Illusions of the left

Standing among the 150,000 Israelis (at least that's what the news reports said) at Saturday night's rally in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, I found myself shocked at the high turnout. Talking with friends who were also there I found that they were surprised too. One person told me it was the biggest left-wing rally in Rabin Square since the one that immediately followed the Rabin assassination. It seemed as if many people there had this look on their face expressing a sense of disbelief that the left could actually put on an impressive demonstration expressing strength in numbers. Like many others, I had thought that only the right-wing and settlers were capable of such political activism today. The irony is that the Likud rejection of Sharon's plan to leave Gaza was the catalyst - and this reflects the weakness of the left, despite Saturday night's impressive turnout. No leader or peace plan from the left motivated the masses to come to Rabin Square. Attempts in recent years to do so had failed, and many of those at the rally Saturday night were familiar with the pathetic rallies because they had attended them.

The question now is what the left-wing leaders will do with this momentum. I wasn't particularly impressed by the speeches of the politicans Saturday night. Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon, MK Amir Peretz, Yahad Chairman Yossi Beilin and Labor Party Chairman Shimon Peres were among the featured speakers.

In my opinion, Ayalon, who with Palestinian activist Sari Nusseibeh is behind "The People's Voice" peace initiative, had the most interesting speech. (I recommend Avirama Golan's opinion piece in Haaretz on Ayalon's comments.) He chastised organizers and the crowd for not doing enough to reach out to the religious sector - as the event was held too close to the end of the Sabbath for them to attend. He wondered aloud why if we were a majority of the country such a relatively small number of people had come to Rabin Square. He also set out red lines for peace - such as no return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, which was met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd - but I'm sure not from the Gush Shalom extremists.

But I have one question for Ayalon: When are you going to enter politics yourself? It seems as if there is a large number of center-leftist figures in Israel who do not hesitate to publish peace plans, criticize the policies of the current government, and condemn the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza - but they do so from the comfort of the chairs at board of directors meetings while they are earning millions and the country goes to hell. Former MK and IDF Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak is one of these people. They say they don't want to dirty themselves in politics, and some claim they can exert more influence from outside the political system.

It reminds me of when I came to Israel for the first time some nine years ago and then-President Ezer Weizmann addressed our group, which was spending some 10 months in the country. Like the old-school Israeli he is, he flat out asked us why weren't we immigrating to Israel. When one participant said that it was because of all of the social problems in Israel, Weizmann said that was exactly why we should come to Israel and solve the problems, not just sit on the sidelines.

Is Israel's center-left majority ready to stop sitting on the sidelines?


A great new slogan and design by Peace Now was on display at Saturday's demonstration: 'In a shitty situation, you have to relieve yourself.' The Hebrew verb for relieving oneself is the same for evacuating, as in settlements. Kudos to the copywriter.

(Photo: Agnes Meisel)