Israeli Right Worse Than European Fascists

Labor members need not apply

By Ze'ev Sternhell

There were intensive talks this week on setting up two new political blocs on the right and the left. The extreme right is organizing a militant front and all it needs to complete the package is agreement on a "transfer" clause. It appears there are still some softies in the National Religious Party (NRP) who are hesitant about formally endorsing the ultimate clause that expresses the world view of the settlement movement.

This is not likely to be an insurmountable obstacle and the new party will probably see the light of day quite soon. It will be one of the worst far-right parties in the Western world. The so-called "Druckman law" indicates the depth of its potential. This bill, proposed by Haim Druckman MK, (NRP) would deny state land to Arab citizens, representing a common denominator for all sections of the right wing - in fact the parties of Jean-Marie Le-Pen, Joerg Haider and Gianfranco Fini pale when compared to Israeli nationalists.

These would never have conceived legislation of the kind Druckman advocates and which has the support of nearly the entire right wing, including a majority of cabinet ministers. If Le-Pen, Haider and Fini were to take over their respective countries, the governments in France, Austria and Italy would be more liberal than we can expect if Israel ever falls into the hands of Effi Eitam, Haim Druckman, Avigdor Lieberman and Benny Elon.

However, to the credit of the right, it is at least consistent in its goal and faithful to its ideology, however ruinous that may be. This is not something that can be said about the "left" - a term that will have to be within quotation marks so long as it includes the Labor Party. No one doubts the imminent death of Benjamin Ben-Eliezer's Labor Party - the only question remaining is what will replace it. The birth of the social democratic party, Labor's putative successor, remains in doubt and its fate actually depends on the outcome of the leadership battle in the Labor Party. If Ben-Eliezer is reelected as leader, Yossi Beilin and a number of other as yet undefined and unidentified doves will leave the party. However, if Haim Ramon wrests the leadership from Ben-Eliezer, the doves will probably stay put.

In other words, if the giant of our time - Ramon - is crowned, the need for a social democratic party will evaporate. Beilin and his friends will try to persuade the electorate their bankrupt party, which they themselves disdain and are ashamed of, is capable of solving the nation's fundamental problems. It is difficult to believe a talented man like Beilin is unaware of the farce he is leading - it is more reasonable to conclude he lacks the courage to leap into the cold waters of competing with Yossi Sarid, MK, the chairman of Meretz, for the leadership of the new body.

The truth is, Labor doves are capable of anything for no group in Israeli politics is more pitiable. They are not only ridiculous, they are corrupting public morality and making a shambles of parliamentary democracy. True, the Knesset doves appear on every possible platform of Peace Now in Israel and abroad, and spend most of their time hurling barbs at the government. But at the same time they are members of the coalition, they ensure its continued existence, and it is on them that the government depends in parliament.

Such behavior is without precedent in the democratic world. Now, after a year and a half of full partnership in the political fiasco and the moral debacle that is the present government, these same people are supposed to represent renewal and hope.

If the doves had resigned from the Labor Party a year ago, when it became completely obvious that Ariel Sharon had no real desire to end the war, a new party could have been established with great fanfare. Israel needs a true social democratic party as much as it needs air to breathe - a party that preserves humanist values and fights the crimes perpetrated in our name, a party that will hold social affairs and the character of government as close to its heart as it does peace.

However, such a party is not created by default. If the new party does not express a genuine intellectual and political need, but becomes only another source of jobs, it will not get far. Unfortunately, that is precisely the picture now emerging. Even if there is a mass walkout from Labor in the near future, it will not be seen as a response to a national need and a refusal to accept the slide of Israeli society into colonialism. It will be seen as rats leaving the sinking ship.

An iron rule should be laid down. Anyone who cooperated with Ariel Sharon, anyone who was a member of his government, should be barred from the new party. Anyone who raised his hand in the Knesset to support the occupation government or who defended it in an international forum, anyone who by their very silence justified the barbaric behavior in the territories should be ruled out.

The cutoff date should be July 23 - anyone who had not resigned from the Labor Party Knesset faction, and from the party itself, by Tuesday of this week, is a coward who does not deserve a political future. So is anyone who did not tell Ben-Eliezer that he or she would no longer bear responsibility for acts that are morally war crimes.

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