A political earthquake is itself a rare event. Two major political earthquakes in quick succession is almost unheard of. But it happened in Israel recently with the election of Amir Peretz as leader of the Labour Party and the departure of Ariel Sharon from the Likud to form a new party.
Suddenly, Israel’s political landscape changed beyond recognition. Previously, there were two mountains. Now there are three — and none of them stands where the two stood before.
The Likud has evolved over the past 28 years into a centre-right party, its extreme nationalist views diluted by opportunism and growing corruption. Its leaders became intertwined with the ultra-rich, who dictated its economic policy.
The Labour Party erected its own tombstone by turning into a pale copy of the Likud. Its main grave-digger, Shimon Peres, was its main representative, while also acting as Sharon’s chief propagandist throughout the world.
But this landscape no longer exists. Today’s three mountains face in three different directions.
The Likud has reverted to what it was before coming to power in 1977: a radical right-wing party, which believes in the Greater Israel (the Whole of Eretz Yisrael), from the Mediterranean sea to the Jordan river — at least.
It opposes any peace agreement with the Palestinian people and wants to maintain the occupation until circumstances allow for the annexation of all the occupied territories. Since it also wants a homogeneous Jewish state, this contains a hidden message: the Arabs must be induced to leave Israel. In right-wing parlance, this is called ‘voluntary transferâ€. However, the party is careful not to spell this out openly.
The Likud may prattle about ‘social†matters, in order to compete with Peretz for the ‘Eastern†(mostly North African) voters. But since the unification of the Herut Party in the 1960s with the defunct Liberal Party, it has only served the interests of the very rich.
Sharon’s Party, Kadima (‘Forwardâ€), is built on a lie. Sharon has declared that the road map is its sole political platform — but the road map was dead before it was born. Sharon has never intended to carry out his part of the first phase of its realisation: the elimination of the hundred new settlements set up after 2000, and a freeze on all settlement activities.
He makes no secret of his real intentions: to annex 58% of the West Bank, including the ever-expanding ‘settlement blocs†and ‘security zones†(the extended Jordan valley and the roads between the settlements) and Great-Great-Jerusalem, up to the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement. Since there can be no Palestinian partner for such a ‘solutionâ€, he plans to implement this by a unilateral diktat, backed by force, without dialogue with the Palestinians.
For Sharon, social matters are a nuisance. He will publish a social programme to compete with Peretz and the Likud, but it really does not interest him.
Peretz’s Labour Party will concentrate on socio-economic issues, hoping to attract the masses of the Eastern public who have, until now, voted for the Likud and Shas, the party of Orthodox Eastern Jews. The chances of victory lie here.
Peretz supports a serious peace programme: negotiations with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders. He will represent this in a social context: the money wasted on war, occupation and the settlements stolen from the poor as well as the increasing gap between rich and poor.
His advisers will try to convince him to dilute his peace message to attract middle-of-the-road voters. But if he does, he will appear to lack self-confidence, credibility and a clear programme.
One of the main principles of military strategy is that the side that chooses the battlefield has a better chance of winning, since its choice will reflect its requirements. That is also true of election battles.
Sharon is a victorious general, and therefore interested in placing security at the centre of the election campaign. Here, he has a huge advantage over Peretz, who was a mere captain in the maintenance corps. When Israel’s security is felt to be threatened, Israelis will trust Sharon, the Israeli-born sabra from Malal village who radiates the aura of a military leader.
Peretz is a trade union leader, who was born in Morocco and grew up in a small town of poor immigrants, and so is interested in placing socio-economic issues at the centre of the elections. When hundreds of thousands live below the poverty line and see the social gap as their main problem, they may treat security matters as of secondary concern.
Peretz must get the masses to internalise the formula ‘peace = reducing the gapâ€. That will be difficult — during my 10 years in the Knesset, I made dozens of speeches about this, and failed.
In public consciousness, there exists a block: when speaking about the economy, the national conflict is ignored. When speaking about the national conflict, the public does not want to hear about the economy. Peretz must break through this — and after so many sacrifices of blood and money, Israelis may be ripe for it.
So the main battle will be about the battlefield itself; whether security or social questions will be its centrepiece. Peretz must stick to his guns, even if his advisers and media people urge him to deviate.
Strangely, many commentators ignore the most manifest and decisive fact: the whole system has undergone a shift to the left. The Likud nucleus is stuck on the right, where it always was. But the others have moved.
Sharon’s party has given up its main article of faith: the Whole of Eretz Yisrael. It advocates the partitioning of the country. Sharon himself has established the precedent of removing settlements. However bad his political programme is, it is less rightist.
The election of Peretz constitutes a major movement of the Labour Party to the real left, and this is true for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for the social problem. Not only does he bring with him a social-democratic agenda, he also compels all the other parties to turn in this direction, or at least to pretend to.
Even Shas has suddenly remembered that it is, after all, the party of underprivileged Eastern Jews. After several years on the extreme right, it is now recalling that its leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, years ago came out in favour of restoring land for peace.
For years an abnormal situation has prevailed in Israel and driven social scientists crazy: according to all opinion polls, most of the public wants peace and is prepared to make almost all the necessary concessions, but in the Knesset this position has hardly been represented at all.
During all these years, I said: ‘Some day, in a way that we cannot yet foresee, this abnormal condition will right itself; the political scene will attune itself to public opinion.â€
An earthquake causes changes on the ground, but is itself caused by forces deep in the earth. This is true in political life. Changes hidden in the depths of public consciousness eventually bring changes visible to the eye.
Uri Avnery is leader of Israel’s radical peace movement, Gush Shalom
‘Sharon provides best opportunity for peace’
Shimon Peres this week resigned from Israel’s Labour Party, his political home for most of the past 60 years, to support the re-election of Ariel Sharon, who he described as providing the best opportunity for peace with the Palestinians, writes Chris McGreal in Jerusalem.
Peres said the decision to leave Labour after he was ousted as its leader last month was ‘neither simple nor mundane”. But he said he was putting the country above the party in backing Sharon at the general election in March.
‘I don’t believe that it is possible to push forward the peace process in the current political constellation,†said Peres. ‘I believe the most qualified person for this is Ariel Sharon. He will restart the peace process right after the election. I decided to join him and work with him.”
Peres’s defection is a coup for Sharon’s attempts to recast himself as having shed his old ideology of creating a greater Israel and as being committed to a negotiated peace with the Palestinians. But some of Peres’s Labour colleagues have said he is deluded if he believes that Sharon’s plan to impose borders and annex more Palestinian land to Israel will end the conflict. Others have suggested he is more interested in power than the principle involved.
Peres’s announcement came on the day opinion polls showed Sharon’s new party gaining in strength, mostly at the expense of the Likud. The polls show Kadima taking 34 seats in the 120-member Parliament. Labour has 27, also a significant gain. But Likud is reduced to 10 seats from the current 40. —