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Tal Ben-Shahar is a Graduate Fellow at Harvard University's Center for Ethics,
and the author of .
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By Tal Ben-Shahar
January 10, 2003
In 1997, when British Labor party leader Tony Blair was elected prime minister, the real winner was Margaret Thatcher. Her ideas, considered radical when she came to power, had become mainstream, accepted by the majority of people on both sides of the political spectrum. In the years leading up to his victory, Blair had created a "New Labor" that rejected the party's traditional adherence to socialist ideology. Thatcher transformed the Left: Blair and his party accepted the vision that was once unique to the Right.
In the current political scene in Israel, the exact opposite has happened: the vision of the Left - a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River - has been adopted by Ariel Sharon, the leading representative of the Right. And therefore, when Sharon wins the elections at the end of the month, the real winner will be Shimon Peres: the leading architect of the Oslo Accords.
Thatcher defeated the ideas of the old Left - that the government should control the means of production - by resolutely, and against much opposition, applying the ideas of the Right and showing that they work better. Sharon defeated the ideas of his own party by getting people to believe that the Right has nothing better to offer than the Left. He could not deliver a more effective response to terrorism than his predecessors from the other side of the political spectrum could - whether Rabin, Peres, or Barak - because he followed in their footsteps. He did not make as much as a feeble attempt to be true to his party's ideals.
Sharon, in selling out to Peres's vision, and yet maintaining that he is still loyal to the ideals of his party, has undermined the real Right in Israel. After Barak's failure in Camp David and the start of the second Intifada, the Right was given the mandate by the public to destroy the false vision of Oslo and start anew. But instead, Sharon chose to form a unity government with the likes of Peres and Yossi Beilin. And when, after the Labor party quit, he had the opportunity to run with a right-wing government - albeit a narrow one - he chose to call for early elections. Rather than waging an all-out war against the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure, he continued with the tit-for-tat war of attrition, all the while promising to reward the murderers with their own state.
Sharon's failure to curb terrorism restored the self respect that the Left lost after the breakdown of the Oslo process. The general public associate Sharon with the Right, and therefore his failure - though it was nothing more than an extension of the Left's path - is interpreted by them to mean that there is no alternative to a two-state solution. The Oslo
Accords might have led to the current war, but Sharon's vision - which most people believed to be the best that the Right had to offer - has proven just as bad, if not worse.
The real Right in Israel will only get a handful of votes in the next election, because the Likud under Sharon has shamelessly joined the Left and, with it, took a large part of its voters. Sharon has managed to convince people from his own party that there is no viable alternative to a terrorist state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.
Sharon has time and again said that he would not tolerate dissent from his own party - even by the majority, and especially from those who are true to the Likud's original values. Helping Sharon cleanse his party of those who would not conform, who refuse to abide, are leaders from the Left.
For instance, Supreme Court Justice Mishael Cheshin, head of the Central Elections Commission, has prevented Moshe Feiglin from running for the next Knesset; Feiglin, who organized non-violent civil disobedience protesting the Oslo process, was accused of "moral turpitude." At the same time, Cheshin opposed the election committee's decision to bar Azmi
Bishara - who openly supported the Hizbullah terrorist group - from running for the Knesset. With the help of the radical Left, Sharon keeps his party "clean" of the real Right.
So, late at night, on the 28th of January, when Sharon delivers his inauguration speech, Peres and Beilin should be congratulated, for transforming the Right and, in essence, winning the 2003 elections. Sharon's "New Likud" is Labor in disguise.
Israel does not need another prime minister who, in his last term in office, pursues the recognition of the world - the United States, the United Nations, or the Noble prize committee. What Israel needs is a courageous leader who will break away from the mistakes of the past, and thereby give the real Right a chance.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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