Last update - 00:00 03/10/2007
In other words, anti-Semitism
By Gadi Eshel
In recent years, a growing need has developed for a distinction between two ostensibly similar terms that in fact differ significantly. The profligate and light-minded use of the term "left" is not accurate, and therefore, it should be distinguished from the Hebrew homophone spelled with a different first letter (samekh instead of sin), which has come to mean "post-Zionist" - though that, too, is in effect a substitute for another concept: "anti-Zionist."
In Israel's existential debate, the second term differs from the classical "left." The second "left" is the old anti-Semitism, but this time, it is home-grown. This is not a reference to the minor issue of neo-Nazi youth who immigrated from the former Soviet Union, but rather to an incomprehensible and incurable disease of mankind: self-hatred. The symptoms of this disease arise anew after every withdrawal from the territories, and the pretenses behind which it hides are innumerable.
The symptoms are familiar: anti-Zionism ("I'm not against the Jews, I'm only against ..."), Holocaust denial ("What Israel is doing to the Palestinians is worse than the Holocaust"), denial of the existence of a Jewish people, hatred of "settlers," hatred of the Land of Israel, hatred of the Jewish heritage, hatred of the "orange" protesters [who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza], hatred of the ultra-Orthodox, hatred of those evacuated [from Gaza], hatred of outposts, and so forth. This hatred wears many masks: "a Palestinian nation," "human rights" (Palestinian of course), "the rule of law," "strengthening the moderates," "victims of peace," "the peace process," "only a diplomatic solution," "territories," "the sanctity of man and not of land," "a window of opportunity," "the pogrom of chopping down olive trees," etc. What does all this have to do with the classical "left"?
The division between "right" and "left" originated in the seating plan of the French National Assembly after the revolution. On the right side of the hall sat the delegates who favored preserving the regime, and on the left were those who demanded radical change in the regime and in society. Later, this division referred to socioeconomic views: capitalism and a free market versus socialism and a planned economy. In the Western world in general, and in the United States in particular, the division between "right" and "left" ("liberals" in the U.S.) also describes differences over religion (Christianity), the legal system and nationalism/patriotism.
In Israel, this division is inaccurate. Here, on both sides of the equation, everything is intermingled. Not everyone on the "right" is Zionist and committed to Israel's existence, and not everyone on the "left" is opposed.
The anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish side is led by the reigning elite, which is "rightist" in socioeconomic terms: The barons of the press and the electronic media promote the Palestinian agenda. The capitalists are the ones who fund the various peace organizations and promote their agenda of delegitimizing the Israel Defense Forces, the state and the settlements. A unique species of blaming Israel and the Jews for all the world's ills has developed in the academic world. These ills began with the barbaric colonialist invasion of Palestine by East European Jews.
Nor is every "religious person" automatically committed to a return to Zion and to the Jewish state. On the contrary, the ultra-Orthodox have reservations in principle, and Neturei Karta [an extremist ultra-Orthodox sect] has adopted the most bizarre type of "auto-anti-Semitism": It praises every suicide bombing and every abomination uttered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It must be remembered that the roots of the Zionist left are the return to Zion, the redemption of the land (the entire land!) and Jewish labor. For A.D. Gordon, the pioneers of the Second Aliyah [wave of immigration] and the founders of the Histadrut labor federation, these three fundamentals were inseparable. The Uganda plan was shot down in the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903 by left-wing Zionists from Russia. Joseph Trumpeldor, Yitzhak Tabenkin, Israel Galili, Natan Alterman, Moshe Shamir and Berl Katznelson were "left." That is really not today's version of the "left," whose entire existence and essence is the destruction of the Jewish state and the establishment of "free" Palestine on its ruins.
This new left is to a great extent a mutation of the classical left. It has taken the classical left's place thanks to the spreading vacuum in the old left's vision and institutions, from the kibbutz to the Labor Party. But it is proper to claim that the entire camp has changed its stripes? That this is an overarching conversion?
Identifying the "left" with anti-Zionism makes it possible to label the entire right as "extreme right," and to make "left" include an obligation to cleanse the "West Bank" of Jews. As though there were a natural symmetry: There is side A, which wants to eliminate Israel, and side B, which chooses life, but both are legitimate.
The division between "left" and "right" has taken hold and has already sowed destruction in Israel. The good news is that the label "left" is not a divine decree. It remains to be seen whether the homophone will catch on as a way to describe the new left.
The writer holds a doctorate in engineering.