Not long ago, the Israeli writer B. Michael explained in Haaretz that the slogan "anyone but Bibi" is not personal. "Bibi isn't only Bibi. It's a whole ecosystem," he explained. This is part of a trend that has developed over the past year on the Left, in response to accusations from the Right and internal critique that the obsessive focus on "anyone but Bibi" has drained the ideological discussion on the Left and simplified its worldview.
The new attempt is to make "anyone but Bibi" exactly the opposite: a linguistic formula that expresses "a whole world - moral, ethical, historical and cultural," as the writer Iris Leal explained before the last elections, even as "a type of defense used by civilians of a democracy from a totalitarian regime in the making."
The desire to give ideological and moral values to the opposition to Netanyahu – not only as a person, but a phenomenon – is not unique to the Israeli Left. It was preceded by an impressive movement of leading intellectuals on the French Left, who in a short time acted decisively to label the opposition to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president who was in office between 2007-2012, as a cohesive political-ideological doctrine with moral validity.
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The French intellectuals bettered their Israeli colleagues also with the speed of their action: most of their theoretical corpus took shape before Sarkozy even entered the Élysée Palace. On the eve of the 2007 presidential elections, petitions of intellectuals popped up one after the other - such as one in the Nouvel Observateur with a headline Before it's too late, or another in the Libération titled We need to act on our responsibility – with the common denominator of labeling Sarkozy as a real danger to the values of freedom and equality of the republic, and describing him – with these words exactly - as the current embodiment of Caesarism (Césarisme) that threatens the democracy with a populistic fueling of fear and imperialistic illusions. Active opposition to him is realization of the intellectual vocation, no less.
The peak of this momentum of creativity was reached shortly after Sarkozy's victory, with the publication of a pamphlet by the political philosopher, Alain Badiou, with the fitting headline, The meaning of Sarkozy (De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom?). Badiou used the term "Sarkozyism" to define the new and unexpected shapes of totalitarian regimes in order to imagine a possibility for a new wave of revolutionary organizing, and based the opposition to Sarkozy as a political action against the reincarnation of nationalist-patriotic populism compared to Pétainism – named after Marshal Pétain, the head of the Vichy government during the Nazi occupation.
The sociological importance of this book - which also explains its commercial success - is simply in its appearance: Badiou established "anyone but Sarkozy" as a political identity with a legitimate and necessary concreteness to save the republic from the emerging fascism.
The critique from the Right on the appearance of the "anyone but Sarkozy" phenomenon focused not only on the outrageous comparisons between Sarkozy, an elected leader of a legitimate political movement to oppressive regimes, but with the obsession of left-wing intellectuals towards him. French jurist Stéphane Rials explained that "even enlightened people can't control themselves when someone says the name 'Sarkozy', and it prompts an uncontrollable urge to curse.'"
He was speaking of the responses of anger and disgust that Sarkozy managed to bring out from elite groups in the worlds of culture, research, media and law, who for many, were not connected to Sarkozy's political agenda but mainly to him being a foreign invader in the political echelons. The son of an immigrant, who rose to fame without passing through the habitats associated with the French elites, and even worse: a leader whose political capital is based mostly on the support of the masses. In other words, "anyone but Sarkozy" was very much sociological, not ideological.
It was true, to a certain extent. The opposition of the elites to Sarkozy was received in civil society, which was already prepared with the slogan "Sarko-fasco" ("Sarkozy the fascist"), waved by students and workers against Sarkozy back when he was finance minister and interior minister. When he became president, leading movements in the French Left united under the motto "anti-Sarko", in a sort of cultural-political movement aimed at translating the intellectual discourse against Sarkozy into popular sentiment. It was done by spreading humorist materials, brochures, viral essays, which in all Sarkozy was shown, paradoxically, as the enemy of traditional "Frenchness," the France of the past. The jury is still out on whether the movement was successful, but the fact is that Sarkozy was not elected again in 2012.
The similarity to Israel is compelling. Like Sarkozy, Netanyahu is very much hated by the elites – academic, legal and media; like him, he also brings out strong feelings, almost uncontrollable, of demonstrated disgust. Like Sarkozy, Netanyahu is labeled as a threat to democracy, the "Caesar from Caesarea,", an unstoppable populist edging towards totalitarian rule; and just like the "anyone but Sarkozy," the "anyone but Bibi" is presented as a coherent political identity with solid ideological validity.
But compared to France, where intellectuals defined the "anti-Sarko" as a comprehensive ideology early on, in Israel they're only now starting to speak of "anyone but Bibi" in these terms. Moreover, while in France the "anti-Sarko" spread methodically from the academic ivory towers to the popular discourse spaces and succeeded to be seen gradually as a sentiment that is not necessarily elitist, maybe even popular, in Israel the opposition to Netanyahu has remained in essence an elitist phenomenon.
Even now, if due to the pressure of the protests a great miracle will happen for the Left and like Golda Meir in 1974 and Menachem Begin in 1983 Netanyahu will announce his resignation, his exiting of the stage will not be credited to a popular movement against him, but to a successful combination of pressure from sources of power in the media and legal system to which a summer of protest led by "formers" gave the final push.
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The "anyone but Bibi" campaign is so essential to the self-definition of the intellectual elite in Israel, that it has become a prerequisite to entering its circles. A fresh group of left-wing Mizrahi activists is working diligently these days to promote its voice in the intellectual Left by demonstrating hostility towards Netanyahu. It is now forming its identity and raison d'etre by joining the protests on Balfour St. and wishes to achieve the elite's recognition by attacking figures that the elite Left loves to hate, such as Avishai Ben Haim or Gadi Taub, who have been marked as "Bibists", meaning they are ostracized from the intellectual community. One has been labeled as a "non-journalist," the other as an "intellectual accident."
But the biggest difference between "Anyone But Sarko" and "anyone but Bibi" is the treatment of the supporters of the hated leader. The French Left may have disliked the affection the masses had for their leader, but they did not develop such a strong disgust from them, as the Israeli Left has for the "Bibists", who are seen as a "cult", as "rags" or "inarticulate." This is very much the problem of the intellectual Left in Israel, and the reason for its failure: it has turned the "anyone but Bibi" to such a basic component of its identity, that it has become the most effective tool of distinction between it and "the people." Its despise for Netanyahu is essentially a political expression of its growing alienation from the new popularism in Israel, and if I may, from Israeli solidarity itself.
