Urgent: To build a Jewish-Arab leftwing alternative!

Yachimovich reaped the benefits of the protest. She was elected to head the Labor Party, but her program is devoid of any reference to the issue of peace. She even outdid herself when she announced her intention of getting settlers and the liberal religious public to join her party. The result was media celebrity Yair Lapid’s declaration that he would establish a new party, also in the spirit of the social protest – but Lapid also announced that he would confront the religious public which does not serve in the army.

These political developments, especially the refusal of all sides – the social protest leaders, the Labor Party, and Yair Lapid – to face fundamental issues such as war and peace, the occupation, and discrimination against Arab citizens, merely increased the government’s confidence that it has no real opposition. This was reflected in a wave of racist laws, strongly opposed by a loud but very small minority.

The decline of democracy and the Supreme Court’s power came to a symbolic peak with the High Court decision, passed by a narrow majority, to allow the Citizenship Law and reject the petition submitted by Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel) and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. This law, which effectively denies Israeli citizenship for residents of the occupied territories married to Israeli citizens, is exclusively directed at Israel’s Arab citizens. Israel thus retreats from the principle of equality before the law. This precedent merely supports Arab citizens’ claims that the state discriminates against them in every one of its branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

The latest division in the Labor Party, after Defense Minister Ehud Barak left and established the Independence Party in order to remain in the government coalition; the split taking shape in Kadima between the two contestants for leadership, Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz; and the decline of Meretz’s popularity – all these developments indicate a large political vacuum and the lack of a real opposition to the right-wing and racist line that is currently dominant in Israel.

The truth must be voiced: the government of Israel, with its rejection of peace, enjoys a broad Zionist consensus. It has no real opposition, and Netanyahu remains the most popular candidate in the coming elections.

Feeling this solid support, Netanyahu is working to create an atmosphere which will ease his reelection, and like the leader of any fascist movement, he appeases the middle classes while rejecting peace and continuing the settlement of the occupied territories. However, his efforts to placate the middle classes are superficial. He decides to implement an ancient law which was never put into practice regarding free schooling for children aged three years and up, yet the funding for this move comes not from the defense budget but from across-the-board cuts to all ministry budgets. He also decides to grant tax relief to the middle classes, and he may yet decide to do something to reduce housing costs.

Thus the problems of the working class, especially those working in poverty, remain unsolved, with no union representation, rock-bottom wages which don’t meet rising costs of living, and declining education, health and social services.

These mounting needs. In addition to the conditions suffered by the Palestinians, especially those in the occupied territories, will cause an explosion sooner or later. The Arab Spring and Arab public opinion are creating increased hostility to the occupation, settlement and oppression. There is no way of avoiding the fact that eventually the Palestinian people will demand what all Arab peoples are demanding – freedom, democracy and social justice.

The Da’am Workers Party takes the initiative

Despite the demise of the social protest movement, the fundamental problems that led to its growth have not disappeared or been solved. On the contrary, the lack of a strong political opposition enables the government to continue its economic policies which harm the working class and middle class in particular.

Da’am – the Workers’ Party – supported the social protest and took part in most of its activities, while calling for political clarity on one hand and support for workers’ organizations on the other. The positive atmosphere and willingness to listen which characterized the protest enabled us to cooperate with many organizations as well as universities and other academic institutes in order to explain our position to thousands of young people.

The protest did not create a new framework capable of cutting the connections to the Zionist consensus. Neither did it adopt the Arab Spring, in particular its secular and democratic aspects, perceiving within it a potential for a new socialist discourse in the Middle East. If such a framework had formed, Da’am would have joined

Print Friendly