DOCSLIB.ORG

Journalist Switches from Livni to Meretz

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Journalist Switches from Livni to Meretz Journalist Switches from Livni to Meretz Larry Derfner writes this about himself: “Politically, I would describe myself as an ultra-liberal Zionist; as journalist Bradley Burston put it, I’m ‘probably as far left as a centrist can be’.” His once impressive career as a journalist has largely been derailed by his outspoken views, plus the recent contraction in print journalism. Derfner has changed his mind from supporting Tzipi Livni’s new HaTenuah party to Meretz, because he sees Meretz as uniquely courageous in pressing for peace. This endorsement is welcome news, and I agree that the failure to advance a peace process in the current situation is Israel’s fault; Netanyahu’s government clearly prefers expanding settlements to negotiating peace. But I see his larger assertion, laying the entire blame for the conflict with the Palestinians at Israel’s feet, as unnecessarily combative and not entirely accurate. Despite Palestinian frustrations and disappointments with the political decisions and negotiating strategy of Ehud Barak in 1999 and 2000, nobody forced the Palestinians to launch their counterproductive Second Intifada. (Mahmoud Abbas has candidly admitted that this return to violence was catastrophic for his people; Suha Arafat has just been quoted confessing her husband’s decision to begin the Intifada.) Although the unilateral nature of Ariel Sharon’s “Disengagement” policy set the stage for the rise of Hamas in Gaza, nobody forced a 44% plurality of Palestinian voters to support Hamas in the election of 2006. And although one can legitimately find fault with the extent of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, nobody forced Palestinian fighters to attack Israeli towns repeatedly from that quarter since those events. Moreover, the Israeli electorate would be more forthcoming if consistently encouraged by Abbas and his moderate support base in the Palestinian Authority of their peaceful intent. (This report in Haaretz is eye-opening, revealing impressive poll data showing that “most Likud-Beiteinu and the further-right Habayit Hayehudi voters would support a peace agreement establishing a demilitarized Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Israel’s retention of major settlement blocs and a division of Jerusalem.”) Abbas has been clear about endorsing a negotiated two-state solution with Israel, but does not embrace the obvious formula of “two states for two peoples.” And as peace activist Gershon Baskin pointed out in his Jerusalem Post column, his speech at the UN in November could have been much more conciliatory. The following is an abbreviated version of Derfner’s post at the +972 website: Meretz’s peace plan: A challenge to liberal timidity The party’s new proposal effectively says the unsayable: that on the occupation, Israel is wrong and the Arabs are right. There are so many people out there, in Israel and overseas, who know that this country has gone wrong and that Netanyahu and the right are leading it to hell. Yet they end up giving their tacit support to the worsening status quo because they don’t have the courage to follow their thoughts to their logical conclusion: that Israel is at fault for the occupation, and that the occupation is at fault for the conflict with the Palestinians. Not Israel and the Palestinians both – Israel alone. Not Netanyahu and Abbas both, if we’re talking about right now – just Netanyahu. … And that’s what makes the Meretz peace plan, which the party presented in its election campaign this week, an oasis in the desert. … It calls for Israel’s immediate recognition of Palestine, followed by a settlement freeze, release of prisoners, lifting of roadblacks, and negotiations based on the Arab peace plan with the sponsorship of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey…. It also calls for scrapping the Oslo Accord…. A couple of weeks ago I wrote, somewhat warily, in favor of voting for Hatnuah on practical grounds…. Since then, Livni appears much more clearly to want into Netanyahu’s next government, while Meretz has now offered an extremely valuable example of how the Israeli opposition should act – boldly. So I’ve changed my mind, and am now, without qualifications, in favor of voting for Meretz. Again, here’s a link to Derfner’s entire article at the +972 online magazine. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Lost Decade of the Israeli Peace Camp
    The Lost Decade of the Israeli Peace Camp By Ksenia Svetlova Now that Israeli annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a commonplace notion, it seems almost impossible that just twelve years ago, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were making significant progress in the US-sponsored bilateral peace negotiations. Since then, the stalemate in the talks has become the new normal, under three consecutive governments headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas and his government, have been cast as “diplomatic terrorists” for asking the international community for help. The Israeli peace camp has been subjected to a vicious smear campaign that has shaken its self-esteem and ruined its chances of winning over the public. This systematic smearing of Israeli and Palestinian two-staters has paid off. In the April 2019 elections, Israel’s progressive Meretz party teetered on the edge of the electoral barrier while Labor, once the ruling party, gained only six mandates (5% of the votes). The centrist Blue and White, a party led by ex-army chief Benny Gantz, carefully avoided any mention of loaded terms such as “the two-state solution” or “evacuation of settlements”, only calling vaguely to “advance peace” – as part of Israel’s new political vocabulary, which no longer includes “occupation” or even “the West Bank”. Despite offering no clear alternative to the peace option it managed to successfully derail, the Israeli right under Netanyahu has been in power for over a decade in a row, since 2009. Israel’s left-wing parties are fighting to survive; the Palestinians are continuing their fruitless efforts to engage the international community; and the horrid reality of a single state, in which different groups have different political and civil rights, seems just around the corner.
    [Show full text]
  • How Palestinians Can Burst Israel's Political Bubble
    Al-Shabaka Policy Brief Policy Al-Shabaka March 2018 WHEN LEFT IS RIGHT: HOW PALESTINIANS CAN BURST ISRAEL’S POLITICAL BUBBLE By Amjad Iraqi Overview the allies holding up his fragile rule, from the ultra- orthodox Jewish parties to his personal rivals within Although no indictments have been issued yet, Israelis Likud. “King Bibi,” however, survived them all. A are speculating whether the latest developments in skilled politician, he has been adept at managing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption Israel’s notoriously volatile coalition system, and [email protected] scandals finally mark the beginning of his political has remained in power with three consecutive demise. The second-longest serving prime minister governments over nine years – each more right wing after David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu has had a than the last.2 profound impact on Israel’s political scene since the 1990s. It is therefore troubling, especially to Netanyahu directly influenced the country’s media Palestinians, that if these corruption cases are the landscape by shaping the editorial stance of Israel harbinger of Netanyahu’s downfall, they will have Hayom (the nation’s gratis, most-read newspaper, had nothing to do with the more egregious crimes for funded by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson), which he is responsible, and for which he – and future and used the Communications Ministry to threaten Israeli leaders – have yet to be held accountable. and harass media outlets that were critical of him. Despite crises and condemnations throughout This policy brief analyzes Israel’s political his career – including mass Israeli protests for transformations under Netanyahu and maps out the socioeconomic justice in 2011 and, more recently, current leadership contenders from a Palestinian weekly protests against widespread government perspective.1 It argues that Israel’s insular political corruption – Netanyahu withstood public pressures discourse, and the increasing alignment of Israeli to step down.
    [Show full text]
  • 2016 Annual Report
    Research. Debate. Impact. 2016 ANNUAL REPORT 1 Table of Contents Message from the President and the Chairman of the Board 4 Sixth Meeting of IDI's International Advisory Council 8 The Center for Democratic Values and Institutions 11 The Center for Religion, Nation and State 23 The Center for Governance and the Economy 29 The Center for Security and Democracy 35 The Guttman Center for Surveys and Public Policy Research 41 IDI in the Media 47 Our Team 50 Our Leaders 51 Our Partners 52 Financials 53 Message from the President and the Chairman of the Board Dear Friends, 2016 was a year of change and upheaval throughout the jobs available to Haredim. The government adopted most of democratic world. Set against the tumult of Brexit and the the recommendations and is now in the process of allocating US elections, Israel seemed at times like an island of stability. a half-billion-shekel budget in line with these proposals. This However, under the surface, Israeli society is changing, and IDI success story illustrates the potential of turning relatively small took on a leading role in identifying those changes and working philanthropic investments into large-scale transformational with policymakers to address them. change by affecting policy and legislation on the basis of outstanding applied research. As the report that follows lays out, 2016 was a year rich in activity and achievements. In this letter, we have chosen to single Several new scholars joined our team in 2016. Ms. Daphna out the impact one program had on government policy in the Aviram-Nitzan, former director of research for the Israel employment area.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel: Growing Pains at 60
    Viewpoints Special Edition Israel: Growing Pains at 60 The Middle East Institute Washington, DC Middle East Institute The mission of the Middle East Institute is to promote knowledge of the Middle East in Amer- ica and strengthen understanding of the United States by the people and governments of the region. For more than 60 years, MEI has dealt with the momentous events in the Middle East — from the birth of the state of Israel to the invasion of Iraq. Today, MEI is a foremost authority on contemporary Middle East issues. It pro- vides a vital forum for honest and open debate that attracts politicians, scholars, government officials, and policy experts from the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. MEI enjoys wide access to political and business leaders in countries throughout the region. Along with information exchanges, facilities for research, objective analysis, and thoughtful commentary, MEI’s programs and publications help counter simplistic notions about the Middle East and America. We are at the forefront of private sector public diplomacy. Viewpoints are another MEI service to audiences interested in learning more about the complexities of issues affecting the Middle East and US rela- tions with the region. To learn more about the Middle East Institute, visit our website at http://www.mideasti.org The maps on pages 96-103 are copyright The Foundation for Middle East Peace. Our thanks to the Foundation for graciously allowing the inclusion of the maps in this publication. Cover photo in the top row, middle is © Tom Spender/IRIN, as is the photo in the bottom row, extreme left.
    [Show full text]
  • Ian S. Lustick
    MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XV, NO. 3, FALL 2008 ABANDONING THE IRON WALL: ISRAEL AND “THE MIDDLE EASTERN MUCK” Ian S. Lustick Dr. Lustick is the Bess W. Heyman Chair of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Trapped in the War on Terror. ionists arrived in Palestine in the the question of whether Israel and Israelis 1880s, and within several de- can remain in the Middle East without cades the movement’s leadership becoming part of it. Zrealized it faced a terrible pre- At first, Zionist settlers, land buyers, dicament. To create a permanent Jewish propagandists and emissaries negotiating political presence in the Middle East, with the Great Powers sought to avoid the Zionism needed peace. But day-to-day intractable and demoralizing subject of experience and their own nationalist Arab opposition to Zionism. Publicly, ideology gave Zionist leaders no reason to movement representatives promulgated expect Muslim Middle Easterners, and false images of Arab acceptance of especially the inhabitants of Palestine, to Zionism or of Palestinian Arab opportuni- greet the building of the Jewish National ties to secure a better life thanks to the Home with anything but intransigent and creation of the Jewish National Home. violent opposition. The solution to this Privately, they recognized the unbridgeable predicament was the Iron Wall — the gulf between their image of the country’s systematic but calibrated use of force to future and the images and interests of the teach Arabs that Israel, the Jewish “state- overwhelming majority of its inhabitants.1 on-the-way,” was ineradicable, regardless With no solution of their own to the “Arab of whether it was perceived by them to be problem,” they demanded that Britain and just.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel and Overseas: Israeli Election Primer 2015 (As Of, January 27, 2015) Elections • in Israel, Elections for the Knesset A
    Israel and Overseas: Israeli Election Primer 2015 (As of, January 27, 2015) Elections In Israel, elections for the Knesset are held at least every four years. As is frequently the case, the outgoing government coalition collapsed due to disagreements between the parties. As a result, the Knesset fell significantly short of seeing out its full four year term. Knesset elections in Israel will now be held on March 17, 2015, slightly over two years since the last time that this occurred. The Basics of the Israeli Electoral System All Israeli citizens above the age of 18 and currently in the country are eligible to vote. Voters simply select one political party. Votes are tallied and each party is then basically awarded the same percentage of Knesset seats as the percentage of votes that it received. So a party that wins 10% of total votes, receives 10% of the seats in the Knesset (In other words, they would win 12, out of a total of 120 seats). To discourage small parties, the law was recently amended and now the votes of any party that does not win at least 3.25% of the total (probably around 130,000 votes) are completely discarded and that party will not receive any seats. (Until recently, the “electoral threshold,” as it is known, was only 2%). For the upcoming elections, by January 29, each party must submit a numbered list of its candidates, which cannot later be altered. So a party that receives 10 seats will send to the Knesset the top 10 people listed on its pre-submitted list.
    [Show full text]
  • Avigdor Lieberman's Policy Towards the European Union
    Przemysław Zawada Avigdor Lieberman’s policy towards the European Union Introduction On 10 II 2009, early elections to 18th Knesset took place in Israel, after Ehud Olmert resigned from his position as the leader of Kadima party and his succes- sor, Tzipi Livni, was unable to form a coalition and a government. Holding new elections was not anything new in Israel, the between 1990 and 2015 the citizens of Israel voted every 2 years and 8 months on average (more frequent were only elections held in Greece and Japan1). Surprising may be the fact that the elections from 2009 are still influencing the policy of this country. Binyamin Netanyahu, who was the head of Likud Party since 2005, had a chance to form the coalition and the government, even though they did not win the elections (Likud had 27 representatives, compared to 28 from Kadima). In the public eye, Avigdor Lieberman and his party Yisrael Beytenu (in Hebrew – Our Home Israel) were perceived as the truly winners of the elections. The acquisition of 15 seats in Knesset and becoming the third greatest force in the Parliament allowed Lieberman to take the seat of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Taking into account Lieberman’s controversial commentaries regarding the peacemaking process, EU’s politicians realized that the relations between Israel and the EU will enter a new, much more difficult phase in 2009. Particularly -in teresting would be the historical outlook on the elections, i.e. Operation Cast Lead ended in 2009 in the Gaza Strip, as well as the comparison of the policy lead by Tzipi Livni, who was perceived by Brussels as a pro-European politician.
    [Show full text]
  • Israeli Public Opinion and the Second Lebanon War
    Chapter 7 Israeli Public Opinion and the Second Lebanon War Yehuda Ben Meir No war in Israel’s war-filled history was accompanied by such extensive public opinion polling as was the Second Lebanon War. Indeed, more than by objective criteria, the course that the war took was determined to a large degree by the perceptions of the public on both sides. Perceptions do not necessarily reflect reality, but they have a power of their own. This essay, devoted to Israeli public opinion during and after the war, deals solely with perceptions. Closely intertwined with this phenomenon is the fact that Israeli media coverage of this war was all pervasive and unprecedented in extent. For the first time in Israel’s history, the IDF published on a daily basis the number of soldiers killed in action on that day. The media gave extensive coverage to the casualties, coverage that included the name of each soldier killed in action, his picture, interviews with his family and friends, the time and place of his funeral, and in many instances, coverage of the funeral itself. Especially when the number of casualties was high, at least by Israeli standards, coverage of the casualties overshadowed that of the actual events on the battlefield. The particular media coverage in Israel had a major effect on the development of public opinion surrounding the Second Lebanon War. The aim of this chapter is to describe the evolution in public opinion during and after the war, as well as to attempt to understand the factors underlying the changes in public opinion.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel's Social Media Elections
    Open Journal of Political Science, 2018, 8, 525-535 http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojps ISSN Online: 2164-0513 ISSN Print: 2164-0505 Israel’s Social Media Elections Yaron Katz HIT—Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel How to cite this paper: Katz, Y. (2018). Abstract Israel’s Social Media Elections. Open Jour- nal of Political Science, 8, 525-535. Social media has become a major tool to disseminate information, opinions https://doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2018.84032 and news, used for political campaigning and offering new opportunities for individuals and politicians alike. The Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Ne- Received: August 2, 2018 Accepted: October 28, 2018 tanyahu, has been particularly aggressive in his use of social media to gather Published: October 31, 2018 political support. Considered as the great survivor of Israeli politics, that flourished in the atmosphere of social protests and emerged from the old po- Copyright © 2018 by author and litical mechanism, he derives his power from social networks, using them as Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative alternative media to the traditional networks. As the research demonstrates, Commons Attribution International social media has determined dramatic changes in the balance of political License (CC BY 4.0). power, and although the main channels of information remain the traditional http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ media, the exposure of the public to social media is accelerating with a wide Open Access unmediated public debate. With social media, newcomers in Israeli politics could also create a presence and rise to become renowned politicians.
    [Show full text]
  • The Israeli Elections: Kadima Has Carried the Day (For the Time Being) but Likud Is Winning the Election
    ANALYSIS 11/02/2009 THE ISRAELI ELECTIONS: KADIMA HAS CARRIED THE DAY (FOR THE TIME BEING) BUT LIKUD IS WINNING THE ELECTION By Dimitri DOMBRET ESISC Research Associate By way of introduction Concerned as they are about the security situation, the Israelis were not very interested in these elections, which they would have certainly preferred not holding. At the end of a campaign that was lifeless and dominated these past several weeks by the war on Hamas in Gaza, it was finally Kadima, the centrist party, which, provisionally, may be said to have won at the ballot box, taking one more seat than Likud. But while Tzipi Livni should logically be charged by Shimon Peres with the task of forming a government, it is Benjamin Netanyahu, seemingly defeated, who is better situated to put together a government coalition of the Right, mainly with the nationalist party Israel Beitenu of Avigdor Liberman. At a time when the challenges facing Israel are considerable, the first task of the future Prime Minister will be to ensure that his or her coalition – whatever it may be – is sufficiently strong and consistent for the long term. The Israeli electoral system Although no democracy is perfect, electoral systems are even less so. The Israeli system is a proportional system. Put another way, the various parties in contention receive a number of seats calculated prorata to the number of votes that they collect. And if this system has the merit of giving small (even micro) parties) the opportunity to participate in the political process, it has the enormous disadvantage of fragmenting the political scene and complicating the already difficult task of forming a government coalition.
    [Show full text]
  • Lessons of Israel's Political Shuffle
    1 Lessons of Israel’s Political Shuffle By Yousef Munayyer May 20, 2016 The latest political move by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is significant on many fronts. Yesterday the news was reported that Netanyahu had offered Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right-wing nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our home) party, the post of Defense Minister in an effort to lure him and his party into a governing coalition that would expand from 61 to 67 Knesset members. Just before courting Lieberman, however, Netanyahu was in negotiations with Isaac Herzog, the head of the “Zionist Union” party in what was seen as an attempt to broaden the coalition ideologically bringing in so-called moderates. Herzog would have assumed the role of Foreign Minister and his presence in the coalition, along with some of his party members, might be used as an opportunity to restart the ever-stalled “peace process.” There have been past instances where Netanyahu has offered such posts to players from a different end of the Israeli political spectrum. The playbook is quite familiar. Whether it was Ehud Barak or Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu would appoint a figure far more palatable to the Western world to interface with Washington and Europe on matters relating to diplomacy and the Palestinians all while ensuring they would never be successful on the peace front by having the final say as Prime Minister. This simultaneously allowed Netanyahu to present a “peace face” outwardly while never straying from apartheid policies inwardly. It also allowed him to set up his political opponents for guaranteed failure.
    [Show full text]
  • Tightening the Noose Author(S): Trude Strand Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol
    Tightening the Noose Author(s): Trude Strand Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Winter 2014), pp. 6-23 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2014.43.2.6 . Accessed: 24/09/2015 02:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Institute for Palestine Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Palestine Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.58.102.238 on Thu, 24 Sep 2015 02:26:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Tightening the Noose: The Institutionalized Impoverishment of Gaza, 2005–2010 TRUDE STRAND This article outlines and analyzes Israel’s Gaza policy during the period from 2005 to 2010. Based on primary materials, including the testimony of Israeli officials before the Turkel Commission investigating the Mavi Marmara incident, classified documents that have come to light through Wikileaks, and Israeli government documentation, the article argues that in the wake of Israel’s evacuation of the territory under its 2005 Disengagement Plan, the Gaza Strip became the object of a deliberate and sustained policy of institutionalized impoverishment.
    [Show full text]