The left that failed
By Ze'ev Sternhell
Haaretz, December 17, 2004
What is the intellectual and moral baggage the Labor Party brings to the government? What will its particular contribution be? What type of society does it seek to create? What will it do to rescue us from the hands of the Likud Central Committee members and their trusty representatives, from Tzachi Hanegbi, Yisrael Katz and Bibi Netanyahu to Limor Livnat and Gideon Ezra?
Unfortunately, the answer is that the left will not do a thing in the government because it is a conformist and institutional entity by nature and accepts the verdict of the status quo. Herein lies the uniqueness of the Israeli left and the big difference between it and the European left. Indeed, the most salient characteristic of the European left is the fact that it was born out of a rejection of the existing order. Since the establishment of trade unions and socialist parties in the late 19th century, the left has been engaged in a constant struggle to achieve social rights and a minimal quality of life, as well as to consolidate the democratic order, which also did not come about easily. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, it waged a life-and-death struggle against the radical right, a fight in which the left paid the price when defeated - executions, concentration camps, long years of exile.
Thus, an instinctive anti-establishment attitude developed in the socialist left, and some of the initial fervor remains to this day. That is a culture that never existed here. As early as the 1930s, the left, as represented by the Histadrut labor federation, in fact constituted the establishment. Its leaders led the yishuv to independence, built the mechanisms of rule, including the army, and shaped the economy.
The Israeli left is still unable to free itself from the grip of the past. The Labor Party will attack the Likud on one point after another, but it will not stand up instinctively on the side of the weak against the elites. It will not stand up against the groups that dominate the economy in defense of workers who have been fired or who labor under disgraceful conditions of exploitation. It will defend the army as if it were a collection of holy martyrs, and it will extend its patronage to the plutocrats, as if what is good for them is also always good for Israeli society. It will demand minor revisions to the budget, but it will not rebel, as a real left would, against the very essence of the policies of the right, against the policy of naked power the Likud pursues in all fields - violence against the poor and weak, violence against the Palestinians, violence against foreigners.
The left disappears from the scene when certain issues are raised on the national agenda - such as the rising tide of public corruption, the decay infesting the army, the growing control of society by capital. No one in its ranks had a bad word to say about the deputy chief of staff, whose ethical norms should have long ago brought about an end to his military career, or about the bankruptcy of the attorney general in the Sharon family affair. In matters pertaining to the social or military establishment, the left can always be counted on to line up under the flag.
It is no coincidence that the area in which the bankruptcy of the left cries out most flagrantly is the war on poverty. During the coalition negotiations conducted throughout the week, the Labor Party delegation accused the Likud of lacking compassion. You need to read this twice to believe it. They did not say that they were coming in order to present demands aimed at realizing some of the rights and yearnings of human beings. They forgot the "outdated" truth that there is no freedom with equality. In their eyes, as with the neoconservatives who rule us, the world we live in is the only one that exists and the only thing that remains to do is to submit pleas and hope for minor revisions. They did not raise a hue and cry against the dominant conception that politics is limited to general management and detached from society. We might have expected, even from a barren and clueless left, that it would at least say that it is possible to change reality. Just as we are able to create poverty and misery with our own hands, we are also capable of changing direction and reversing the trend. Political power exists for this very reason. Only those who are in a position of control do not need the state's intervention and oversight. For the weak, the presence of the state in the social system is the tonic of life.
But to say these simple things requires a consciousness that for over a century has been identified with socialism. Democratic socialism has long ago internalized the best elements from original liberalism - that is, its intellectual underpinnings, first and foremost of which is the understanding that man is endowed with rights and society is merely a tool for exercising them. But socialism rejects the approach that ties political freedom to the market economy. We have already seen how a market economy can serve authoritarian regimes that were worse than an authentic fascist regime. A market economy requires restraint and oversight. The role of the state is not only to ensure safety in the streets and security along the borders, but also to work toward achieving as much equality as possible. It is difficult to see why the right to freedom and political equality is so obvious to all, while the right to a fair and worthwhile life - if not actual equality - must be considered a dangerous utopia.
