The American obession with the 'return of the Israeli Left'
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Take the uber-Leftist +972 online magazine, which explains why the 'return of the Israeli Left' isn't happening.What is it that makes so many American reports on events in Israel end up with the question of “the return of the Zionist Left?” Ethan Bronner’s recent story on the cost of living protest in Israel is yet another example of this trend. By cherry picking a few comments and mixing them with the warm memories of Rabin’s government, the recent social justice movement becomes for Bronner the vessel of “a possible opening for the defeated left.”I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but he's right. Both Rabin (1992) and Barak (1999) failed to get a majority of the Jewish vote. Sharon (2001 and 2004) won as the Likud candidate. Olmert 2006? Didn't get a majority of the Jewish vote and arguably wasn't running on a Left platform. Kadima is still not considered a party of the Left (although their platform is definitely more Left than Right).
I can’t help but think that those American who are so obsessed with this question recognize “their Israel” in a certain image that the Israeli left has projected, one which very rarely had anything to do with its actual politics. The result is a constant search for something that was never there. After all, you won’t see so many stories in American press about “a return of the revisionist Right” in Israel, or about Shas.
It’s time to face facts: Rabin’s second government was an historical accident, no more. This was the only time in 35 years that the left won a Knesset majority – and even then, it wasn’t even close to a majority of the Jewish public. Liberalism, in the American sense, never took real hold in Israel.
The current social protest is a unique event with tremendous potential, but if it’s a return to the Jewish democracy dreamland that Americans hope for, you are up for a major disappointment. There won’t be a “return” – all we can and should hope for is something completely new.
Whatever support for the Left there was among Jewish Israelis was spooked by the terror sponsorship of the 'Palestinian Authority' and that started long before 2000. It's not likely to come back anytime soon. And nearly all Jewish Israelis have become capitalists, Even the ones demonstrating in the streets of Tel Aviv.
Labels: Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud K. Olmert, Israeli public, Yitzchak Rabin
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:28 PM
2 Comments:
In visiting a kibbutz about 5 years ago, we were told that the young people were leaving in droves. So they had converted their "business model" to be capitalist rather than its original collectivist. So people could buy their houses, apply for jobs rather than being assigned them, do start-ups, invest in the local enterprises, etc. The young people were coming back, some from the U.S.
That's the hint. Some number of Israelis who were frustrated and/or unhappy with the collectivist system (or the rockets from Iraq, etc.) relocated to the U.S. Many of them did not do what this guy says - become good tea partiers - but rather joined the (D) party and participated at pulling it left to its current position as the (M) party.
While Israelis are less left than some imagine, the school system and universities are producing leftist exports (and they are very competent people). So maybe the "something new" would be to readdress the content being presented in Israeli education to make it more evenly match Israeli society. Not an insult; the U.S. is realizing that we need to do this also. And, seriously, if the educators are stuck in marxist mode, I think we should be producing online course structures that we can get in front of people without having to go through the teachers' unions.
My impression is that the kibbutz movement as a socialist enterprise is dead.
But if "liberalism in the American sense" never took hold in Israel, Labor socialism obviously did. Israel still retains national health insurance, with mandatory government collected insurance taxes redistributed through health care entities. Israel also, like the US, has nationally run pension/social security funds.
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