The folly of Israel's center left

Can one assume the Jewish left wants answers? Or does it know the answers already but doesn't want to publish them? Or does the Jewish left simply want to present to the world the image of making nice while knowing full well they are not only inefective but secretly ENJOY being ineffective? In any case: The Arabs see Tel Aviv as a "settlement", the new ones are just more of the same. The Jewish left dismisses a consideration of the Jewish people as being chosen by God. They practice assimilation via intermarrige and multi-culturalism, hold anti-religious views, have few children, support abortion on demand and consider homosexuality a valid life style. They support the invalid notion that granting the Palestinians a state the conflict would result in peace. The left is engaged in political fraud and everyone in the world knows it. They lack the courage to admit they are either naive or are engaged in deception. The settler movement on the other hand is built on the necessities of the founding Zionists and Torah. God has given these lands - including Samaria and Judea - to the Jewish people to create a greater Israel. They have large families, are observant, and knows the whole world can be their enemy. Because of these glaring disparities, within two generations the Jewish left will have vanished from the lands of the Jewish people.

How the Two-State Solution Was Murdered: Dagger No. 1 was Yitzak Rabin's failure to embrace the essence of Oslo: an independent Palestinian state. Read his Oct. 5, 1995 speech to the Knesset explaining why Oslo would NOT lead to a Palestinian state. http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1990_1999/1995/10/PM+Rabin+in+Knesset-+Ratification+of+Interim+Agree.htm. Dagger No. 2 was Ehud Barak's failure to concede on the Temple Mount issue at Camp David in 2000. And Dagger No. 3 was Israel's decision to commence the Second Intifada with Arik Sharon's infamous "walk on the Temple Mount." Add to that Dagger No. 4 -- Israel's refusal, even to this day, to accept the Arab Peace Plan as a basis for negotiations.

The left lost because it started the settlements and continued them after the Oslo accords in contravention of the agreements. The pullout from Gaza was a sham, and the rockets start flying from Gaza after Israel intensified the siege following the election of Hamas in open, legitimate elections. The left has lost because it became a Likud lite!

faced with the world.

May be the center - left already died the first time in fall 1967 when the Eshkol government did not prevent the first settlements to establish themselves in the West Bank

Israel's political right has been moving the last decade to the political left and it's just a matter of vagueness on what should have been fundamental differences as in the past, especially with regards to foreign policy and dialogue with Palestinians. So in essence, you'd have to applaude the left for their political perserverance - that is, Meretz, Labour and Kadima.

If Kadima wants to survive, if Kadima wants Israel to survive, if Kadima wants to avert World War III, it must wash its hands of Bibi and all that he represents.

are erroneously declaring political center-left those who are not entirely religiously submissive in their life style, that’s all. How can you claim that any genuine center-left of respectable size exist in the country where more than two million of its non-Jewish citizens, around 25% of population, are treated second class citizens, some being denied even basic human rights such right to marry and establish family? How is it called a society in which individual rights or their absences depend on person’s ethnic and/or religious denomination? Certainly not center-left.

Ari Shavit has the remarkable ability to ask precisely the right questions -- in this case, why did the center-left fail? -- and come up with precisely the wrong answers: in this case, because it didn't deal properly or understand Arab extremism. Missing is the elephant in the room, Occupation, which isn't even mentioned by Shavit. What if Hamas and the suicide bombers were merely symptoms of hopelessness because of an Israeli refusal to end its 45 year Occupation? The problem with Shavit is the "center" part of his Center-Left political analysis: it blames the victims for their extremism, even their very resistance to oppression, and lets the powerful party, Israel, of the hook. The "center" part of Shavit will always frustrate his ability to provide truly insightful answers because it limits his critical facilities and keeps him securely in the box of conventional, acceptable thinking. Too bad: The questions are too good for run-of-the-mill answers..

'The Israeli center-left should have correctly observed reality, internalized the serious claims being made by the right, and offered an appropriate response.' and what would that be, mr shavit...