Israel’s Young Left Speaks Out

After a week of intense meetings in Israel in March, our six-member delegation from Americans for Peace Now (APN) felt a new energy on the left. Which is not to say that the political climate was conducive to optimism. In 1975, when Moment was born, Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister, the Labor Party had been in power for 27 years, systematic Jewish settlement of the West Bank had yet to begin, and political disputation, though loud and heated, was basically civil.

Today, public discourse has coarsened. Attacks from the radical right have become more virulent. Insults that used to be traded on the floor of the Knesset are now being directed at non-governmental organizations and turning libelous. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon refused to meet with a U.S. Congressional delegation because they were traveling with J Street, the pro-Israel lobby that positions itself as an alternative to AIPAC. Human rights and pro-democracy organizations, notably the New Israel Fund (NIF), have been excoriated as self-hating Jews, traitors and anti-Semites. Last February, Im Tirtzu, a group that calls itself centrist but gets financial support from ultra-conservative American evangelical pastor John Hagee, ran a rabid campaign of posters and ads depicting NIF president Naomi Chazan with a horn coming out of her forehead.

Meanwhile, the left has been politically and tactically hobbled since the Labor Party agreed to join Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Meretz, the party of civil rights and peace, shrank to three seats in the Knesset. Kadima, the opposition party, lost members to Likud. It has fallen to activists to become the opposition.

On March 6, the night after I arrived, more than 3,000 people turned out in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, a demonstration organized by a consortium of pro-peace organizations, including Peace Now. They were protesting the takeover of Palestinian homes and eviction of 53 family members by Jewish settlers who claim ownership based on a bill of sale dating to the Ottoman period. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in the settlers’ favor. But the Palestinians say the document is a forgery. The U.S. says the evictions violate the road map peace plan. The UN says they violate the Geneva Conventions. The protesters argue that the evictions are immoral and inhumane, which seemed self-evident when I visited the area.

Tsali Reshef, an IDF reserve officer who co-founded Peace Now in 1978, says the Sheikh Jarrah protest is not just about helping five dispossessed families, it’s about stopping the government from taking more and more Palestinian land, making a two-state solution impossible.

I took heart from the new campaign to mobilize the left and from the demonstration, the largest in years. But my most vivid takeaway remains the voices of the young activists of Peace Now who allowed us to sit in on one of their meetings. Their fervent commitment to “two states for two peoples” was matched by their ethical rigor as they wrestled with the issue of national symbols.

Several of those at the meeting were upset that a Peace Now demonstrator had her Israeli flag forcibly taken away by the Palestinian organizers in Sheikh Jarrah. They felt it was important to show the blue and white and establish that there are Israelis who support the Palestinians. A 20-something woman demurred, saying she could understand why a Palestinian would object to Israel’s flag because it “projects the occupation” and appears like “a red flag to a bull” to people who’ve been evicted from their homes. Said another woman, “I feel embarrassed raising our flag as long as the occupation continues.”

A young man then spoke up. “There’s a perception that the right cares about Israel, and we only care about the Palestinians. But you don’t have to build settlements in East Jerusalem to be a Zionist.” Another woman felt that the flag was “a lose/lose proposition: If we don’t carry our nation’s symbols, we lose the Israeli center. But if we put our symbols out there, we lose the Palestinians. The larger dilemma is the values that guide you.”

Yet another young woman weighed in, “I want Israel’s flag to represent peace. I don’t feel it represents occupation. It’s my flag.”

A slender man agreed. “Ours is a Zionist movement,” he said. “We should show everyone there’s no paradox, that the flag of Israel represents the values of peace, not war, and we represent the majority of the left. Unfortunately, the [leftist] extremists are the loudest and they have trouble with [Israeli] symbols.”

An 18-year-old IDF soldier in civilian clothes said he’s a loyal military man but becomes a protester when he takes off his uniform. “Just because we don’t sympathize with current defenders of Zionism doesn’t mean we’re anti-Zionists or deserve to be called traitors. We must fight to be part of the consensus.”

Everyone seemed to agree.

At the end of the discussion, the soldier turned to our APN group and said, “I think the most important meeting you had wasn’t with Tzipi Livni or Salam Fayyad [the Palestinian Prime Minister], it was with us.”

He was right.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin has just completed her tenth book, The Man in the Playground, her second novel.