The Decline of the Israeli Left

By Helena Cobban, Boston Review. Posted July 20, 2009.

Seven or eight times a year, Zochrot organizes a field trip for interested Jewish Israelis to a different site of Palestinian displacement. At each location, experts, who may be Jewish or Palestinian Israelis, share what they know about the village's life before its depopulation, what happened to its people in 1948, and the cycles of destruction and expropriation the village suffered thereafter. Then, participants erect informational signs indicating where key landmarks like the village's mosque or school once stood.

Zochrot's curriculum is taught only in Hebrew. "It is among Jewish Israelis that we need to do this education," Bronstein said. "When Palestinians come to the negotiating table and talk about refugee rights, including the right of return, Israelis have no context for that and often consider it a quite unreasonable demand."

Bronstein noted that talking about the Palestinian refugees' right of return is considerably more taboo in Israeli society than talking about finding a way to share Jerusalem with a future Palestinian state. "If we truly implement the right of return, it would make a big change here," he said. "It would mean the end of having a state for only the Jews. Many people here are concerned about what would be 'lost' in such a process. But we are more concerned with looking at the positive aspects of building a new, more inclusive basis for citizenship."

Initiatives like these are signs of hope for the future--but as of yet, they are far from constituting a mass movement.

• • •

On Barack Obama's second day in office, he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jointly appointed the first high-level U.S. envoy on Israeli-Palestinian peace issues in many years: George Mitchell. Mitchell served as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 through 1995, successfully mediated the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between Britain and the Irish Republican Army, and in 2000-2001 chaired the commission established by President Bill Clinton to investigate the causes of the Palestinians' second intifada.

Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Mitchell have all stated that a final-status, two-state peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a clear and pressing American interest. During Mitchell's three trips to the Middle East in his first three months as envoy, he stayed mainly in listening mode. He, Obama, and Clinton have all reiterated U.S. support for the two-state formula and called for a complete halt to any further construction in Israel's settlements. But by the beginning of June they still had not made any concrete moves toward securing a two state-based peace agreement. Nor had they done anything to hold Israel accountable for its continued construction in the settlements. Netanyahu recently endorsed the two-state goal, but demanded complete Palestinian disarmament and reiterated plans for building in the settlements.

In March 2009 there was a respectable level of support (51 percent) among Jewish Israelis--and 66 percent among Palestinian Israelis--for a two-state outcome. These findings mirrored polls taken in January among Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza, which found 54.8 percent of respondents also expressing support for a two-state outcome.

Given that the popular base exists in each society for the two-state outcome, it would seem that determined and smart actions by the Obama team could further that goal. However, transforming popular sentiments into a politically effective constituency requires political movements or parties in each society that are ready and able to do the necessary organizing. On the Palestinian side, there is only one political movement that is both able and--currently--willing to do this: Hamas. When Hamas entered the elections for the PA's legislative council in 2005, it signalled its adherence to many of the principles of the two-state outcome.

As for Fatah, the large amount of U.S.-mobilized aid that has been poured into that party's coffers since 2006 with the intention of strengthening it vis-à-vis Hamas has instead merely accelerated the trend toward corruption and clientelism that the movement has long harbored. The aid flow has actually hastened the disintegration of Fatah's internal decision-making structures to the point that it is now just about unable to make any strategic decisions at all. If the Obama administration is to succeed with the two-state goal, it will need to enroll Hamas into the campaign. But the White House still refuses to talk to Hamas unless Hamas accepts the three conditions the Bush administration defined for any such contacts: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and affirmation of adherence to all agreements previously reached by the PA leadership. (The United States has placed no analogous preconditions on dealing with any Israeli parties, no matter how extreme their positions.)

In Israel the situation is more complex. Kadima, the ill-defined "centrist" party founded by Sharon and Olmert in 2005, is currently in opposition--though with 28 seats, it is actually the largest single party in the Knesset. Kadima's leader, Tzipi Livni, refused to join Netanyahu's government precisely because of his opposition to the two-state goal, which has since been tempered slightly. (Her decision made the entry of Labor into the coalition even more anomalous. These two parties may now engage in a broad ideological do-si-do, with Labor moving to the right and Kadima to the left.) Livni and Kadima will almost certainly remain committed supporters and organizers on behalf of the two-state solution. As a strange hybrid that includes ministers across the political spectrum, Kadima may lose some of its right faction over Livni's position on the Palestinian question, but it might also gain some grassroots members of Labor infuriated by Barak's decision to join the government.

See more stories tagged with: israel, obama, palestine, west bank, netanyahu, gaza, settlements

Helena Cobban is a Friend in Washington for the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Politics! Sign up now »