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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
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Written by Rafi Shovali
What is the character of the failure of the Israeli Left and why has it occurred? Some will say that the Left failed in attaining the support of wide swathes of the population, primarily those social classes that form the backbone of support of the Left in other places throughout the world. These are the weakened socioeconomic classes, in Israel composed primarily of Mizrachim, Arabs and Jewish ultra-Orthodox.
Missing the Days of Innocence
The failure of the Zionist Left is that its values are not universal, and are therefore not applicable universally. A lack of Mizrachi support of the Left is not a failure of the Left, therefore, but a result of the failure in equally implementing its values.
One of the primary reasons for the failure is the Left's manner of analyzing Israeli society. The Left view society solely through the prism of the occupation, and blames the occupation for all societal ills. Negative norms and phenomena in Israeli society are described as a movement of the norms of the occupation over the Green Line. This approach is the source of longing amongst the Left to the wonderful days of innocence prior to the occupation, days that indeed had their problems, but these were "mistakes" of those busy doing and building.
The truth is that corruption and racism in Jewish society in Israel began long before 1967. Classification of the workers already in the beginning of the 20th century to "the natural worker" (the Yemenite) and "the idealistic worker" (the Ashkenazi), the manner of population distribution in the early years of the state and numerous other events demonstrate that the days of internal-Jewish racism and corruption in Eretz Israel are at the very least a chemistry of Zionism.
In other words, the common slogan of the Left, "the occupation corrupts," testifies to its hypocrisy and not about Israeli society. The occupation must certainly be ended, but it is not the source of corruption in Israeli society. An additional slogan, "money to neighborhoods and not to settlem ents" is also removed from reality. Did anyone invest in neighborhoods prior to the age of settlements? The daily experience of the Mizrachi in the development town teaches her that those who live at her expense are the kibbutzs and the individual capitalists, all of which grew under the auspices of both left- and right-wing governments. The slogan "money to neighborhoods and not to settlements" does not express a desire for social justice, but a cynical attempt to exploit the distress of the impoverished in Israel in order to achieve a certain political agenda. This exploitation is done by setting one public against another public with no real justification. These are the reasons that these slogans not only do not buy them a hold within the public, but earned those bantering them about nicknames such as do-gooders.
Even when the Left deals with Israeli society without mentioning the occupation, the analysis is faulty. For example, concerning the killing of citizens by the police, the Left focuses on the events of October 2000, in which Arab citizens were killed by the Israeli police. However, this phenomenon did not begin here or even with the occupation. The phenomenon of killing citizens by armed forces began in the first days of the state, and we don't lack examples: the killing of Salem Jirfi, who protested the secular coercion in the Ein Shemer; the killing of Kufr Qassem residents who returned to their village during a curfew; the killing of Ovadia Harrir from the Black Panthers; and more. These examples demonstrate that the discussion in the Zionist Left is always partial, and that instead of a universal discussion, a discussion is always focused on what is comfortable to discuss.
Peace and Economic Exploitation
When the discussion is not universal, it is clear that the foundation of the discussion is not about values but interests. The fact that the Zionist Left is not founded on values but on interests brought it to connect with the Right in its support of capitalist economic policies. These policies glorify the free market and privatization of public property, and view capital holders and their empowerment as an important economic goal that will contribute to growth. However, in this reality, the market is not "free," but controlled by the powerful, and pushes wide swathes within Israeli society outside of the economic game. Growth is also differential, and does not benefit the situation of the weakened classes.
The peace process led by the Zionist Left expresses everything said above. The Rabin government, which brought to the world the Oslo process, was also the government that brought the migrant workers to Israel. The "peace process" and economic exploitation became Siamese twins. The Oslo process was essentially about promoting the interests of the Palestinian elite and the economic elite in Israel, which is primarily Ashkenazi. The regime of corruption of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its monopolies were created under the auspices of the Israeli government. Every Palestinian monopoly had to pass through the territory of Israel, and it is not unreasonable to assume that they had Israeli partners who took a cut on the way. Despite this, apart from the Yossi Ginosaur episode, there was never an open public discussion in Israel about the Israeli contribution to the corruption of the Palestinian society within the Oslo process.
On the Israeli side, the "growth" brought by the peace process primarily benefited the top percentiles, a majority of them Ashkenazi. The lowest percentiles in Israel were harmed by the peace process. Various factories moved from Israel, which resulted in the firing of workers, who already worked for low wages, to the areas of the PA and neighboring countries. The import of migrant workers by the Oslo government also resulted in a decline in wages amongst the unskilled workers from the lowest classes, a majority of them Mizrachim and Arabs. The Oslo proce ss harmed the lower classes in Israel and the territories of the PA, and benefited the rich from both societies.
From the cultural perspective, politicians and peace activists did not stop declaring that Israel is part of the western world, period. This rhetoric places the Mizrachim in Israel in an impossible position: they do not bring with them anything "western" from a cultural perspective, and in addition this undercuts the legitimacy of the cultural-mizrachi existence in Israel. This rhetoric means that the peace is a crusader peace: Israel is the front line of Europe in the Middle East, and is stuck in the throat of the Arab world. The "we are here and they are there" rhetoric demonstrates that peace is not the goal, but the separation necessary for the existence of a western island in the Middle East. In the name of the existence of this island, a cultural delegitimization of the Jewish-mizrachi public occurred.
The proposed normalization between Israel and Arab states means, according to the Israeli government, an importation of western values in the Arab world via its democratization, while we have nothing to learn from it. The rhetoric of the new Middle East also goes in this direction, when it speaks amongst other things of "the Arab money and the Jewish mind." If so, it is no wonder that the intellectuals in the Arab world are leading the opposition to peace and acceptance of the state of Israel as part of the region, as they understand better than anyone the racist nature of Israel. The peace offered by the Zionist Left is not a peace with Palestinians or with Arab states, but a peace with Europe and the United States. This is the foundation for understanding the interests standing at the base of the rhetoric of the Left and its actions: it wants to be part of Europe and not the Middle East. This is the reason that the peace process ended in war. A peace accompanied by colonial ideology cannot be a true peace process. It is clear, therefore, why the Oslo peace process received the support of the strong socio-economic classes, composed primarily of Ashkenazis, and was opposed by the low socio-economic classes, composes primarily of Mizrachim.
The Right, on the other hand, offered to the Mizrachim a real social solution quite apart from the area of slogans: cheap housing in settlements. This solution is valid even if settlers are evacuated from their homes, as they will receive compensation that will permit them to live in another place. Without this housing solution, numerous settlers who went to the territories for economic reasons never would have achieved home ownership on their own.
The non-Zionist Left is not in a position of power in Israeli society, and therefore cannot offer the Mizrachim cooperation in power centres of the hegemony. However, if we check the analysis of Israeli society we find similarities between it and the Zionist Left. Parts of the Left which defines itself as non-Zionist take positions of the Zionist Left: an analysis of Israeli society via the prism of the occupation and use of slogans such as "the occupation corrupts." The contact of the non-Zionist Left with the Mizrachi struggle is not constant. They are sporadic and random. While there was cooperation between it and the Mizrachim, for example in the period of the Black Panthers, it did not become an ongoing phenomenon. The positions of the non-Zionist Left, even when they are universal, are implemented primarily in the context of the Jewish-Arab conflict, with an almost total lack of reference to the Jewish society.
Five Minutes of Social Justice
In the past decade I had the honour of contributing something to the struggle in exposing the truth in the matter of the Yemenite children. The partners in this struggle included the right-wing public, the settlers and some ultra-Orthodox. The most hostile population to our protest was the Zionist Left and large parts of the non-Zionist Left. In everything concerning this struggle, people on the Left acted like people on the Right. People who dripped humanism and universal values in the context of the Jewish-Arab conflict expressed an ethnocentric and racist worldview concerning the Yemenite children specifically, and the Mizrachi struggle in general. These people are essentially right-wing people who pretend to be on the Left.
The solution to the problem of the Left in Israel is not simple. In this matter there are no shortcuts, and it involves a process that will take time. The economic policies of Netanyahu generated an opportunity to create a suitable Left-wing alternative, but the solution can take root only after a Left will rise that views in an analysis of Israeli society its primary practice. Such an analysis must include a demand for a just division of power and resources, and in parallel deal with the question of the cultural identity of Israel. The Left must work on issues of redistributive justice and the cultural identity with no requests for political contributions. This patience is required due to the justified lack of belief in the Left by a majority of the mizrachim. It is impossible to speak for five minutes about social justice and then immediately go back to talking about the occupation. The new Left alternative must speak in the language of the Israeli society and turn to it, and not to Europe or another international force. This language must be based on the fact that Judaism and Islam are religions closer to each other than Judaism and Christianity. In a Leftist body that will present such an alternative there is no room for Zionist and non-Zionist Leftists, who participated or participate in oppression, whether through acts or tacit agreement through silence, in the oppression of Mizrachim in Israel.
This article originally appeared in the Hebrew-language publication of the AIC, Mitsad Sheni. Translated to English by the AIC.
