Debating settlements

Israeli public discourse remains divided as security continues to top its agenda, writes Emad Gad

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In Israel, an acute debate is currently raging over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip. Sharon is trying to create a new coalition government including both the leftist Labour Party and religious parties. Such a political deal would allow him to implement the Gaza plan. Meanwhile, Israeli public discourse remains sharply contested. On the one hand there are the partisans of political settlement, disengagement and the evacuation of settlements. On the other hand are the forces of the right who cling to the idea of Greater Israel and reject the evacuation of any Jewish settlement. The struggle between those two opposing forces was manifested over the past few days as each side organised its ranks and put forward a show of force. The Israeli left organised a protest march of more than 150,000 people in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv under the slogan "Get out of Gaza and start talking". Organised by the Majority Coalition, an umbrella organisation for leftist movements, the demonstration sought to prove numerical superiority over the 60,000 Likud members who had foiled Sharon's disengagement plan in the Likud referendum.

For its part, the Israeli right flexed its muscles a day later in a huge demonstration organised by settlers. Protesters formed a human chain stretching from the Erez checkpoint to Jerusalem, and leaders of the Settlers' Council for Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip (Yesha) held a press conference to discuss the activities planned against Sharon's disengagement plan.

"The human chain demonstration exceeded our expectations," said Avner Shimoni, head of the Gaza Coast Regional Council. "There were more than 200,000 demonstrators who came all the way from Kiryat Shmona in the north and Eilat in the south. We had wanted to link the human chain from Nisanit to Jerusalem without disrupting the protest and without any rioting. We expressed our outrage at the prime minister over his disengagement plan."

Yesha Council Head Bentzi Lieberman said: "We were surprised by our ability to mobilise this number of demonstrators in just three weeks. Our job is to make the power of the majority felt. Thousands of people went out to homes. In the next three to four months we intend to reach more than a million homes in Israel."

While both sides continue to mobilise their forces and attract more supporters, it is clear that the major problem of those who support peace and the resumption of negotiations is the transformation undergone by the Labour Party, "the heart of the Israeli left", and its subsequent feebleness as a result of these changes. This has increased the Israeli right's ability to recruit supporters.

In fact, the crisis of the Israeli left and the peace camp began in the mid-1990s. Since then the party has been experiencing an extended crisis largely attributable to the absence of its historical leadership and the loss of a large part of its identity as the main representative of the centre left. The crisis has become more pronounced since the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish extremist on 4 November 1995. After Rabin, the party has had no true political leadership with a clear, precise vision on issues such as a political settlement, regional compromise, or the principle of land for peace. Following Rabin's death Shimon Peres became the temporary leader of the party. However, he soon committed several lethal mistakes, most prominently the Qana massacre. Having lost the Arab vote, he lost to Netanyahu in the May 1996 elections. He was followed by Ehud Barak, who, although elected on a platform of continuing on Rabin's path, brought the party closer to the Likud and the Zionist right in general. This was clearly embodied in the Camp David II negotiations, which were not so much negotiations as much as a trap laid for President Arafat.

The crisis of Labour was further advanced when General Benjamin Ben-Eliezer took over the reins after Barak. Ideologically, Ben-Eliezer is much closer to the Likud than to Labour. He joined Sharon's government as defence minister, while Shimon Peres became foreign minister, a move which met with the contempt of many in the party ranks who rejected the idea of participating in a coalition government with Likud. This camp, which included figures such as Shlomo Ben-Ami, Yossi Beilin, and Haim Ramon, believed that Sharon was using the Labour Party to market his government internationally. Indeed, one Israeli writer noted, "Sharon needs Ben-Eliezer and Peres in the same way he needs the Thai workers who clean his house on his private ranch."

In this context, a number of observations can be made. Firstly, Israeli public opinion tends to the right and right-wing Israeli discourse promises the public that it can bring security through arms. As a result, the issue of security is the first priority for Israelis, exceeding everything else in importance. This explains in part how public opinion is able to forgive the Likud its mistakes and forget its financial scandals so quickly. The priority is security, and this is no time to talk about ethics and principles.

Secondly, the Israeli right has succeeded in convincing the public that the loss of security was a result of negotiating with a people who only understand the language of force. The vision and policies of the last Labour government in Israel, Barak's government from 1999 to February 2001, only helped to cement this belief especially as Barak circulated the lie that he was the first Israeli prime minister to offer "unprecedented concessions" to the Palestinians. Even so, according to that urban legend, they refused these concessions and took up the path of "terrorism" -- a reference to the Al-Aqsa Intifada -- to extract even more concessions. Surveys of Israeli public opinion reflect the prevalence of this narrative; many citizens state that they believe that the Al-Aqsa Intifada represents a danger to the existence of Israel and its future as a Jewish state.

For all these reasons, the Israeli right is more capable of mobilising supporters and its discourse has a great degree of credibility among public opinion. This is apparent on both the political and popular levels. The Israeli right controls the current government, and even if Labour joins a new coalition government it will only be a junior partner. On the popular level, the right is still more able to mobilise supporters than the rag-tag left which lacks leadership and is marked by divisiveness within its rank and file.

To learn more about the contest between the left and right in Israel, visit the Web site of Arabs Against Discrimination www.aad-online.org.