By Yoram Getzler: After reading; Charge of the Left Brigade, Haaretz Magazine Mar 25 2011 (http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/charge-of-the-left-brigade-1.351789) I offer this criticism with a heavy and sad heart.
- I am greatly saddened that as it appears, the Left will look back at the last election with longing. With out a truly profound, deep renewal combined with understanding and respect for their potential public, the future looks even worse than the immediate past. This is a tragedy not only for Israeli democracy, but for both the Jewish state and people!
Yes it is critical that we deal positively with the difficult and distorted challenge provided to us by our hostile Arab neighbors, but declaring, repeating and promoting the same failed policies of the past, will not achieve that lofty goal.
The view in the rear-view-mirror is important as is viewing oneself in a regular mirror. Who are we, the Left? How do we understand and speak too the people we hope to attract to our cause?
Especially when you think you should be or in fact think you are leading. Look to the rear, see if there is anybody back there following?
From the emphasis in the article I would imagine that this Israeli Left is competing in the elections for the (“moderate”) Palestinian leadership. Where is the concern, consideration and appeal to the Israeli voter?
That this elitist group has the money to bring in experts from abroad is obscene and a sign of the true distance between them and the potential Israel voter. Surely it is enough that this Left appears to be made up of people well employed in our advanced and over heated economy who have no idea what is needed or what truly interests the very Israeli voter they believe themselves attracting.
What this new left is really asking is for is an exchange of spin. Reject the spin of Ehud Barak and accept ours. Which is that there is a real and sincere Palestinian partner for reconciliation and peace.
I believe they are referring to a “partner” like Saeb Erekat, who appears to be among the most accommodating figures in the PLO hierarchy. Of course, speaking confidentially, in strict privacy, Erekat has assured the Israeli Left and Western diplomats that the Palestinians are prepared to compromise on the issue of refugees. However, unless backed up with a reeducation process within the Palestinian community, this is the real spin from which the New Left creates the fantasy that there is a sincere partner for peace. All the while to his Arab Palestinian public, Mr. Erekat, this supposed partner, has continued to insist on the “right of return” of “7 million” refugees and their descendants. This may not bother the true believers of the New Left, but the “amcha” of Israelis whose support is needed to succeed in democratic elections will not be spun.
Mr. Erekat is leading to a best case which under these conditions is a cold peace with an opportunistic leadership, which has no depth, and little or no potential for a durable lasting arrangement, and no democratic basis among its people.
This new Left is concerned with educating the Israeli public for peace, but is willing to leave the Palestinian public to sink in the traditional dark animosity, antagonism and hatred vs-a-vie Israel that they are used to, that we know can in an instant, easily turn deadly. The efforts and money used to bring experts from abroad could be used more effectively if this group of idealist treated themselves and their families to a few days vacation in the Katamonim, Yeruham, or Nazareth Elite, visit and listen to the very people whose votes they seek. Maybe then they would possibly propose policies that were meaningful and would attract the support of the voting public.
In the life of the average Israeli voter today, the policies regarding our relationship with the Palestinians, promoted by the left, have been manifested by both Kadima and Labor governments. Each time as far as the public is correctly concerned, the result were not even close to what the Left promised they would be. In fact as far as the average Israeli is concerned they were totally disastrous. More than that that same Left which now wants to fundamentally continue those policies really expects to achieve electoral gains? This is in part of the same stubborn insistence on the righteous of their priority policies the Left, old or new is known for. From this we learn, that the Left can not even understand what the disasters were; Oslo; the Lebanon withdrawal & the withdrawal from Gaza. For the public this is not spin, it is actual, real experience. What kind of idiots does the Left think it is hoping to attract to expect the public to support a forth disastrous application of the Left’s head in sand insistence on priorities that are not the interest of the public.
It is appropriate and ironic that the Left, has voiced such strong denouncements of the new legislation, insensitive to private freedoms, proposed by this government as being undemocratic. When we realize that ignoring the concerns of the public it has nothing to do with democracy. That is unless you can convince the public that you are correct in your understanding and analysis of those conditions that concern the public.
