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In an article published recently in Al-Ahram Weekly, Yehudith Harel, an Israeli activist of Gush Shalom, painted a cautiously optimistic picture of a resurgence of the left-wing opposition in Israel. Below is a less optimistic assessment by the journalist Ehud Ein-Gil, an activist in Kav La’Oved (Worker’s Hotline), an NGO devoted to providing advice and support to super-exploited workers of all nationalities employed in Israel. MM Is there a new resurgence of left-wing opposition in Israel?The latest protest demonstrations have been quite large, and there are many more people refusing either to serve altogether in an army of occupation (a small minority), or to serve in the Palestinian occupied territories. (Serving in the illegally annexed Syrian Golan Heights is not considered a reason to refuse.) But I think that Yehudith Harel may be a little over-optimistic when she stated in her Al-Ahram article that “One can definitely say that there is a new progressive trend in Israel, larger, more grassroots-based, more radical and ideologically consolidated and more outspoken than ever before. This trend may be encompassing thousands of Israelis - well beyond the many hundreds of committed activists and the 10,000 who show up for demonstrations”. That trend no doubt exists, but it is very difficult to assess its scope. I would place the number closer to 5,000 than 10,000; but more important is the growing gap between this marginal section of the Israeli society and the section traditionally closest to it - the Zionist doves, or the so-called “Israeli peace camp”, with “Peace Now” at its center. This gap sets apart Israelis wishing to find a modus vivendi with the Palestinians, based on equality, from those who seek “separation” between the two peoples, thus maintaining a Jewish majority inside Israel, i. e., Zionist domination and Arab inferiority. This divide is not new, of course. Ever since June 1967 there existed a milieu of Israelis of Jewish origin who beside opposing the occupation stood for a different (non-Zionist) Israel. This milieu consisted some 3,000-4,000 people voting traditionally for non-Zionist parties, i. e., Hadash (Communist Party), the late Progressive List for Peace etc. This milieu is quite diffuse. It has some active nuclei consisting of 200-300 people in all, scattered in many left-wing and protest organizations and NGOs. These nuclei lose people now and then, due to biology (death), emigration, and internal emigration (into political apathy). On the other hand, it gains new recruits of mainly young people, always refreshing the atmosphere. There is now a group of young draft-resisters, two of them in military jail for the 4th or 5th period of 35 days; a 30-40 strong anarchist group, or rather groupings; a growing feminist contingent. But is there really a significant rise in numbers? Perhaps the answer resides outside these groups of militants, who (with the “help” of the government’s acts of oppression) tend now and then to draw to the protest a larger section of the 3,000-4,000 strong milieu. What I mean by this is that there exists a much larger milieu, consisting of some 100-150 thousand Israelis - Rock fans, dope smokers, new-age trendies, high-tech wizards, artists, Yuppies, Punkists, radical homo-lesbians and India-veterans (thousands of Israelis, after 3 years army service, go to “cleanse the head” on a prolonged tour in the Far East or South America) - most of whom are non-Zionist by inclination, though not necessarily by explicit consciousness. The existence of this larger milieu allows the hard-core 3,000-4,000 leftists to feel that there is a small sea around them - something the veteran fishes did not experience in the 1960’s,70’s and 80’s. Some of these people of the broader periphery do appear at the larger protest activities, a few also turn up at the smaller ones. But, not unlike what happened to the Zionist doves, many of them have been overwhelmed by the combined influence of the Palestinian suicide attacks and the closing-of-ranks reaction of the renewed Zionist consensus: many of this larger milieu have rediscovered their “Jewish roots”, and dormant racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudices have suddenly re-surfaced. There are some facts that should not be overlooked. The impact of the September 11 attack was felt in Israel too. This year’s May Day demonstration in Tel Aviv was a pathetic affair, in sharp contrast to May Day 2001. Only 300 (three-hundred) people turned out, mainly members of the CP and Hashomer Hatzair youth movement – down from 2,000 last year. More important than the numbers was the fact that the “alternative globalization” people - who had livened the scene last year - have all but disappeared. Two Trotzkyite organizations (less than 20 people at most) and the anarchist black block of 30 were suddenly very visible, constituting together one-sixth of the entire turnout. A week or two earlier, a demonstration in front of the military jail, in solidarity with the jailed refuseniks, attracted only 200 people (down from 400 two weeks earlier). The new fighters-turned-refusers covered the mountainside opposite the jail with a huge Israeli flag, claiming they refuse “for Israel” – thus alienating the more radical demonstrators; 10 of the latter felt unable to stand under the symbol of Zionist oppression and broke away to stage a dissident protest on the opposite mountain... There is however something else that has changed the scene in the last ten years, and could lead Harel and others to over-optimistic conclusions. This decade has witnessed a surge of newly founded NGOs, funded by Western charity and political foundations, mostly with a dovish agendas. These NGOs employ some 30-40 leftist militants, who are able use the flexible working hours in the NGO to invest more energy and resources in organizing and coordinating protest activity. This is not always a purely positive contribution. Several meetings and even activities have been scheduled to take place during working days and hours of “ordinary” people – thus limiting the turnout to these NGO employees plus students, academics and retired people. This more “professional” organizing capability may create the illusion that something has really changed, quantitatively and qualitatively. The fact is that among the 200-300 militants there is a widespread feeling that the larger milieu is not ready to take part in protracted protest activity, or in activities more radical than peaceful demonstrations. When a direct confrontation with the army/police is imminent, the number of participants shrinks radically. Finally, as the Israeli society is moving to the right, only a small fraction of its dovish minority breaks away from the Zionist consensus and joins the radical opposition. The rest blend into the two currents that criss-cross the Israeli society and confuse political analysts. There is a growing number, in fact a small majority, of Israeli Jews ready to accept a “separation” from the Palestinians based on a retreat to the pre-1967 borders and a de-militarized “independent” Palestinian mini-state. And there is a rapidly growing minority that seeks separation through mass deportation of the Palestinians (“transfer” in Zionist terminology, known elsewhere as “ethnic cleansing”). People may tend to support one solution at one moment, and change their preference to the other the next moment. The Zionist extreme right believes that after a “catastrophe” (a conventional or non-conventional attack, killing a few thousand Israeli civilians), the large majority of Israeli Jews will embrace the transfer solution. I think this is not a baseless assumption, and I don’t see a reason to expect any significant Israeli resistance to such a transfer. Is the radical camp capable of mobilizing thousands of Israeli Jews to stage a protracted militant resistance to a transfer? I would not count on it. Ehud Ein-Gil
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