When Hamas announced just last month that its protests at the border fence would “end the Zionist project,” it proved once again that the Left was wrong.
When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spewed his antisemitic venom at almost the same moment and denied that the Jewish people has any historic connection to this land whatsoever, he proved the Left wrong again.
ANALYSIS: CAN ABBAS REVIVE ISRAEL’S LEFT?
A real opposition is critical to a functioning democracy worth its name – but Israel hasn’t had one in almost 18 years.
JUNE 29, 2018 10:26
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures as he speaks during the Palestinian National Council meeting in Ramallah. (photo credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/REUTERS)
Buji Herzog’s move to head the Jewish Agency (an appointment that Benjamin Netanyahu did not want, but which American Jewish leaders pushed through to slap the prime minister around a bit for having slapped them around with the Kotel) will likely produce a much-ado-about-not-very-much competition for the position of head of the opposition.
Everyone who cares about Israel should be worried about the fact that the position of head of the opposition is fairly meaningless. Everyone concerned about the future of the Jewish state should celebrate a powerful opposition.
Everyone who cares about Israel should be worried about the fact that the position of head of the opposition is fairly meaningless. Everyone concerned about the future of the Jewish state should celebrate a powerful opposition.
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Genuine oppositions create debate. Real political debate allows a society to hone its views of its future, to ask itself what it wants to stand for. Even those who support Netanyahu should want his ideas and positions challenged, not because he is necessarily wrong, but for the sake of Israel’s public discourse. And those on the Left should – if the Left ever again comes to power in Israel – want a thoughtful, passionate and compelling opposition from the Right, for the very same reason.
A real opposition is critical to a functioning democracy worth its name. But Israel hasn’t had one in almost 18 years.
Yasser Arafat killed Israel’s Left. By rejecting the offer that Ehud Barak presented under US president Bill Clinton’s watchful eye and then unleashing the Second Intifada, Arafat proved that the very premises of the Left had been utterly wrong. The Left had argued that the Palestinians wanted a state and just needed a reasonable offer. Arafat (who didn’t even counter Barak’s proposal) proved that false. The Left had argued since 1967 that Israel could get peace by giving up land, and Arafat proved that wrong, too.
When Hamas announced just last month that its protests at the border fence would “end the Zionist project,” it proved once again that the Left was wrong.
When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spewed his antisemitic venom at almost the same moment and denied that the Jewish people has any historic connection to this land whatsoever, he proved the Left wrong again.
On that level, it’s not the Israeli Left’s fault that it’s dead. Someone killed it.
But it is the Israeli Left’s fault that it remains dead. After having had the carpet pulled out from under it in 2000, it has allowed almost two decades to pass without its having offered the Israeli public another compelling vision for our future. The more the Left argues that “there is a partner,” that ceasing settlement building will bring us peace – if not now, then eventually – the more most of the Israeli public becomes even more convinced that any intersection between reality and the Left’s ideology is accidental at best.
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