The Knesset: many parties, one mind

mashriq / arabia / iraq | imperialism / war | non-anarchist press Tuesday June 02, 2009 21:24 by Daphna Baram - The Guardian

Intransigence, expansionism, racism and warmongering now seem to be the consensus across Israeli politics.

Ehud Barak's move to join Binyamin Netanyahu's coalition and rub shoulders around the cabinet table with arch racist Avigdor Lieberman should not have surprised anybody, but was still met with shocked lamentations from the ranks of the decomposing remnants of the Zionist left. The fact that Tzipi Livni, leader of the opportunistic "central" Kadima party, demonstrated more courage and integrity (for which the long knives in her party have already been drawn against her), is hardly a breathtaking bombshell either for anybody who has been following the careers of the power-obsessed general and the goody-two-shoes girl scout. Many ask themselves what's left of the Israeli left.

The answer to that, as it always has been, is simple. The Israeli left is combined of the following: the diminishing Meretz, a group of liberal Zionists who are torn by the realisation that they will soon have to decide whether they want a Jewish state or a democratic one – if they opt for the former they'll have to waive the liberal tag, while if they choose the latter they'll have to part with the Zionist one; Arab and Jewish Hadash voters who are struggling to hold on to their two-state solution while beginning to realise that it may well be too late for that; and the mainly Arab voters of Balad, whose plain call for a state for all its citizens is heard by most Jewish Israelis as a subversive "antisemitic" plan. Traditionally, the other Arab party, The United Arab List, is also counted with the left, though there's nothing particularly lefty about it. However, since it represents a part of the constituency of the Palestinian-Arab deprived minority, it naturally aligns itself with the cause of Palestinians' rights, both inside Israel proper, and in the context of the West Bank and Gaza.

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