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Last update - 21:05 11/05/2009
How would Israel look if its left finally died?
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Ehud Barak, Bradley Burston 

Click here for more articles by Bradley Burston


The social democratic movement that brought this country into being, Labor, has entered what may be the final stage of a remarkable and tragic transition from colossus to hospice.
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Its self-styled healer, Ehud Barak, also constitutes the most lethal symptom of its affliction. It has begun to dawn on the heirs to the Labor estate, those who still possess a modicum of youth and vigor and vision, that the disease, and in particular, the treatment, may soon drain the inheritance to nothing.

Longtime friends are distancing themselves from the patient, whose bed is surrounded with disgruntled family members blaring their hatred of Barak as an extremist capitalist dictator (Amir Peretz) and a Mafioso (Eitan Cabel). Many are threatening to leave the patient forever. The clock is ticking, and the end may be no more than weeks away.

Meretz, Labor's rapidly aging love child, has meanwhile turned from ideological refuge to sheltered housing. Its onetime helmsman, Yossi Beilin, having run the party aground, has jumped ship.

Many Arab political movements have become increasingly hardline, some distancing themselves from cooperation from the Jewish left - one, at least, espousing anti-Semitism and backing violence against Jews.

So, in a country founded by leftists, how would Israel look if its left finally died?

It might look just like it does.

The Prime Minister would work just as diligently as the man he once ordered assassinated, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, to find creative new ways to reject the concept of two states for two peoples.

The Finance Minister would be a onetime Peace Now activist - injured in the same 1983 grenade attack which killed fellow Peace Now organizer Emil Grunsweig during a Jerusalem anti-war demonstration - turned apologist for the repeal of government social benefits for the needy.

The Foreign Minister would be a man who in 2007 warned EU Mideast envoy Tony Blair that any attempt to address the core issues surrounding the establishment of a Palestinian state at a U.S-hosted peace summit would "bring about the collapse of the coalition and the government in Israel."

The Public Security Minister would be a man who, hours before the Pope's arrival in Jerusalem, would summarily order the police to bar the Palestinian Authority from holding a news conference for foreign correspondents in East Jerusalem.

The Defense Minister would be a man who, even if he led the Labor Party, would keep the economic siege clenched on more than a million Gazans ? rockets or no rockets, while letting West Bank settlement construction hum on unabated.

The head of the opposition, whose advice on enlisting the Arab world in the Mideast peace process is being incorporated into U.S. policy, would be a former lifelong Likud activist, rather than a Labor, or former Labor, supporter.

Every single day, several times a day, there is a concrete reminder of the direction things are headed. The need for powerful voices on the left is stronger than ever. The government, for its part, is already honing its approach: Stalls, feints, alternation of crude outbursts (Lieberman) with sophisticated and meaningless formulae (everyone else).

Perhaps most disconcerting, for those who truly want to see progress toward peace, is the clear lesson in all of this: Where it comes to fending off peace through big talk and bigger paralysis, the right learned from the masters - the masters of Labor. Take, for example, the 10 years post-1967 when Labor was still firmly in charge.

These days, it may be much too late to ask what Israel would look like if the left were dead.

At this point, if the left were dead, would anyone even notice?

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  1.   LEFT & ZIONIST? 16:18  |  Bibi 11/05/09
  2.   A liberal with reason . 17:10  |  TOMY 11/05/09
  3.   Slowly the Israeli dream fades 18:08  |  allang 11/05/09
  4.   Israel`s left is dead,and good sense too 18:55  |  Josip Millberg 11/05/09
  5.   it`s done 19:02  |  Suzy 11/05/09
  6.   MUCH, MUCH BETTER!!! 19:08  |  AIG 11/05/09
  7.   How would Israel look if its left finally died? JEWISH! 19:20  |  RightMakesMight 11/05/09
  8.   what would Israel look like if it`s right wing died? 19:23  |  Joey 11/05/09
  9.   The Question & its Answer 19:59  |  Salomon Israel 11/05/09
  10.   Answer is pretty Simple..... 20:03  |  Farooq 11/05/09
  11.   shalom to the left..rest in peace 21:18  |  Ellis 11/05/09
  12.   It Would Look Like Haas and Levy-Desperate 21:20  |  Jane 11/05/09
  13.   Like all movements the left has had its moment 21:55  |  dmgold 11/05/09
  14.   If Israeli Left was Zionist, I would of joined it 22:11  |  A French leftist 11/05/09
  15.   Be happy to let be on one condition 22:17  |  Ilan 11/05/09
  16.   If the Left finally died 22:31  |  Nat Weinstein 11/05/09
  17.   a real perspective 22:37  |  Avi 11/05/09
  18.   We need to sweep the left out of our courts and institutions. 22:37  |  Chaim 11/05/09
  19.   The Left died because the people feel its POLICIES ARE BANKRUPT 22:48  |  Mark 11/05/09
  20.   we need more Arik Sharons and less Yossi Belins 22:52  |  zionist forver 11/05/09
  21.   empty 23:10  |  Ed 11/05/09
  22.   Left and Zionist? With Good Reason. 01:23  |  Daniel Garcia. 12/05/09
  23.   Finally the dream solidifies (with apologies to allang) 02:40  |  stella 12/05/09
  24.   The left is already dead 03:01  |  Micah 12/05/09
  25.   A Sharon? 04:48  |  Yosemite 12/05/09
  26.   left, right... 08:15  |  MeMor 12/05/09
  27.   collapse of emptiness 11:12  |  Justin White 12/05/09
  28.   IT WOULD LOOK WONDERFUL 12:57  |  Brant 12/05/09
  29.   Dear Bradley; the answer is "sane" 13:16  |  Alicia 12/05/09
  30.   The Benny Morris Conundrum 15:27  |  Hank N Tennessee 12/05/09
  31.   Israel will always remain a multifacited society. 15:37  |  Sarah 12/05/09
  32.   a country "founded by leftists" 15:41  |  Zev 12/05/09
  33.   Ozymandias - King of kings 17:04  |  Knott Bushman 12/05/09
  34.   #19 hank and the glass wall of hypocrisy in tennessee 17:14  |  v hardman 12/05/09
  35.   "hard"man: squishy soft as usual 17:53  |  Hank N Tennessee 12/05/09
  36.   Sea Change for Israel 18:06  |  Matty Groves 12/05/09
  37.   #4 Josip Millberg 19:44  |  Smadar 12/05/09
  38.   the changing demographics/economic base affected Socialism 20:11  |  Smadar 12/05/09
  39.   # 19 Stella..... letting go of our dreams 21:32  |  allang 12/05/09
  40.   there is no left anymore in Israel 23:47  |  rm 12/05/09
  41.   #31 hank and reality deriving from the cold war and other reasons 00:03  |  v hardman 13/05/09
  42.   We should cherish our left and our right , Jewish 00:32  |  17 13/05/09
  43.   Music to my Ears 01:03  |  Ceaser 13/05/09
  44.   The left needs to re-examine itself 02:06  |  dave 13/05/09
  45.   The Left 02:19  |  ordinary 13/05/09
  46.   When the RIGHT is all that`s LEFT... 03:03  |  Fortuna Benmayor 13/05/09
  47.   IT would be one down and so many more to go because 09:28  |  sad but true 13/05/09
  48.   Bradley - You Are Completely Wrong 11:43  |  Eli Wapniarski 13/05/09
  49.   Obama 20:11  |  Mike 16/05/09
  50.   Mike "Compromise"? #49 22:19  |  FOX 16/05/09
  51.   #30 Hank, you don`t know the history of leftism in the world 20:11  |  Susan Dunham 18/05/09
  52.   Here`s why the "Left" being gone would be bad... 22:21  |  Czarkazem13 19/05/09
  53.   Continued... 22:25  |  Czarkazem13 19/05/09
  54.   bye bye left 09:19  |  Adi 20/05/09
  55.   THE LEFT WILL DIE OR LEAVE ISRAEL 21:51  |  Yochanan 20/05/09
  56.   Don`t worry 11:58  |  Frank 23/05/09
  57.   If the Left Died... 12:19  |  Xtina 23/05/09
  58.   Ozymandias 12:21  |  Xtina 23/05/09
  59.   Like a world under Bush and Cheney 01:17  |  Denise 24/05/09
  60.   How would Israel look if its left finally died? 13:53  |  Nili 24/05/09
  61.   "Greater Israel" is a bi-national state... 06:31  |  James Hovland 21/07/09
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