If the Israeli media would stop acting in its own interests by treating certain candidates with kid gloves, the demise of the old-guard Israeli Left would be a far greater story. This political camp, which for decades wielded power and then put up a protracted political fight from the benches of the opposition, is no more.
This isn't really talked about, because it's an uncomfortable topic. There are no emergency conferences and panicked symposiums. Amir Peretz intends to bequeath the remnants of the Labor party, if he is allowed, to whoever is prepared to lend the party to the office of president. The recycled list of "hot names" stretches from Ehud Barak to Stav Shafir. Even the name Tzipi Livni is being regurgitated.
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In right-wing bastions in the periphery, voting numbers are dwindling from election to election, but those who do vote give their support to the Likud. In the midst of an economic and health crisis, the Left can be seen at junctions and on bridges across the country, waving banners championing an ideology reduced to one word: "Go." And after Benjamin Netanyahu goes?
The Left never really worked on presenting an alternative. Quite the opposite, anyone who has tried promoting a new, more relevant, more realistic agenda has been silenced. Why? Because now everyone is being asked to descend on Balfour Street in Jerusalem, where the prime minister's official residence is located. First Netanyahu must "go," and only then ideology can be discussed.
Anyone from the Left who has dared criticize the Balfour protests as a detached, elitist whim; anyone who has warned that protesting to safeguard the courts strikes a bitter chord with those being trampled by those very courts; anyone who said we must connect the periphery to the center because those people must be included in the national discussion -- on the economy, the justice system, and education -- has been ostracized and banished. I've personally been informed I am "not left." More than once.
Personally, I don't hand out licenses to other left-wingers. I do believe that the way to fix inequality is through socialism. I believe that in a multi-cultural society such as ours, where economic gaps are too strongly correlated to ethnic backgrounds, we must help those who have been left behind. I know that every child in Israel is entitled to nutritional security and quality education, even if he or she live in an unrecognized village in the Negev. And I am prepared to fight against the country's caste system. What do any of these issues have to do with the protests on Balfour Street?
Good for you, you appropriated the Left's agenda. But the Balfour operation was a success and the patient died. Support for Netanyahu is decreasing, but the Right is getting stronger. The Left is coming into this election empty handed, debating whether to be a fourth or fifth fiddle in the next symphony conducted by Netanyahu, or Gideon Sa'ar, or Naftali Bennett. The Left is dying. Send the flowers to Balfour Street.
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