Is it in favor of giving sovereignty to the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, a
city that is in effect divided? Is it prepared to take responsibility for the
injustice that was done to the Palestinians in 1948? And is it prepared to
support correcting this injustice through reparations and granting some
kind of right of return?
If the left's answers to these questions are affirmative, it must hasten to
declare this explicitly and then gird its loins to fulfill its important and
crucial role in persuading the public. If its answers are negative, then
everyone will know that its slogans in favor of peace are empty rhetoric
and that it does not want peace more than anyone else. And if it keeps
stuttering, as is its wont, let it fold its air-conditioned peace tents now.
In any case they will remain uninhabited.
