An old, worn-out whore who waits in vain for a man to seek her favors is a pitiful sightindeed. The Israeli Labor Party is in this pathetic position, but it is difficult to feel anypity for it.
For months now, the party has been waiting at the door of the Sharon government, hoping tobe invited in at any moment. From time to time Sharon opens the door, shoots her a contemptuouslook and slams the door shut in her face. This week it happened again, for the nth time.
Usually Shimon Peres is blamed for this situation. Quite rightly, of course. Peres islonging for the position of Foreign Minister the way a man dying of thirst in the desert longsfor water. As a member of the government he could meet with kings and presidents, take part ininternational conferences, make solemn declarations and do all the things that give meaningto his life. For him, life in opposition is no life at all.
But the question is: Why was this man elected to his position as executive chairman of theparty? Those who elected him knew where he wants to go. After all, he has already served asSharon ’s foreign minister, spreading the good tidings that Sharon is no longer Sharon , thatthe leopard has changed every one of his spots and is now just like one of the sheep on his farm.
As the chief of the largest parliamentary faction outside the governing coalition,Peres is entitled by law to be addressed as the “Leader of the Opposition”. No title could suithim less. While Menachem Begin, for example, flourished in opposition and spent 29 happyyears there, Peres wilts like a flower without water. He has no idea what to do. If he wereoffered a plan for opposition activities on a plate, he wouldn’t know what to do with it.
From the very beginning of his career, as an instructor in the Working Youth movement,Peres was a man of the government. As an assistant of David Ben-Gurion, as the Director Generalof the Defense Ministry, as a minister and as Prime Minister – he always identified with thegovernment, worked for the government and represented the government. When Ben-Gurioncompelled him to leave Labor in 1965 and participate in the founding of the opposition Raffiparty, he was miserable and used the first pretext to rejoin the government. When he lost anelection and was stuck in opposition, he looked for the first opportunity to join a “nationalunity” government.
From this point of view, Peres is a perfect symbol of his party. From 1933, when it assumedpower in the Zionist organization’s governing institutions, until the 1977 “upheaval”which brought the Likud to power, Labor enjoyed 44 uninterrupted years in power. Indeed, theLikud victory dumfounded everybody. Until that moment, nobody could even imagine agovernment without Labor.
At the time, a Member of Parliament could not but pity the Labor members, who drifted alongthe Knesset corridors like ghosts. When they mounted the rostrum to speak about some subject,they automatically assumed the pose of government spokesmen and had to remind themselves inmid-speech that it was, after all, their job to criticize.
Throughout the last year one could hardly find a single sign that the Labor Party was inopposition. True, it regularly submits no-confidence motions, but that is an empty weeklyritual that is not taken seriously by anybody either in the Knesset or outside.
On no subject whatsoever does Labor really fight the government. It identifies itselfwith the Thatcherist economic policy of Treasury Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which hitsthe poor (who vote for the Likud anyhow) and serves the economic elite (which belongs to theLabor Party). It cannot fight against the settlements, since Peres himself founded the firstsettlement in the center of the West Bank , Kedumim. The Separation Wall which imprisons thePalestinians in ghettos was initiated by the Labor Party, and when Sharon became PrimeMinister he only changed its path. The mantra “We Have No Partner for Peace” was coined by theLabor leaders, Ehud Barak and Shlomo Ben-Ami. The idea of annexing the “settlement blocs” wasconceived by Yossi Beilin, then a leading Labor member.
The close relations between Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon are not accidental. As theprophet Amos said (3,3): “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” Both came from thesame place: the court of David Ben-Gurion. Both represent variations of the same ideology.Indeed, as the ancient Hebrew proverb goes: “Not for nothing did the starling go to the raven,but because they are two of the same kind.”
The very name “Labor Party” is a misnomer – it is neither a party nor has it anything to dowith labor. It has no roots at all in four of the five major components of Israeli society: thereligious, the Oriental Jews, the new immigrants from Russia and the Arab citizens. It islimited to the fifth component – the Ashkenazi (European) Jews, especially the oldergeneration. This is a well-established, privileged, indeed pampered elite that iscomfortable in the existing situation, with nothing “burning in its bones” and noinclination whatsoever to get involved in party politics (with the odd exception).
The party is in a shambles. It has, in fact, no real local branches, only small groups ofinterested functionaries. Worse: there are no signs of a new leadership, or even new ideas,after the collapse of the old concepts. One sees only a group of tired politicians, each of whomlooks out only for himself, fighting to get a few minutes on television, where he can repeatobsolete phrases from the past. The public listens and yawns.
It is these politicians who elected Peres, because they could not agree on any othercandidate for party chairman. This is not a symphony orchestra, but only a bunch of streetmusicians, each with his own tune in his head.
All this would not be important, if it did not have such grave implications. The absence ofa real opposition creates a void in the political landscape and leaves the entire arena toSharon and his henchmen. The small Meretz party, now called “Yahad” (“Together”) is noeffective opposition either – not only because of its size, but because it suffers from many ofLabor’s afflictions. It does not take part in the daily battles on the ground. It does not fightagainst the monstrous wall. The Prime Minister’s bribery affair, which would have provided afield day for any real opposition, did not evoke a reaction from Yahad. Labor, of course, keptmum.
The small parties that represent the Arab citizens are much more active, but most of theJewish public ignores them, much as it ignores the Arab public in general.
This is a disastrous situation. It sows despair among those who are longing for change butsee no viable substitute that can assume power. It explains the odd result of all publicopinion polls: the majority is ready to make sacrifices for peace, the majority votes forSharon .
A change of government is impossible without a change of opposition. And a new oppositionhas a chance of arousing enthusiasm only if its agenda is really opposed to the government’sagenda. For that, courage, faith and a fighting spirit are needed.
Until such an opposition comes to life, inside or outside the Labor Party, there is nochance of real political change.