12 Days in Israel

I have just returned from a very intensive 12-day stay in Israel, most of it in the framework of Meretz USA's annual seminar in Israel, the "Israel Symposium". It will probably require another few weeks to sort out the many and diverse perspectives that I heard, and synthesize them into a full and organized report, but - with so many raw impressions fresh in my mind - I would like to use this column to share with you a set of initial thoughts.

First, the political context: I arrived in Israel less than a month after the elections that voted a clear right-wing majority into Israel's Knesset, and that dealt a severe body blow to both the Labor and Meretz parties. And it was less than two months since the end of the Israel-Hamas war, a military action that was supported by 96%(!) of Jewish Israelis. An even more telling statistic: 65% of Israel's Jews continue to believe that the government ended the war too soon, and that it should have "finished the job" of eradicating the Hamas in Gaza, regardless of the political and human costs.

Understandably, I encountered an Israeli left that was still in a state of shock and disarray. Nonetheless, amid the pessimism, and perhaps because of it, some on the Left have already begun to address how the peace and human rights camp can redefine and reorganize itself to take up the challenges of the 21st century.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a key area in which new thinking is already underway. On the Symposium's opening night, Prof. Naomi Chazan argued that the bilateral negotiating process launched at Oslo in 1993 and that continued through Annapolis in 2007 is no longer relevant. The election of a right-wing Knesset was the last nail in the coffin.

Therefore, she (and many others) said, the hope for peace must be buoyed by much more emphatic international and, primarily, American engagement. Phrases such as "international trusteeship" as a way-station to Palestinian statehood have entered diplomatic parlance, as has "the use of American leverage".

Prof. Chazan was hopeful that President Obama was equal to this task. Others, like Haaretz journalist Akiva Eldar, were more skeptical. Eldar told our group that Obama's initial forays into the Israel-Palestine conflict showed more continuity with the Bush approach than change, and he is concerned that America will continue the tradition of talking the talk - official support for two states and opposition to West Bank settlement - but not walking the walk.

A more radical approach could be heard as well: Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, told us that BDS ("Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions") was the only way that Israel could be prodded into accepting the kind of solution envisioned in the Geneva Initiative - two states, based on the 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and an agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee situation based on the Arab League peace initiative.

Prof. Gordon suggested that, with the alternative to two states most likely being the development of full-blown apartheid, the BDS approach is a pro-Israeli effort - "to save Israel from itself". Most on the Israeli left, it should be noted, still reject this type of strategy.

In the world of party politics, figures in Meretz were at pains to explain the party's fall from 5 to 3 Knesset seats, especially since polls less than a week before the elections put the party at 6-8 seats. Many, such as Meretz chairman, MK Chaim Oron, pointed to the cagey strategy of the Kadima party, which convinced many Meretz voters that the largest single party in the Knesset would form the next government. (Kadima, the largest party, will not.)

Oron and others also pointed to the effects of the Gaza war, where Meretz's nuanced approach was found wanting: Some voters further to the Left accused Meretz of supporting the war and defected to the Hadash party, while other potential Meretz voters who supported the war felt that the party's calls for immediate cease-fire had undermined the country's war effort.

But not all Meretz figures agreed. Some, like former MK Mossi Raz, looked for more fundamental causes. He suggested that that the party had gone ‘stale' since its radical days in the early 1990s, and proposed that the party stand at the center of a new "green-red" electoral coalition that would integrate forces such as Meimad, the Green Movement and the Israeli Greens. Such a party, he said, could also appeal to some voters for Labor and even for Hadash.

Other Meretz figures envisioned a different realignment, holding out the possibility of collaboration between Meretz and Labor, which - aside from party leader Barak and one or two others - had elected a slate of relatively left-wing Knesset members. These figures admitted, however, that Labor's probable entry into a right-wing government could easily let the air out of such an idea.

A different opinion was voiced by Gershon Baskin (Co-Director of IPCRI: Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information), who had recently left Meretz for the new Green Movement. Baskin lamented that the Israeli left had never managed to appeal to more than a core of predominantly secular, Ashkenazi, upper middle-class, well-educated supporters. He suggested that nothing would really change unless a way was found to change this profile and connect to a cross-section of Israelis, including Mizrachi Jews and immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, more and more energies on the Israeli left, especially among the younger generation, seem to be directed away from party politics and towards work for human rights, through NGOs such as B'Tselem, Gisha, Bimkom and Yesh Din.

We heard from Oren Yakobovich, head of the video department at B'Tselem, which has initiated an important videocamera distribution project. Originally entitled, "Shooting Back", the project distributes video equipment to Palestinians in the territories so that they can document human rights abuses that they encounter in their daily lives.

And we met with Tania Hary and Itamar Shachar of Gisha, which works through the Israeli courts to try to guarantee freedom of movement for Palestinian civilians - especially those in Gaza who wish to be allowed through Israel's almost hermetic closure of the territory.

But for all their hard work, the figures in the human rights community admit that they can serve as no more than a palliative, and that the only real, long-term solution for human rights in the territories is an end of the occupation.

I came away from my time in Israel with the sense that Israel's left will begin to rise again only after the coupling of human rights and de-occupation is more forcefully and cogently asserted.

This column is not meant to summarize everything I saw during my time in Israel. For example, our trip also met with leading Palestinian moderates, including Dr. Samih el-Abed in Ramallah and Saman Khouri in East Jerusalem. We travelled to Sderot, where we met with resident Nomika Zion, who was a powerful anti-war voice during the recent Israel-Hamas hostilities.

We toured the West Bank with Hagit Ofran of Peace Now's "Settlement Watch", which is trying to stop the unending construction of settlements in the territories - much of which has been authorized by the Israeli government. And we shared coffee with Ambassador (ret.) Alon Liel, who has been engaged in backchannel talks for an Israeli-Syrian peace accord, and who believes that, while the chance of a Netanyahu government making peace with the Palestinians is infinitesimal, the possibility of a deal with Syria shouldn't be ruled out.

Liel's relatively optimistic tone was rare during our trip. But although we found it largely despondent, the Israeli Left is by no means throwing in the towel. "The Israeli left will rise again," I heard more than once. The reasoning given: "Israel's future depends upon it".

I hope to share more thoughts about the trip in the weeks ahead.