11-7-2019 The Long Paralysis of the Israeli Left - Assaf Sharon New York Review of Books

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/11/07/long-paralysis-israeli-left/ 


[Review of Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel, Dan Ephron; Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, Itamar Rabinovich]

 

…Rabin's assassination was the starkest expression yet of the right's diktat to the Israeli mainstream: peace with your neighbors means war with your brothers. For more than two decades, Israeli advocates for peace and democracy have been paralyzed by this equation. The result is an asymmetrical culture war, with one side fighting tooth and nail while the other side—confused and intimidated—observes and repines. The taboo of fraternal war, which is rooted deep in the foundations of the Jewish state, has become the source of its undoing.  The new centrist party, Blue and White, performed impressively in both of the recent elections, winning the same number of seats as Netanyahu's Likud party (35 in April and 32 in September). But it refrains from taking a position on Israel's most pressing issues. Though by all accounts a liberal and a dove, its leader, former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, would not commit to a two-state solution during the campaign or even concede that the occupation exists, but, submitting to the right's bigotry, announced that he would not include Arab parties in his coalition. Leading members of his party reiterated this position in August. If he had been elected and formed a coalition, Gantz's hastily assembled hodgepodge party would never have done anything that might provoke the right's wrath. Israel's liberals are still waiting for leaders who are neither intimidated by the right's bullying nor befuddled by its duplicitous cries for unity. October 9, 2019

 

Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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