A man was asked about his sons. “I have three,” he said, “but one of them is a complete idiot.”
“Which one?” they asked.
“Take your pick,” he replied.
In 51 days, we shall vote for a new Knesset and a new government. Three big parties are competing for the prize: Kadima, Likud and Labor. From there on, see the joke.
Is there a real choice? In other words, are there any real differences between the three parties? There are, of course, political differences between the three. But what the three parties, and the three leaders, have in common is far more important than what divides them.
Binyamin Netanyahu says that this is not the time for peace with the Palestinians. Tzipi Livni says — or so it seems — the very opposite. We have to talk with the Palestinians. What about? Not about Jerusalem, God forbid. And not about the refugees. So about what? About the weather, perhaps? Tzipi’s plan, one has to conclude, is to go on talking and talking and talking, and never to reach any practical agreement.
Ehud Barak has not withdrawn his fateful pronouncement of eight years ago, when he came back from the failed (thanks to him) Camp David conference: “We have no partner for peace.”
Not one of the three has stood up and told the public in simple words: I am going to make peace with the Palestinians in the course of 2009. This peace will include the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with agreed minor border changes on the basis of 1:1, turning Jerusalem into the capital of the two states and agreeing on a reasonable solution of the refugee problem.
Not one of the three has offered any peace plan at all. Only hollow words. Only spin.
Like the alternative offered by Netanyahu: To ameliorate the living conditions of the Palestinians. Living conditions under occupation? When 600 roadblocks in the West Bank prevent free movement? When every violent act of resistance leads to collective punishment? When death-squads go out in the night to liquidate “wanted men”? Only a madman would invest money in such a territory. All the three are united in their view that Hamas must be eliminated. All three support the tight blockade on the Gaza Strip, believing that if the population has no bread and the hospitals no medicaments or fuel, the Gaza public will rise up and overthrow the Hamas regime. For now, the opposite is happening.
Neither did one of the three get up and say: I shall make peace with Syria in the course of 2009.
On the other hand, all three have the same emergency exit: the Iranian bomb. What would we do without it! “The main danger to the existence of Israel is the Iranian bomb!” declares Barak. Declares Tzipi. Declares Netanyahu. A finely attuned choir.
Since the beginnings of Zionism, it has been looking for ways to escape from the “Palestinian problem”. Why? Because if the Zionist movement had admitted that there even exists a Palestinian people, it would have had to find a solution to the actual situation and to the moral problem. Therefore, a hundred different pretexts have been found, each in its time, to ignore the dilemma. Nowadays the Iranian bomb fulfils this function. Here is a clear and present danger. After we solve this problem (it’s not clear how) we shall be free to deal with the Palestinian nuisance.
Logic, of course, says the opposite. If we sign a peace agreement with the entire Palestinian people and put an end to the occupation, the Persian rug will be swept from under the feet of Ahmadinejad and the likes of him.
So is there really no difference between the three? There are small differences — but when we are dealing with fateful matters, even a small difference is significant.
Netanyahu, for example, brings with him a very rightist crew that include fascist elements. His victory would signal to the whole world that Israel has chosen the path to the abyss. The battered Labor Party at least includes a social-democratic element that makes it different from the other two. It is weak but not entirely insignificant.
Kadima, that cross-breed of leftist rightists and rightist leftists, is in spite of everything better than Likud, from which most of its candidates have sprung. Tzipi may still surprise us for the better. The real choice is between bad, worse and still worse. Between toothache, migraine and backache. Nothing good will come out of this election. The question is only how bad the results will be. This must not happen again! Quite probably, the next Knesset, too, will not last for more than a year or two. Then there would be new elections, which might well be fateful. On Feb. 11, 2009, the day after the coming elections, those who seek change must start to think anew. Those who long for a democratic, secular, progressive Israel, an Israel at peace with its neighbors and imbued with social justice within, must decide to take matters into their own hands.
They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. To bring about an Obama-like miracle.
Instead of the three good-for-nothing sons, a fourth son must appear.
