Yacov Ben Efrat

The pundits and the politicians agree that the protest movement succeeded, resulting in big electoral wins for Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid (“There is a future”) and Naftali Bennett of the rightwing ha-Ba’it ha-Yehudi (“The Jewish Home”). These luminaries are united in their hatred of the Ultraorthodox and the Arabs and in their indifference to the workers. Both are future partners for Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. It’s not at all clear that this is what Dafni Leef had in mind when she pitched her tent on Rothschild Boulevard starting the social protest of Summer 2011, but such is the gloomy outcome. Those who wanted to unite the entire people—left and right, settlers and impoverished middle-class youth—have succeeded in a big way. The protest refrained from calling on Bibi to resign in order not to be stigmatized as political, and so Bibi remains to conduct the choir.

The protest has succeeded perhaps, but the people has lost out. The Right can go on ruling, because there is no one to challenge it from the Left. Shelly Yacimovich of the Labor Party, who swept the Occupation under the rug in her futile courting of right-wing votes, has rendered herself irrelevant. The potential of a leftwing bloc capable of stopping the Right dissipated a few nights ago when its three would-be participants— Yacimovich, Lapid, and Tzipi Livni of Tnua—failed to agree on which one of them would lead. The Arab parties fought hard to keep what they had, dividing the cake among themselves. Despite the indifference of the Arab voter, they slightly increased their number of Knesset members, whose shouts will resound in parliament’s chambers. They won’t miss a chance to grab a headline heckling right-wingers Moshe Feiglin and Orit Struk, and all will be festive, no doubt.

Daam in the elections

Daam did all that was in its power to join up with other social forces, but its efforts were fruitless. The protest leaders (except Leef) preferred to wheel and deal in the Labor Party, the Greens wound up with Livni, and others avoided politics altogether. Daam campaigned, therefore, as a Jewish-Arab list headed by Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka, including social as well as union activists.

Daam brought a unique message of solidarity, class-conscious rather than nationalist, moderate rather than hot-headed, and won praise from supporters and opponents alike. Hundreds of new, enthusiastic activists joined, contributing time and money, infusing the party with the energies of the social protest. The results are disappointing precisely because they stand in utter contrast to the vast amount of goodwill that Daam won from the community—from humanists, artists, and workers, Arab and Jewish, including Russian immigrants. They are also unexpected when we consider the large and sympathetic media exposure we had (see Challenge Online Magazine on Facebook). The number of votes that Daam received—3,374—is very far from reflecting the impression it made in this election campaign.

Today, January 23, 2013, the day after the elections, multitudes of workers wake up to the same harsh reality that propelled Israelis into the streets in Summer 2011. The Occupation goes on, and it will deepen the rift between Jews and Arabs. Harsh economic decrees are in store. The workers and the middle class will pay the full price, while the tycoons give “haircuts,” enjoying subsidies and tax breaks. This reality will motivate the public to seek a more fundamental change.

Daam views what it accomplished in this campaign as an investment for the long term. The first lesson from the painful disappointment is to build more branch offices, to bring in more members, to deepen our labor union activity, to open more jobs for Arab women, to organize more industrial workers, truck drivers, and teachers, and to intensify our hold in the working public and on the Arab street.

Daam was created to bring about the change that reality demands. We have come in order to change the discourse between Jews and Arabs, because without that there is no Left. We’ve come to unify workers from all sectors, because without unity it is impossible to achieve labor rights. We’ve come to change the present consciousness, because otherwise there cannot be a democratic and just society. We’ve come to fight against racism and the Occupation, because we demand peace as a condition for social justice. We’ve come with a historical vision and we won’t rest until it is reality. We and the future generations deserve another kind of society, based on equality. We haven’t compromised and we won’t. We call on all who understand the election results as we do to join our ranks and bring about essential change.

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Shany Littman

From Haaretz Weekend Supplement (Hebrew), January 5, 2013

2645. That’s the number of votes the Daam Party received in the previous elections. But since the outbreak of social unrest, the socialist Daam party has become a hot trend in Tel Aviv. Party leader Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka explains why poverty is no less an evil than the Occupation, why she wouldn’t have sailed on the Marmara, and why there is still hope in the Middle East.

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka is ecstatic. For the first time she sees clearly that the way to the Knesset in Jerusalem is shorter than ever. She is convinced that this time the Daam Workers Party, which she chairs, will cross the threshold, despite the fact that tens of thousands of votes stand between success and the 2645 votes received by the party in the 2009 elections. In an interview I conducted with her before the last elections four years ago, she seemed more introverted, more serious, working diligently yet without hope. But something has changed in four years, something that even she never envisioned would happen so quickly, although she had been waiting impatiently.

This change has filled her sails with a wind that she herself defines as “wild”. Today it’s hard to actually stop the flow of her words and enthusiasm, regardless of agreement or disagreement with her positions. It is impossible not to be impressed by her conviction. “In 2009,” she says, “we talked about social justice. It was our vision, but it wasn’t relevant to the public’s consciousness at the time, and this was also reflected at the polls. Yet the protest of Summer 2011 brought a change. As long as people here were not really suffering, they were not looking for solutions. But when the shock waves started in Europe and the Arab world, they arrived in Israel too. A lot of people got courage to speak out; each one’s private problem became a collective issue of social justice.

“When social ills became a political question, Daam became relevant, and for the first time we were there as a political party because we knew this was the place to build strength. Fundamental social, economic and political change requires a movement that wants it. As long as there was no movement, Daam was a fish out of water. But now it’s harvest time. In the summer of 2011 we narrowed the gap between reality and the prevailing political consciousness.”

You didn’t expect this?

“I didn’t know it would happen so fast. It’s very exciting. I’m glad to be part of it. I’m part of this and happy that I made the right investment in social justice. The role of the party that wants to lead this is to look ahead. I have a vision and it wasn’t clear to people—to talk about Jews and Arabs, about socialism, social justice. They thought I was dreaming, that all Arabs hate Jews and all Jews hate Arabs. And I know that’s not true. At a certain point, because reality is crushing you, because it empties your pockets and kills your children, you start to think. When Muhammad Boazizi set fire to himself, the flame burnt down all the barriers and walls after 40 years of deadly silence in the Arab world.

“40 years of Gaddafi, 40 years of the Assad family. For too many decades people were silent. Arabic poetry and literature deal with how this people amounts to zero. Nizar Qabbani has a poem that says, ‘We created the zero and remained zeros.’ We grew up on disappointment, on ‘Naksa’ [the ‘setback’ of the 1967 War], on defeat, on impotence. And suddenly a resurrected people demands to live. They do not want to die in violent resistance. They do not want to go to paradise. A new historical era has opened. It was natural that it would open on Rothschild as well.”

The Marmara was a mistake

There were moments when it seemed like things were going to turn into a catastrophe. On the one hand, Agbarieh-Zahalka describes feelings of elation as she walked through a crowd of demonstrators who marched in unison for a social cause. On the other hand, there were moments when bitter reality slapped her in the face. In June 2012 at Tel Aviv Museum Square, during a demonstration commemorating the first anniversary of the social protest, the rally organizers refused to allow Wafah Tayara, No. 4 on the Daam list, to mount the stage to speak, although this had been agreed upon in advance. Agbarieh-Zahalka experienced the refusal as a racist act that came from a completely unexpected place. Her outcry appears in a video clip circulated on the internet; it is a kind of spontaneous speech delivered not on stage but among the demonstrators. She recalls, “On the one hand, we have created a new group of people here, the people of the protest. That’s where I felt most at home. I felt I was in Tahrir Square. But when Wafah was prevented from speaking at the demonstration, I felt it was the end. All the time we’d been saying that Jews and Arabs could work together, and now she wasn’t allowed to speak. Then, when the video clip was shown, we were flooded with views and comments. Many people came as a result of the clip. It was the first time people had heard of us. That was the day that Daam was born in the eyes of the public, precisely because of the rejection.”

Agbarieh-Zahalka was born in Jaffa 39 years ago, the scion on her father’s side of a large family from Umm al-Fahm. During adolescence her religious faith grew and she joined the Islamic Movement. In 1995, while she was studying at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Humanities, the Daam party offered her a job as editor of the Arabic newspaper, “Al-Sabar.” When she got to meet the party activists, she was surprised to hear Jews speaking fluent Arabic; gradually she underwent a change, joining the party and eventually becoming its leader. In 2006 she was the only woman who headed a party for the Knesset. In 2009, she was joined in this respect by Tzipi Livni; in 2013, she stands beside Livni, Shelly Yachimovich and Zahava Galon, four women leading political parties. For Asma, however, this fact does not create solidarity or identification, just as she rejects any attempt to find similarities between herself and Hanin Zoabi, Balad MK.

“The Arab party Balad is nationalistic and bourgeois; it’s not a political party that espouses social justice. I do not compete with Hanin Zoabi. Hers is not the public I seek. I appeal to the 50% of the Arab population that is tired by the political options the Arab parties offer. Arab parties advocate a nationalist discourse, dealing only with the national question, neglecting the socioeconomic questions and the hardships suffered by the Arab public. Gaza and Tel Aviv amount to one issue. The political has to go along with the social. There is 50% poverty in the Arab street; 80% of women in the Arab sector don’t work. That is a catastrophe. Is this a people that can think about freeing Palestine? This is a people that must first free itself. And the point is not expressed by anyone.

“No political party does real work in the field, organizing the public and fighting against contracted jobs. I go to Knesset committee meetings and don’t see any Arab representatives there, even when the issues dealt with are of great concern to the Arab public, such as on-the-job safety. What is this concern for the Nakba [the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948] all day long? They forget that today in every house there is a Nakba. When a woman doesn’t have work; that’s a Nakba. A young man who works through a contractor and doesn’t get his rights is a Nakba. And without denying the importance of the Nakba, what about today’s Nakba? You have to change the reality of today; you can’t change past history.”

The fact that you and Zoabi are Arab women going against the current doesn’t seem to you like a thing that can bring your agendas closer together?

“It’s not enough to be a woman. Shelly Yachimovich is a woman too. So is Tzipi Livni. Being a woman is good, but it’s not enough. It is also not enough to be an Arab. Bashar al-Assad is an Arab too. I want to turn cultural diversity into a force, and Zoabi makes it into a wall separating people. I do not want people to vote for me because I am an Arab. That’s not the ticket I want. The question is, ‘what kind of Arab are you?’ I stand for class identity. I think that class identity is much more correct in places like Israel, which are saturated with different sectors and with an ingathering of exiles, including Arabs. What could connect and advance people, I think, is the daring to get out of sectarianism, to get out of the ghetto. And Zoabi is stuck in the ghetto, isolated and differentiating.

“Today, the issue that connects everyone is the issue of socioeconomic justice. It is the natural right of all people whoever they are. We are equal; together we can build a third way; the third way that the Arab Spring offered. Do not give in to the United States and Israel’s decrees against the Palestinians, but do not succumb either to the verbiage of the nationalist, fundamentalist opposition of which Zoabi is a part. I cannot call for death. The way of violent resistance, which Hamas walked in and which Hezbollah walks in, we see what that has led to today—to the massacre of the Syrian people. I can’t be part of it. I’ve never been a part of it, and for this reason I wasn’t relevant to the Arab public, because of this unpopular position. An Arab has to be democratic, to give people freedom of speech and the chance to work with dignity; if you do not do this, the fact that you’re an Arab doesn’t interest me.”

What do you think about Zoabi’s boarding the Marmara?

“I would not have boarded the Marmara. I do not think she’ll board the Marmara again. Beyond the issue of isolation and differentiation and representing yourself as ‘against’ and ‘anti,’ I think that to board the Marmara was to give Hamas power against Abu Mazen. I am not for Abu Mazen and not for Hamas; what I am for is that the Palestinian left should build a third way. Once you support one side against the other, the Palestinian rift deepens. And I do not think it’s in the interest of the Palestinian people to deepen the schism while it stands against Israel and against the Occupation. This strategy was wrong for Palestinians.”

Hanin Zoabi’s response: “I do not want to address these things. They are no different from the things said against me by the right and by the Zionist left. The only significant contribution of Ms. Asma Agbarieh is burning about 3000 votes in each election and it certainly does not help the Arab public and does not benefit the poor in general.”

Reality will win

You say that there is readiness to accept your ideas in relation to class consciousness, but what about racism on both sides? Do you think that today Jews or Arabs are ready to vote for an Arab-Jewish party?

“I probably will not be Prime Minister. Not all of the public will vote for me. As for the public that insists on racism—I’ll wait for them. I will continue to believe, just as I believed that the time of social justice would arrive, that understanding would ripen, so I believe that the time will come when people will outgrow racism. I also believe that some will follow racism to the end, to fascism. I’m not naive. But racism is a form of false consciousness in which you think you have privileges as a Jew in Israel, but actually you don’t. Today this country is a state of the rich, not a Jewish state. To whoever understands this and experiences it in his their pockets, in his their refrigerator, in the cost of living, in the their ability to make ends meet, to whoever has experienced it in everyday life, I suggest that they stop blaming his the situation on the Arab, but rather blame the policy that is made in their name as a Jew, and that they should simply change the diskette.

“I know that the whole country will not vote Daam. It also presents a challenge to the Jewish public to vote for an Arab woman, although we are an Arab-Jewish party, not just Arab, and it is a challenge to Arab society to vote for a party headed by a woman. Every day we have discussion groups all over the country. I’ve met with Russians and Mizrahis. In all these meetings I’ve found that our message is received like water on dry ground. People can’t get enough. It’s a golden opportunity, and I’m going with it to the Arab street, which has not budged, which did not take part in the protests. I tell them, look at how the Jewish community accepts us. Look how they accept an Arab woman who tells them to their face how to deal with the Occupation, with racism and the economics of privatization. They are shocked, because Arabs have long since stopped talking with Jews and Jews with Arabs.”

You really think you can make them think otherwise?

“It’s not me that will succeed. Reality will.”

At least wouldn’t it be better to change the name to something that didn’t sound like an Arab political party?

“Balad is Hebrew – the National Democratic Alliance. Hadash is a word in Hebrew. Did it help anyone? Most of their voters are Arabs. Daam started out in the Arab sector with the position that the Occupation must end. That was in the years when we did not experience the power of privatization and globalization. Two decades have passed since then and the reality in Israel has changed dramatically. Daam found that it also meets the needs of a growing segment of the Jewish public. We changed from a party on the nationalist side of the political map to a party on the socialist, class side. We have not changed the name and I think it is right because the Arab name is a type of connection, a link; it is a uniting factor. It connects with leftist movements in Arab countries, and it also reminds Israelis that there are Arabs who face a political issue and that there is an existential problem. The name is like a litmus test to the Jewish people who come and say, ‘I want to connect with the Arabs, to leave the ghetto, to connect with the Palestinians.’ The word is an acronym for the original name in Arabic, which means support and solidarity. Originally the name was ‘Organization for Democratic Action.’ The name is a challenge we do not want to conceal. We live in the Middle East.”

It seems that you have no separation between politics and your personal life.

Agbarieh-Zahalka laughs. “Yes, someone pays a price, my son Adam and my spouse Musa. But there’s nothing I can do about it. At the age of 22, I decided that I would not live well while people around me were sinking. I could have, but I chose not to. One cannot survive without the people around one. So I am drawn to this matter. My child will not grow up in a society that exploits its workers and destroys the people within it. That’s not why I brought him into the world. I accept the fact that I brought him into a world where I would prepare a normal environment for him to live in. I’m not doing it for me, but for him.

“There’s no political career here. Of course I am a mother who hugs her child. I do not feed him Marxism. I play with him in the playground. We even ate at McDonald’s. Right now it does not happen a lot, because of the elections, but Musa makes up for it. I see him three hours a day at best, and I tell him that Mom is going to talk to people who care about giving toys to all the children. He said he wants some too, and I promised him he would get them.”

– Translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Rosenstein

The post A new left arrives in Israel first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka is creating a new political discourse in Israel: revolutionary on one hand but non-radical on the other.

First published in Haaretz By Avner Cohen | Jan.06, 2013 | 5:22 PM

Something fascinating, innovative, authentic and hopeful is happening on the Israeli left and it has happened almost overnight. Though this something is still embryonic, a small bud not yet on the opinion poll radar, those following the left’s dire situation can’t miss it. For the first time since perhaps the death of Jewish-Arab communism of the 1950s, a new Israeli left has been born here, a left that carries hope and a new kind of vision.

This new left has a name and a voice and, to be precise, it’s the voice of an Arab woman. Her name is Asma Aghbarieh-Zahalka and she is the leader of the Da’am Workers’ Party. Da’am (Arabic for “solidarity”) is unique both for its joint Jewish-Arab slate of candidates and for a platform that isn’t sectarian or ethnically specific but integrates and embraces many diverse communities. These dual characteristics are something the old Israeli left lost ages ago.

Until a few weeks ago, the upcoming election lacked any spark of hope. Mostly, this stemmed from the expected victory of the right, which would give a democratic seal of approval to the transformation of Israel into a racist-fascist state, a benighted and bullying ghetto state fulminating against the world and ensuring its continued existence by the sword alone.

The election looked like a requiem for the little that was left of the Israeli enlightenment of the past. The insufferable political conduct of Labor Party chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich – for whom the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is insoluble and social justice stops at the separation fence – only increased the left’s despair. Even Meretz, the standard-bearer of the old Israeli Zionist left and a kind of default choice, looks pathetic in its weakness. Case in point: Hatnuah and its head, Tzipi Livni, for whom social justice means nothing but opportunism, are grabbing all the leftist votes that Yacimovich has lost by ignoring the diplomatic issues.

But then, at the beginning of December, I discovered Aghbarieh-Zahalka and the Da’am party via Facebook and YouTube. I found a new breed of Israeli leader. Aghbarieh-Zahalka was one of the authentic leaders of the 2011 social-justice protests and one of the few who understood that if a protest aims to be effective, it has to be political. Aghbarieh-Zahalka was also perhaps the first to understand that a mass social protest has to extricate itself from the binary pattern of the old Israeli political identities (Arabs vs. Jews, Ashkenazim vs. Mizrahim) since social justice must be built on what unites, not on what divides.

I discovered a courageous, intelligent and eloquent Israeli leader, unlike anyone else on the political stage today. Aghbarieh-Zahalka is creating a new political discourse: revolutionary on one hand but non-radical on the other (no, these are not contradictory). If the prevailing Israeli political discourse works in the spirit of divide and conquer, Da’am’s political discourse is built on the desire to connect and lead and the ability to empathize and be relevant to nearly every constituent of Israeli society.

In the darkness of contemporary Israel, Aghbarieh-Zahalka’s enlightened voice may be the last spark of Israeli hope. Those who are not prepared to stay sheltered in the Tel Aviv bubble and forgo the struggle for the country’s image, those who still believe in the possibility of a better, fairer and more just society, and those who believe in the possibility of Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation in our lifetime should vote for the candidate that best expresses the values of Israeli enlightenment: Agbarieh-Zahalka.

To those who say a vote for Da’am is a wasted vote (because of the risk the party won’t cross the electoral threshold), I say any ballot that is cast must reflect one’s political conscience. And if Aghbarieh-Zahalka and Da’am become better known in the short time left until the election, they will make it into the Knesset. The Knesset – and

Israel – needs leaders like them.

On average for the last 7 days, Avner Cohen’s article on Daam and its first candidate, Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka , has been the 4th most popular in the Haaretz English web edition. It is entitled, “In an Arab woman, a new hope for Israel’s left.” Here is the link

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One might think that these elections are meaningless. The results are ostensibly known in advance, like a repeat broadcast of a soccer match. There’s a feeling of defeatism in the air, and people relate to the rightwing as they might to the weather: one can talk about it, but it can’t be changed. It’s hard to believe that just a year and half ago, summer 2011, citizens occupied the streets, new ideas blossomed, politicians appeared despicable and defeated, and Tel Aviv’s youth burst out of their indifference and made their opinions known, without giving a damn for the opinions of the “adults” who had disappointed them so.

But appearances can be deceptive. Something new has been created in these elections, something vigorous, dynamic, youthful and energetic which bears the spirit of that summer of protest: Daam’s election campaign. This campaign began even then, during the social protests, in the Red Bloc that marched in the mass demonstrations. It was then that all those leading this wonderful campaign for change first met. It was a spontaneous coming together of slogans and people, Jews and Arabs, blue collar workers and white collar workers, who yelled a jumble of slogans in Hebrew and Arabic and thus stood out from the marching masses.

“The people demand social justice” – this slogan connected the protesters in Israel with the millions in Egypt and around the world, because they were sick of the destructive capitalism that had taken over their societies. The enthusiasm of Tel Aviv’s youth stemmed from their understanding that they were making history, that walls of separation were crumbling, that we were joining the rest of the world. The youth of Cairo were similar to the youth of Madrid, and in Tel Aviv the Zionist decree that “the people shall dwell alone” was shattered. Cairo built up faith in change, and Tel Aviv brought back hope.

A year passed, and when Dafni Leef tried to reignite the miracle of revolt, she came up against a well-prepared establishment ready to silence and buy off any murmur of protest. The press was no longer supportive and her comrades in arms looked less like young rebels and more like slick politicians. It seemed that all hope was lost, that the Tel Aviv Spring was no more than a prelude to a cold winter.

But the Red Bloc refused to roll up its flags. Just as in Egypt it was impossible to bring back Mubarak, the youth had come to understand their power, and the idea of dictatorship had been defeated, so too in Tel Aviv: the protest raised new awareness and new paths, and opened the way to a political sphere that had not yet formed into a new social force.

The elections as accelerator

Thus the current run-up to elections is accelerating an unavoidable process. Those who met during that hot revolutionary summer and marched spontaneously together found themselves facing a new challenge: how to express their desires, how to cope with the same corrupt system against which they had rebelled. In this way they discovered the enormous potential of the ideas behind the Red Bloc. Disappointment in the existing parties, both among Jews and Arabs, created a rare opportunity to think towards something new. The nationalist-isolationist slogans in the Arab street were revealed as hollow, unable to lift the Arab population out of its chronic poverty. On the Jewish side, suspicion gave way to association based on a very broad common denominator, expressed in the demand for one justice for all.

Unlike during the protest, this coming together is not taking place in the streets and public squares, but in the virtual space of social networks which also underlay the Arab revolutions and continue to play an important role in the struggle against Assad in Syria. This new sphere enables connections to be made that would have been impossible in the past. The Facebook page of the Daam Workers Party brings Russian, Arabic and Hebrew speakers together and offers a platform upon which Jews and Arabs can communicate. The messages are so clear and simple that they can be passed from language to language with a harmony so sorely lacking in the real world. This is living proof that Jews and Arabs, and workers of all backgrounds, can live and argue together and wage a joint struggle against the common enemy: the regime which abandoned its citizens for the sake of the wealthy.

Daam’s Facebook page has succeeded where the protest movement failed. It has managed to link the center to the periphery, intellectuals to industrial workers, teachers to truckers. Their willingness to associate themselves with Daam is not to be taken for granted. The mutual suspicion which divides Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, Russian speakers and Amharic speakers, has always prevented solidarity. But years of work and education, of joint struggle and the establishment of workers committees, whether successful or defeated, created a basic confidence in Daam and in its members who are active on the ground every day.

From virtual strength to electoral strength

Daam’s great challenge is to transform virtual strength to electoral strength. So far, we have managed to shift the protest onto the virtual plane and turn the party platform into texts, graphics and video clips which expose the party’s positions to thousands. We opened an arena for the exchange of views in various languages, and for lively, democratic political debate. A new force is taking shape and bursting into the public sphere, and the continuous joining of new members shows that this force is meeting a need which was created by the changing reality. The rush towards Daam is not merely a trend, but a movement based on growing social awareness, among both Jews and Arabs. As this campaign grows stronger, the creation of a representative force in the Knesset becomes increasingly feasible.

Daam has walked this path for many years. The ideas have remained the same ideas, but reality has changed and enabled these ideas to flourish. Revolutionary ideas thrive in a revolutionary movement, and such a movement is created when the existing system collapses and social consciousness rejects established norms. The basic view that the state belongs to its citizens cracked when the regime “married” capital and public resources were handed over as the dowry. As socioeconomic disparities gaped, revolutionary consciousness began to awaken. Thus workers come together regardless of nation, language or origin, to take back their right to determine their own fate. In the face of war they demand peace, in the face of racism they demand fraternity, in the face of exploitation they demand the right to earn a living in dignity, and in the face of inequality they demand social justice for all.

There is a sense that we face a historic moment. The atmosphere is electric, and the intensity of the election campaign reflects incessant change. The energies released in the summer of 2011 have doubled in strength, and the objective appears closer than ever. We stuck with the principle, we struggled for it for years and earned the confidence of the workers as we acted together against poverty and daily exploitation. We believe there are many thousands who want to preserve and develop the energies released that summer. In this election campaign, we are motivated by a revolutionary fervor which will bring us into the Knesset. We have set ourselves a target, and our public responsibility compels us to continue until this target is achieved. Because as the fascist right grows stronger, Israel is faced with a stark choice: the choice between change or ruin.

– Translated from the Hebrew by Yonatan Preminger

The post Riding the wave to the Knesset: The Daam campaign first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

As Israel goes to elections for the 19th Knesset in January 2013, two critical issues cry out for attention. The first is the political stalemate which will lead to a third intifada and a terrible confrontation with the Arab world. The second concerns the austerity program and drastic cuts to the national budget which will lead to unemployment, poverty and the collapse of public services.

On one side, the Palestinians refuse to accept the occupation. On the other, a growing swathe of the Israeli population opposes the rampant capitalism that has taken over the country. The popular protests that erupted in the summer of 2011 are evidence that change is possible. The Daam Workers Party was actively involved in the protests, and struggles daily for social change among Jewish and Arab workers.

Daam offers the Israeli public an agenda of revolutionary change around these two issues: an end to the occupation and the creation of a society based on equality and social justice. A solution to the Palestinian question and peace are preconditions for the creation of a just society in which a person’s ethnic background will not prevent her full participation in society.

I. The Palestinian question and the Arab world

1. Daam calls for an end to the occupation, the creation of an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, and the dismantling of the settlements.

The Oslo Accords thwarted the possibility of reaching a solution based on two states. A feasible peace agreement must include an end to the occupation, the dismantling of the settlements and the establishment of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. The economic crisis in the West Bank and the powerlessness of the Palestinian Authority (PA) will, sooner or later, lead to a third popular intifada targeted at the corrupt symbols of the PA. Israel will not be able to ensure political or economic stability without a real solution to the Palestinian question.

2. Daam supports the Arab Spring and the struggles of the Syrian people, and calls for peace with the future Syrian government based on an end to the occupation of the Golan Heights.

The democratic revolutions in the Arab world are key to changing Israel’s relations with its neighbors. The Arab Spring offers a message of democracy and social justice, and constitutes an opportunity for building healthy and equal relations between Israeli society and the Arab world surrounding it. Daam stands with the Syrian people in their struggle against Assad’s regime and adds its voice to the voices of the Syrians who call for an end to the dictatorship.

II. The economy

Daam is a socialist party which sees employment, not profit, as the natural right of every human being and the source of a flourishing economy and society. Daam is active in organizing workers in trade unions and in achieving collective agreements to ensure the full rights and job security of workers.

1. Privatization: Daam calls on the government to nationalize the public services and the industries that are being shut down.

2. Taxation: Daam calls for raising corporate taxes and reducing the taxation of workers.

3. National budget: Daam calls for increasing the national deficit to promote employment, welfare, education, housing and health; for abolishing the “Arrangements Law”; and for reducing the defense budget.

4. Cost of living: Daam calls for reintroducing price control on basic goods, for subsidizing public transport and for implementing the cost-of-living bonus agreement which was cancelled.

5. Employment: Daam is active in unionizing workers and in the struggle for collective agreements to cover all workers in the various branches of the economy, and calls for an end to employment via labor contractors.

6. Migrant labor and asylum seekers: Daam works to stop the employment of migrant laborers under terms limiting their basic freedoms, and supports the granting of asylum for refugees. Daam calls for regulating the employment of migrant laborers, refugees and Palestinians from the occupied territories, by unionizing these workers and employing them in keeping with Israeli labor law. Daam opposes the detention and deportation of migrant laborers and refugees, and the violation of their rights.

III. Gender discrimination

Full equality between the sexes: Daam works for the advancement of women in all fields of life, including politics, economics, culture and society. The advancement of women requires developed social services and the reduction of poverty, which disproportionately affects women. Daam woman activists are a dominant force in the party leadership, and stand at the forefront of the struggle for social and political change.

1. Women at work: The Workers Advice Center (WAC), which is a trade union affiliated with Daam, struggles for equal opportunities for women at work. It demands augmented enforcement of legislation

The post Daam Workers Party: Election platform for the 19th Knesset, 2013 (abridged) first appeared on Da'am Party: One state - Green Economy.

“Anyone but Bibi!” we cry in panic. But what are we really supporting when we cling to tactical voting?

In sacrificing long-term vision in order to block “the worst of the worst,”Israel’s leftwing is perpetuating the status quo. Our reluctance to support parties which are unlikely to pass the “threshold percentage” plays into the hands of the large parties who have amply demonstrated their inability to bring about peace and equality.

As elections approach, this article examines the myth of the wasted vote, and asserts that real change requires that we vote according to principle. This means supporting those who struggle for an alternative to exclusive nationalism and unbridled capitalism – no matter how small their party appears to be.

Why vote at all?

The Knesset is rife with corruption. Access to Knesset members is not equal to all citizens. Through its laws and norms, the Knesset is designed to maintain the privileged status of one group of people over all others. It is certainly not a perfect political structure. However, it is the only democratic frameworkIsraelhas, and those seeking change cannot afford to ignore it. Furthermore, it is sufficiently open and flexible to allow real change – if only enough people were to want it.

But real change comes slowly. It requires incremental transformations of political and cultural norms. It requires the patient development of an alternative, with its own values and norms, to extend an invitation to those who wish to take part in creating a different society. It requires the sure-footed establishment of principles that challenge the status quo. Real change will not come through tactical voting for the “best of a bad bunch.”

For forty-five years the occupation has been going strong. Despite protests against it ranging from the benign to the violent, despite various negligible victories – a detainee released here, a patient granted treatment in an Israeli hospital there, a family permitted to harvest their olives in a “closed military zone,” the separation wall moved by a few dozen meters – the general direction of Israel’s settlement project in the territories has not changed. And it has led to continued land expropriation, continued violation of human rights, continued denial of basic amenities, continued arrests and detention without trial, continued killing.

The occupation isIsrael’s most pressing issue, yet it cannot be disconnected from a range of other issues which cry out for attention: Increasing socioeconomic disparities. Indirect subsidies for the wealthy. The retrenchment of welfare services. The reduction of universal education. The violation of the rights of migrant workers and refugees. Discrimination againstIsrael’s Palestinian citizens. The list is long.

The three main parties are all partners in the settlement project. Most of the smaller parties have sat in government coalitions which did nothing to halt the occupation. The vast majority ofIsrael’s prominent politicians are implicated in this project. Moreover, all three major parties accept the economic structure of capitalism, despite populist declarations of support for the social protest movement: the parties’ records speak for themselves. Politicians switch parties according to narrow political considerations, regardless of agenda or principles. The former leader of the Labor Party is one ofIsrael’s richest citizens.

The status quo inIsraelrests on two sturdy pillars: capitalism and the “inalienable” right of one group of people to claim most-favored status above all others. From the point of view of those seeking real change, a wasted vote is a vote for a party which accepts either one, or both, of these two pillars. Voting for a party which rejects the twin pillars of Israeli society and works to build an alternative society is therefore not a waste of a vote: it is a principled vote that rejects political “quick fixes” and expresses confidence in this alternative, no matter how long the road.

 Why vote Da’am Workers Party?

The Da’am Workers Party offers such an alternative. Since it was registered as a political party in 1995, it has maintained a consistent agenda based on clear principles of democracy and equality. It is analytical, critical and self-aware. It rejects a dichotomous worldview of Jews on one side and Arabs on the other, and strives towards creating an open society in partnership with all those who wish to take part.

The DWP is not merely a vehicle for career politicians. Whether elections are approaching or not, members of the DWP work every day to realize the vision that drives the party and inspires the various organizations which share the party’s aspirations. These are not empty words: this vision is manifested in the activities of the various organizations; it is reflected in the party’s press releases, articles and the affiliated Challenge magazine, published in three languages; it can be seen in the lives of its members and the way they choose to act politically and socially.

We warn against the temptation to vote for one large party merely to prevent the victory of another: Those who vote for the “lesser evil” must not be surprised when evil continues to exist. Moreover, we reject calls for casting blank ballots. This is a legitimate form of protest against rigged elections or when none of the parties represents the voter’s worldview, but amounts to a wasted vote when there is a party whose principles you share.

We live in times of the unexpected: who could have foreseen the Arab Spring? Who predicted the social protest movement? In elections too, the unexpected can happen. In voting for the DWP, you are expressing confidence in an alternative, and helping others to remain firm in their desire for an alternative. Your vote is a voice of support that assists us in our daily work. We need to know that you are with us, with all those who come together to realize our shared vision.

The Knesset is an important channel, but there are others. With the support of your vote, the DWP will continue to act through every available channel to create anIsraelof cooperation, equality, peace and true democracy.

*Jonathan Preminger is PhD Candidate, Sociology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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