The Left's problem is its inability to understand that people who fight for an objective seriously believe it's worth fighting, killing and dying for.

While researching a paper on “Jewish labor”—the movement to employ Jews in the economy of the pre-State yishuv, now proposed by some as a way to combat the Palestinian erosion of the Zionist enterprise—I read the history of the “Jewish labor” phenomenon published (in Hebrew) thirty years ago by Prof. Anita Shapira of Hebrew University  This book gave me a sudden insight into the post-Zionist mind.
When people have a conflict, it’s because some objective is very important to them. Even when they negotiate, they apply sanctions—“pressure and power”—to make the other side accede to their interests.

This blog is not really about “Jewish Labor” but it’s worth investing a minute to understand the problem, which hasn’t changed in eighty years.  Back in the 1930s urban factory workers were expected to have finished eighth grade or to have a skill, and there was no problem keeping those jobs in Jewish hands.  The problem arose with simple, unskilled, hard physical jobs like fruit-picking or spadework:  Jews didn’t want to do them, and in any case Arabs would do them for less. 

Nonetheless, for some unskilled Jewish workers in the 1920s and early 1930s, agricultural jobs—and an above-market wage for them—were very important.  The interests of Jewish fruit farmers, many of whom were barely breaking even, conflicted with Jewish workers who wanted jobs in the orchards reserved for them.  Sometimes the conflict wasn’t pretty:  Jewish workers would drive Arabs out of the orchards.  The rest of the Yishuv, led by the socialist Labor party, castigated the farmers for pursuing their private interests at the expense of Zionism.  In the end the principle of Jewish labor became accepted throughout the pre-state Yishuv.

Now here is what Prof. Shapira has to say in conclusion: 

"Most of the workers’ movement in the first half of the 1930s did not understand the meaning of a genuine compromise [emphasis added].  For its part, compromise had to be at least a partial victory, the result of pressure and power, and not of discussion [emphasis added]. [Futile Victory, “Conclusion,” p. 349]."

I had to read this twice before I understood it.  When people have a conflict, it’s because some objective is very important to them.  Even when they negotiate, they apply sanctions—“pressure and power”—to make the other side accede to their interests.  The final disposition of the conflict depends on the balance of power between the two sides, and on how important to them their respective objectives were in the first place.  To the degree that each side succeeds in partially realizing its objectives, it will consider that a partial victory.  That was the point of the exercise all along.

But Shapira appears not to be able to accept this simple fact of life.  She is distressed by the very notion of a conflict of interests turning into a conflict in fact.  She is convinced there ought to be a better, nobler way.  Her term for it is hidabrut, discussion.  This is exactly the same term Israeli leftists use when asked for their solution to, say, the genocidal Hamas regime in Gaza.  We ought to sit down and discuss things with them:  “OK, you want us dead.  We wouldn’t like to be dead.  Can’t we come to a meeting of minds?”

The Left refuses to acknowledge the existence of a world in which fighting and killing us is a genuine, clearly articulated objective that other people think it worth sacrificing their lives to achieve.  A world in which hidabrut is futile because it means asking people to give up on what they consider the most important objective in the world, the one that gives their lives meaning.  A world in which it is possible that there is no compromise resolution to our conflict with the
According to the Leftist perspective, this entire point of view is illegitimate. Force applied in the pursuit of an objective is morally wrong, no matter what the objective of the other side is.
 Palestinians because the Palestinians really, truly don't want one.  In which case our wanting one is completely beside the point.  This may indeed be a tragedy, but that doesn’t make it an avoidable one.

According to the Leftist perspective, this entire point of view is illegitimate.  Conflicts aren’t real.  They shouldn’t be expected to govern people’s behavior.  Force applied in the pursuit of an objective is morally wrong, no matter what the objective of the other side is.  The real way to treat any conflict is through hidabrut, a meeting of minds.  People who refuse to accept this are mindless warmongers, and in the wrong by definition. 

Somehow an essential aspect of human relations seems to have escaped Prof. Shapira’s notice.  Her analysis of conflict is Utopian, and seems based upon willful ignorance of an essential aspect of human nature.  Call it voodoo history:  a happy ending will spring into being, detached from anyone’s real interests or determination to realize them.  I doubt she pursues such an attitude in her daily life.  Applied to international relations, this approach is crippling, deadly.  Alas, it also explains a lot about Israeli culture and Israeli foreign policy.

We had two years to prepare an alternative political and ethical leadership for Israel, and we haven't done it.

Behind his portly frame and seemingly unsophisticated exterior, Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer, Minister of Infrastructure and Ehud Barak’s closest political ally, possesses one of Israel’s most cunning political minds.  Fuad has been a diehard opponent of new elections:  As of now, Labor looks like shedding a quarter of its seats in the Knesset, and if that happens the Labor party will hand Barak his head.  Yesterday Fuad told a meeting of the Labor Party faithful, “make no mistake—we’re heading for elections.”
Something happened in the summer of 2006: The Israeli public lost its faith in the political and cultural shibboleths it has followed since Yitzhak Rabin was elected in 1992.

If even Fuad believes it’s elections, then it’s elections.  Time to look beyond Olmert, beyond Kadima.  I cannot do so without a strong sense of disappointment at lost opportunities.  It’s not just Olmert who’s wasted two precious years of Israel’s time but ourselves as well, the author of this blog and all who share concern for a Jewish Israel.  Israel is going to the polls, but with no real choices other than the discounted ones of yesteryear.

Something happened in the summer of 2006:  The Israeli public lost its faith in the political and cultural shibboleths it has followed since Yitzhak Rabin was elected in 1992.  People want peace but no longer believe in it.  They oppose territorial withdrawals and think they’re bad news, with or without a piece of paper saying “treaty” on it.  They have lost faith in all their public institutions:  Government, politicians, courts, army, even the media, whom they despise even as they consume them compulsively.  Deep beneath the surface is rising concern about the fate of the Jewish state.

The governing culture, whose various representatives are the chief candidates in the forthcoming elections, is losing its self-confidence.  It is still strong, still able to defend its position, but it is in decline.
This would be an opportune time for an alternative political leadership to present itself to the public with an alternative public agenda and an alternative cultural and ethical narrative to justify it.

At the same time, the public declares that it feels more Jewish and more “right wing.”  It is hard to determine exactly what these terms mean to those who use them.  But as is often the case with social trends, the process is clearer than the particular point we have reached in it at the present or any other time.

This would be an opportune time for an alternative political leadership to present itself to the public with an alternative public agenda and, more important, an alternative cultural and ethical narrative to justify it.  It’s no secret what these are:

1. We need to preserve the Jewish state, because it’s under mortal threat from enemies without and within.
2. To do that, we need first and foremost to be convinced of the justice of a Jewish state and of the policies needed to promote its welfare.  That means we need to take traditional Jewish values seriously and make them the foundation of our public policy.
3. We need new policies in specific areas:  A much more decisive foreign and military policy; large new incentives to encourage Palestinian emigration; new legal and media institutions; and a more open, competitive educational system which, without forcing anything on anyone, facilitates (=funds) access for all to the traditional Jewish values on which Israeli society must now be reconstructed.
We aren’t ready. We haven’t put forth the leaders and we haven’t put together the message. But we could, if we put our minds and our effort to it.

An alternative political leadership broadcasting this message in a way accessible to the entire Israeli public would cast a giant shadow over Israeli society.  It would set the agenda of this election campaign.  It wouldn’t necessarily win this time, but it would set the terms of debate.  And having once done so, its eventual victory, in the next elections or the ones after that, would be assured.

Unfortunately, it isn’t about to happen.  We aren’t ready.  We haven’t put forth the leaders and we haven’t put together the message.  But we could, if we put our minds and our effort to it.  I think I know something of what we should be doing and, G-d willing, will write about more in the weeks ahead.

Olmert is being thrown out of office by the same people who looked the other way when Sharon was Prime Minister

It’s pretty well accepted in Israel’s political scene that Olmert is finished.  By Israeli law civil servants, including elected ones, may not receive gifts.  Taking bribes is a felony carrying a 7-year sentence and by past Israeli caselaw, one doesn’t need to prove that the target of bribery actually did something for his money.  It’s enough to establish that the money was given and received with the understanding that a quid-pro-quo would one day be expected..
In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement. Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy?

The police and state prosecution have been devoting a lot of effort to Olmert’s case since November last year, when the State Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, seized computer files from the Ministry of Trade, where Olmert served as minister in 2005.  By law, material in the State Comptroller’s hands cannot be used as evidence in a trial, so the Comptroller returned the materials to the ministry and told the State Prosecutor, Moshe Lador, “go have a look.”  Lador and the Attorney General, Menahem Mazuz authorized the police to take out a warrant for Olmert’s files from the Ministry.  The rest is history.

The real question is, why is Olmert being treated differently from Ariel Sharon? 

This question has aroused a lot of conspiracy theories.  In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement.  Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy?  Surely there must be some deep reason why “they” want Olmert out and so have given “instructions” to topple him.

I think the conspiracy theory is subtly off the mark.  A ruling elite cannot function without morale.  At its height, this morale is expressed in the belief that what’s good for the elite is what’s good for society.  Fifty years ago Communist parties used to believe this.  Anything that increased their power was good for “the revolution,” and that justified everything.
The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts. The elites have betrayed their values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace. Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.

Many years before Communism collapsed for good, doubt set in.  Good Communists did not doubt the goal of Communism, but they began to doubt that the Communist Party actually served that goal.  For many middle-level Communist bureaucrats (such as a young district Communist leader named Mikhail Gorbachev), it became important that the party actually act in accordance with principle, even when doing so led to the weakening of its own political position.  Before long, it became evident that doing good implied the opposite of shoring up Communist rule.  At that point Communist parties began to tear themselves apart, riven by conflict between those who were motivated by the good of the party and those motivated by the good of society.  Communism fell, to be replaced by something completely different.

Something like that is starting to happen in Israel today.  In Israel, the ruling ideology is not Communism but peace and post-Zionism.  The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts.  Disengagement has gone badly wrong, as its opponents predicted.  The public no longer believes in peace.  For that matter, it no longer believes in the elites, in Israeli political institutions, in the elite’s views of democracy and the rule of law, because the elites have betrayed those values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace.  Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.
As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost.

The business of Olmert, Sharon and Attorney General Menahem Mazuz is a case in point.  Mazuz was appointed to his job in 2004 to get Ariel Sharon off the hook.  He delivered the goods, refusing to indict Sharon in two corruption cases that seemed open-and-shut (in one case, Sharon’s son was convicted and now doing time, based on evidence that should have put Sharon pere behind bars as well).  In the last two years, other decisions of Mazuz—first to prepare a severe indictment against former President Katzav and then be forced to accept a plea-bargain with him, then to indict Haim Ramon, only to have a court declare there was no moral turpitude in Ramon’s kissing a young officer stationed in the Prime Minister’s office—have contributed to a precipitious decline in the legal system’s reputation.  Today, Mazuz has no choice but to indict Olmert if the evidence warrants it.  The entire legal system expects him to.  If it fails to deliver on Olmert, it will have lost its raison d’etre in its own eyes.
 
Which is the point.  Today, Israel’s ruling elite can only justify its existence by harming its ideological goals and its grip on power.  As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost.  It is in fact on skids.  Its greatest good fortune is that there is not yet any effective, incisive faith-based alternative to challenge it for control of public opinion and public policy.  And that’s our fault.

Peace negotiations that lead to peace are wonderful.  Peace negotiations that are likely to fail deserve a different adjective.

One of the striking things about Olmert’s new negotiations with Syria is that very few people are coming out and saying that the talks are a bad idea.
Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to tell the Israeli public that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers.

Ehud Barak, who probably has been kept a little bit more in the know by Olmert than most of us (and, in the last month, than Tzipi Livni) spoke about how he’s always favored negotiation.  We just have to be careful about Syria and understand that nothing can be accomplished (assuming any treaty will be an accomplishment) quickly.

That seems to be the pattern.  MK Michael Eitan of the Likud says on A7 today that “negotiating with Syria is like negotiating with Iran”—which one presumes means it’s a futile or dangerous idea—but says he’s in favor of negotiations.  Netanyahu is in no position to say he’s against negotiations, he negotiated when he was prime minister.  Various other people in different parts of the political spectrum have said similar things.

Even politicians on the right are not saying outright that the negotiations are a mistake, though they may believe it, because you cannot tell the Israeli public that the prospect of peace with Syria is a mistake.  Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to tell the Israeli public that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers.  That’s a regrettable weakness but politicians spend their lives accommodating their constituents’ regrettable weaknesses.
I think the negotiations are a dumb idea. Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war.

The difference between Syria on the one hand and Hamas and the Arabs in Judaea and Samaria on the other hand is that the latter two are already doing us all the damage they can muster.  No matter what we do in a military way, things won’t get substantially worse.  Syria and Hizbullah could in principle do us a lot more damage than they’re doing now, and people are afraid of that. 

For the record (just scroll down a bit), I think the negotiations are a dumb idea.  Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war.  But even I haven’t said we can just decide to back out once we’ve begun, because that implies the relations between Israel and Syria are fast deteriorating toward war, and war is to be feared.  Winding down these negotiations without damage will take time, patience and finesse to ensure that missiles don’t start raining down on Tel Aviv soon after they end.  If they do start raining down on Tel Aviv we’ll have to go after the people firing ‘em, and that will be no fun at all.

In fact, I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking.  Not negotiating also means not forcing a confrontation once negotiations break down, as they almost inevitably will.  If you can’t solve a conflict, the next best policy is benign neglect. 
I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking.

For Syria as well as Israel, open war would be an unmitigated disaster.  They say Assad has been under enormous pressure from the Americans, because they boycott hum and because they press the international enquirey into the murder of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri; that he wants negotiations, not peace but simply negotiations, to get American pressure of him.  If so he’s not a lot more farsighted than Olmert.  The ante in this poker game is liable to be a lot higher than he anticipated.

Ehud Olmert has just done immense damage to the State of Israel—damage that dwarfs anything he might have done at Annapolis,

indeed anything he has done in his checkered public career.  In the wild hope of saving himself from an indictment that now seems almost certain, he has involved Israel in a negotiation process, all of whose outcomes can only be bad for the country.
In the wild hope of saving himself from an indictment, Olmert has involved Israel in a negotiation process, all of whose outcomes can only be bad for the country.

Syria’s foreign minister has announced that Olmert committed Israel to retreat to the line of June 4, 1967 as a precondition of talks, while not insisting on any Syrian precommitments, such as leaving the Iranian orbit and abandoning terror (Olmert’s office has issued a denial).  These are the kind of terms usually offered by a country that has suffered a grave military defeat.  Though Israel’s performance in the Lebanon War was disappointing, it certainly did not suffer a defeat that could justify such capitulation, nor could Syria inflict that kind of defeat now.  The terms are entirely a product of Olmert’s personal situation and personal desperation. 

It is not Olmert who will have to pay the price for them, though.  He faces a couple of years in jail at most.  The price may be paid, G-d forbid, by young men.  And their families.  And Israel’s civilians, huddled under bombardment in inadequate shelters.  If Israel accepts the terms, war will come closer.  The entire history of diplomacy suggests that if Israel rejects the terms and the negotiations fail, war is the most likely consequence.
If Israel accepts the terms, war will come closer. The entire history of diplomacy suggests that if Israel rejects the terms and the negotiations fail, war is the most likely consequence.

Most Israelis and most Israeli politicians appear to appreciate how reckless Olmert’s move is.  Even MK Shelli Yehimovich, from the left wing of the Labor party, said that Olmert is simply playing upon the cupidity of peace activists in hopes of staying out of jail.  One junior Kadima minister has also come out against the move.  Significantly, Israel radio at 2 pm Israel time reported “a senior government official” as saying that in a meeting attended by Bush, Condi Rice and Tzipi Livni last week, Bush said he thought it most unlikely Bashar Assad could bring about the changes in Syrian foreign policy he would have to make in order to conclude a genuine peace.  No points for guessing the identity of the “senior government official,” hiding behind anonymity, as is her wont, rather than taking responsibility for her positions.

Oh yes, and Eli Yishai of Shas—someone else who never puts his vote where his mouth is—also came out against.

In starting negotiations under these conditions, Olmert has brought war nearer.  He won’t save himself, but neither will the negotiations simply go away when he does.  As Shahar Ilan writes in Ha’aretz today, “an MK who opposes a peace treaty with Syria before it is signed won’t necessarily oppose it after it is signed. . . . And when one recalls that Netanyahu also negotiated over the Golan, it is far from clear that Ehud Olmert has to be prime minister for the negotiations to be concluded.  Another prime minister from Kadima can give back the Golan.  Even Netanyahu.”

Ironically, in his attempt to save himself from prosecution, Olmert may have handed his hated arch-rival within Kadima, Tzipi Livni, the key to keeping her own government in business when she replaces him at the helm.
The calculus of negotiation may have nothing to do with real peace. The Israeli public may feel that by agreeing to sacrifice the Golan it can buy a better chance for a longer period of shadowy no-war-no-peace. The term for that attitude is appeasement.

I fear that the calculus of negotiation may have nothing to do with the prospects of real peace or a “new middle east.”  Rather, it may come down to what I mentioned above—all choices are bad, but the Israeli public may feel that by agreeing to sacrifice the Golan it can buy a better chance for a longer period of shadowy no-war-no-peace.  The term for that attitude is appeasement.

The next government, assuming it’s around the corner, will have to deal with the fact of negotiations.  It can’t simply send the Syrians a card saying “we thought better of it, sorry.”  If the negotiations are to be abandoned, it will have to be over real issues.

Two such issues are practical, foreign policy ones.  First of all, the public must be made to consider what it would be like to fight a war without any of the Golan—neither a warning station on the Hermon, nor a viable defense line anywhere on the heights.  Second, it must appreciate that it costs Syria nothing to get back the Golan in exchange for a piece of paper it can tear up whenever it’s ready for war.  Israel must insist Syria go the whole route before a peace treaty of any sort can be signed:  Kick out Palestinian terrorists, stop acting as a conduit for Iranian weapons to Hizbullah and Iranian-trained terrorists to Iraq, let Lebanon become a democracy, open its economy and society to Western, especially American, influence.  Unless Syria changes its identity, a peace treaty with Syria will be meaningless.  I agree with Bush, I don’t think Assad can or wants to do it.

The most important issue, however, is the most difficult to sell to the public, and it’s precisely because this is true that it’s the most important issue:  Appeasement is a sign of moral collapse.  The likelihood of war is determined only secondarily by borders, deployments, and ancillary conditions.  Fundamentally, nothing makes war more likely than the perception of a tyrant that his opponent’s moral will to resist has crumbled.  Unlike Olmert, Israel cannot afford to be tired of winning, because the alternative is defeat.