Blue and White’s historic achievement and Benjamin Netanyahu’s existential plight have obscured the most astounding political development of 2019: the marginalization of the Zionist left. In the elections of June 1992, the Labor and Meretz parties received 44.3 per cent of the vote (56 mandates). In the elections of March 2015, they received 22.6 per cent of the vote (29 mandates). In the elections of September 2019, their share dwindled to 9.1 per cent (11 mandates). Even strengthened by Orly Levy and Amir Peretz’s periphery voters — the two Zionist Left parties received only a fifth (!) of the vote they had received 27 years ago, and less than half the vote they had received just four years ago. As Haim Ramon once said in a bygone era and in a different context: the whales of the Left committed suicide, perishing on the rocky shore of a new reality that had made them irrelevant.
It is important to understand: The Zionist Left is essential. There is no future for Israel without a strong, influential Zionist Left. And it is important to remember: the Zionist left founded Israel. Revisionist Zionism, General Zionism and Religious Zionism all played important roles. But it was the Labor movement that founded and nurtured the Jewish state. It led the settlement of the land of Israel — for good and bad; it forged the absorption of emigration — for good and bad. It established Israel’s fundamental defense force. Despite its errors, deficiencies and sins — the Zionist Left spearheaded the Zionist revolution and performed the Zionist miracle. It also laid the ground for a magnificent culture of secular Judaism — principled, dedicated and pioneering. Now, there’s hardly anything left: two niche parties riven by internal feuding. With two fewer mandates than the Arab political alliance, the Joint List.
How did this happen? How did the Labor movement and its satellites lose their way?
The Zionist Left’s first mistake was to disengage from reality. David Ben Gurion was neither a Mahatma Gandhi, nor a Mother Theresa. He well understood the savagery of history and the viciousness of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He did not think for a moment that we could survive in this tough neighborhood without a big stick in hand. He did not really believe that peace would soon arrive. He understood that Palestinians would not come to terms with Israel’s existence in the foreseeable future. His political genius is most succinctly conveyed by the fact that he erected Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall. But his political grandchildren were different. They deluded themselves into thinking that the conflict could be ended — now. They strove to give Israel a Scandinavian-like normalcy. And when reality set fire to their dream of peace — they were dumbfounded. Paralyzed. To this day they have not articulated a genuine response to the trauma of the exploding buses of the Second Intifada. To this day they have not conceived a compelling strategy regarding the 100,000 rockets on Israel’s borders. In response, the public turned its back on them. It refused to put its fate in the hands of people who had not acknowledged the brutal physics of the Middle East.
The Zionist Left’s second mistake was to disengage from the people. Historic Mapai (Workers’ Party of the Land of Israel) always knew that it must provide a big tent under which most Israelis could shelter. Israel’s social-democratic party built robust safeguarding institutions: Histadrut, Kupat Holim, Bituach Leumi (labor unions, national health, social security). It also built universities, hospitals and housing at a breathtaking pace, the likes of which is hard to imagine in today’s world. Its social economic policy yielded high growth and high equality. Not so the Labor movement of the neoliberal era. Since the 1990’s, it has embraced the religion of privatization in its most simplistic form. It evolved into the party of the sated. It did not have a real message for the lower deciles — for those of meager means. It did not find a place in its heart for the Second Israel. A chasm opened between itself and million of Israelis: Mizrahim, nationalists, religious-nationalists, Haredim.
The Zionist Left’s third mistake was to disengage from positivity. The secret of the Zionist workers’ parties success was their commitment to doing. To building. To changing reality. In contrast to Europe’s socialist parties, they did not wish to wage a class war. Their DNA was the DNA of pragmatism, dynamism and creativity, But when Pinhas Sapir’s generation exited the stage, all this changed. Positivity was supplanted by disdain, self-righteousness and rancor. The house-builders and tree-planters were replaced by poisoned-arrow-slingers. The Labor party of doing became the Labor party of protest. The truth of being for became the truth of being against: against Likud, against Occupation, against Netanyahu. The Zionist Left lost its ability to lead and became a cantankerous, ineffective opposition. Even when it was right, it was unattractive and barren.
A few people made heroic efforts to save the whales of the Left from themselves: among them Yitzhak Herzog, Yossi Beilin, Shelly Yachimovich Amir Peretz, Itzik Shmuli, and Stav Shaffir. But the destructive dynamics was stronger than they. The disengagement from reality, from the people and from positivity turned Israel’s major political river into a murky puddle of bitter water.
