Reconstruct – Or Self-destruct?

Some see Labor primaries as a sign of hope that the once-venerable party could recapture the Israeli public’s support, but others say the culture of back-stabbing remains the party’s Achilles’ heel.

By AMI KAUFMAN
Shelly Yacimovich at Labor HQ 311 (photo credit: Gil Hoffman)
Shelly Yacimovich at Labor HQ 311
(photo credit: Gil Hoffman)
IN MID-SEPTEMBER, the once-venerable Labor party will conduct a second round of primaries to elect its seventh chairman in 10 years, following primaries in which none of the four candidates reached the 40 percent needed to be considered a winner.
As Labor party members cast their votes in the bitterly contested run off between MK Shelly Yacimovich and her one-time mentor and former party head MK Amir Peretz, doubt surrounds them.
Has the once all-powerful Labor party outlived its purpose? Exhausted its call? Has it imploded due to the ideological tensions and personal animosities that have plagued the party since its inception, even before the founding of the state? Labor continues to slide, seemingly inexorably, down a slippery slope at least partly of its own making, especially since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist in 1994. By the time Ariel Sharon left the Likud in 2005 and founded Kadima, in what is widely regarded as Israel’s most recent “Big Bang” of politics, Labor was down to 18 MKs.
Now it’s down to eight. The number of party members has also dropped drastically over the years. On the eve of Barak’s election as chairman over more than a decade ago, there were over 160,000 members in the party. By May 2010, there were only 30,000, and just before the recent primaries there was a slight rise to just over 45,000.
Clearly Labor is no longer a ruling party..And while both Peretz and Yacimovich are credible candidates who, according to recent polls, could provide the long-needed boost the party has been waiting for, neither of them is a contender for the prime minister’s seat. That contest will, barring unforeseeable developments, be left to current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni.
So who cares about Labor?
First and foremost, the public might care, at least in the future. In the context of the yet unknown impact of the huge social protests this summer in Israel, the Labor party might indeed be poised for a comeback that could change Israel’s political map yet again.
And as a result, both Netanyahu and Livni care, and very much. And with nearly 30 percent of the public defining itself as undecided, a reinvigorated Labor could do some serious damage to Kadima and change the evermorphing political landscape.
But before Labor can appeal widely to the public, and before it can hope to regain even a fraction of its former glory, it will have to overcome its own worst failings.
WALKING DOWN MEMORY lane seems to be one of Labor stalwarts’ favorite pastimes these days. The current leadership just doesn’t seem to match up with the mythological giants of the past, some of whom came from the Mapai party, before forming Labor together with Ahdut Ha’avoda in 1968: David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin, to name a few.
Across the political spectrum, Israeli parties, like so many parties throughout the world, are suffering from a lack of leadership. But none seem to struggle as abysmally as the Labor Party, in which no leader seems able to lead or last.
Labor’s most recent failure has been former prime minister and current Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, who was head of the party until January 2011. Barak was widely criticized for leading the Labor party to the coalition with Netanyahu, which has turned out to be one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history, and for distancing the party from the socioeconomic agenda it once believed in.
Indeed, Barak’s decision to live in one of Israel’s most posh residential towers, which arrogantly dominates the Tel Aviv skyline, is seen by many as the epitome of his parting from the values Labor once held and has been the brunt of seemingly endless media critique and satire.
Barak left Labor in January, in what might be called “the Little Bang,” in order to found the Atzma’ut (Independence) party, in response to pressure from his fellow Laborites to quit Netanyahu’s government.
He took four MKs with him, leaving only the current eight in the Labor faction.
Labor MK Daniel Ben-Simon believes that Barak’s departure was the first sign of revival. “I came to the party when it was dying,” says Ben-Simon, a former journalist who joined the party in 2008. “I had hopes that we could still get out of this situation, but after two years with Barak, I reached the conclusion that not only would the party die – I wasn’t sure we would even get a nice funeral/ We were part of the worst coalition the country had seen since 1948... The public hated us. I thought the party would never recover.”
In fact, it was Barak’s move that allowed Labor to avoid a scenario of even more MKs defecting, including Ben-Simon. Recalling Barak’s unexpected announcement, Ben- Simon says, “Suddenly, it was like an act of resurrection. Thousands of people started to write us and call us and tell us of their renewed hope.”
It is not only the caliber of its last seven leaders that troubles many supporters of Labor. According to Tammi Molad-Hayo, an activist in the party and programming director of All-for-Peace radio, the inability of the younger generations to penetrate the older leadership and bring about a more significant change is the party’s greatest failure. “During the party meetings, the young people are physically sitting at an outer circle around the table. They do this out of respect for their elders, but this is a mistake. The old timers should move out of the way. They have failed over and over,” she says.
“It was always very difficult for young activists in Labor to get to the top,” says Prof. Yoram Peri, a former party member and advisor to the late Rabin. “It’s an unfortunate tradition.”
Peri, who is now director of the new Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, recalls Labor lore dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. Talking with an American colleague, Peri relates, Levy Eshkol, former prime minister and Labor icon, is reported to have said, “‘We take these guys, the young ones who aspire to become leaders of the party, and throw them into the pool. If they swim, fine. If they don’t – even better.’”
BUT PERI SAYS THAT LABOR suffers from even worse, possibly more fatal illnesses – a lack of cohesiveness and interminable backstabbing.
“The privatization of politics is rampant now in Israel, and the Labor party is a good example of this,” he explains. “Each MK is a ‘loner.’ For the last 15 years, you’ve never seen any groups like the ‘shminiya’ [the socalled “Group of Eight” that once led the party]. There’s no trust, nobody works together, there’s no common denominator.”
Israeli politics are notoriously emotional and raw, and, in the small arena, competitions are often up-close, personal and nasty. Peri believes that the internal struggles in the Labor party are worse than in any other party and worse than at any other time in the party’s history. The backstabbing, he recalls, “started between Shimon Peres and Rabin back in 1974. Peres was always working against Rabin, and, ever since, there seems to have been no party discipline.”
It is this Labor phenomenon that is seen as one of the main causes of its demise over the past two decades. And it is precisely this phenomenon that will be one of the biggest obstacles the new Labor chair will have to overcome.
Peri recalls the challenge that former Labor chief Amram Mitzna failed to overcome when he entered the job. Mitzna, a retired major general, a decorated military hero who was wounded in two of Israel’s wars, and an outspoken supporter of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, entered politics in 1993 and was elected Labor party chairman in November 2002. Entering the Knesset as head of the party in January 2003, he resigned as chairman that May, announcing that he could not and would not tolerate the internal squabbling and sabotaging. “I rejoined the party back when Mitzna joined,” Peri recalls. “I thought he could rebuild it, give it new life. But even before the elections, I knew he was destined to fail. I knew the party leadership was out to get him.”
Mitzna ran again in the most recent primaries, but came in a dismal fourth.
MK Einat Wilf (Atzma’ut) is one of the four MKs who left Labor with Barak. “Saying that the backstabbing is the worst in the Labor party is an understatement. In fact, that’s what caused us to split from them… The faction that went with Barak does not seem to be engaged in infighting any more.
We make decisions together and accept his leadership.” In contrast, she says, the remaining eight Labor MKs continue to fight and struggle. “So it just proves it has nothing to do with Barak. It’s just a part of the DNA of Labor,” says Wilf.
The primaries were rife with mutual recriminations and accusations. During the primaries, for example, contender MK Isaac (Buje) Herzog, former welfare minister, and others accused Yacimovich of collaborating with the Likud party and with Netanyahu himself, in order to stave off any future gains by Kadima, because, it is assumed, Yacimovich believes that she will lose women’s votes to Kadima’s Livni.
A source close to businessman Erel Margalit, who was a fifth candidate for party head until he quit just before the elections, tells The Report, “We tried to keep things peaceful. Or at least civil. But these people were too busy attacking each other even to realize that negative campaigning rarely works.” After the primaries, says the source, who speaks with The Report on condition of anonymity, Margalit also tried to bring the two losers, Mitzna and Herzog, together to decide whom to support, Yacimovich or Peretz. “We couldn’t even get them in the same room,” he recalls.
And it only took a few hours after the results of the first round were published for the mudslinging between Peretz and Yacimovich to go into fifth gear. The mutual animosity has reached such levels that some activists fear that there will be an imminent split no matter who wins. “Only one of them can win. And I don’t see how they will be able even to talk to each other, let alone show any leadership and pull the party together,” says Aliza Minter, 29, a party member who voted for Peretz in the first round but says that she is now “disgusted with both of them.”
Molad-Hayo tries to see an upside to infighting, which she considers encouraging. “All this ego, all these energies are proof that the party is coming alive. You don’t fight like this for something that’s dead,” she says. “These candidates see a potential for the party in the future.”
BOTH LIKUD AND KADIMA have worked hard to position themselves as centrist parties in the eyes of the Israeli public, distinguishing themselves from each other by referring to Likud as center-right and Kadima as center-left. With two major parties already occupying a fuzzy center, clarity on the major issues facing the public is crucial for Labor.
Yet Labor has not made itself stand out. On socioeconomic issues it has disconnected itself with the socialism it once upheld. Yacimovich, especially, has a clear track record as an MK who fought for and succeeded in passing progressive social legislation and who fought against the centralization of the Israeli economy in the hands of a few mega-wealthy “tycoons.”
Yet Labor MKs including Yacimovich, were noticeably absent from any of the tent camps and demonstrations. They preferred, as Ben-Simon explains, to allow the popular, grass-roots movement to develop without being “harmed” by the embrace of the political establishment – and without harming themselves by being seen as cynically opportunistic, taking a ride on the backs of the
protesters.
The tactic may have failed. As the social protests grew, 87 percent of the public supported them, according to recent polls. And so many thought that the original message of the Labor party, ostensibly a social-democratic message, would resonate with that public. Yet polls show that the party would probably only gain 2-3 more seats if elections were to be held today.
Quips Molad-Hayo, “This party is ridiculous. The people are out on the streets, the Palestinian UN bid is approaching – and the Labor party is busy with primaries. This party lives in the past.”
With regard to the peace process with the Palestinians, the differences between Labor, Kadima and the Likud are even more negligible. Kadima has made the two-state solution part of its platform from the beginning, and Netanyahu has publicly stated that he and the Likud, too, support this. So maybe Labor doesn’t really have anything new for the voter. And the situation became even more disturbing for the left when Yacimovich, in a widely cited interview in the daily Haaretz, refused to criticize the settlers, leaving herself and the party open to criticism that they are pandering to right-wingers for strategic reasons.
“I understand why Yacimovich did it,” says Peri. “She was being accused of being so leftist socially that the Labor under her rule would have become a niche party. Basically, she wanted to tell the voters ‘I can lead a national party.’ So, she found a sort of ‘trick’, by showing herself as a centrist… But actually, it’s a major mistake. You have to show an alternative to the ruling parties, to the Likud, Kadima, and to [Avigdor] Lieberman [head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.] People don’t want someone who is similar to the current government. Yacimovich weakened her position with the progressives, and now is seen as a tactician.”
Indeed, it remains unclear to whom Labor appeals and who its major competitor is. According to data from the first round of the primaries, Yacimovich was boosted mainly by the kibbutzim and the wealthy communities, while Peretz won over the geographic periphery and the poorer sectors. Thus, it would appear, Yacimovich has a better chance at taking voters from Kadima, because both she and Livni appeal to the Ashkenazi, secular socialist and nationalist crowd. Peretz’s voters are closer to traditional Likud supporters, so Peretz has a better chance of taking votes from Netanyahu.
BUT PERHAPS THESE EXPLANAtions miss the point. Perhaps the Labor Party has simply exhausted its usefulness, given the current Israeli demographics and right-wing political leanings.
“I have thought about this question extensively over the past few years,” says Peri. “Parties, here in Israel and around the world, sometimes disappear. Or they change. But those are the two options. I tend to think that Labor has indeed exhausted its capabilities to regain control and lead an Israeli government.
“Over the years, the Labor lost the Mizrahim. Later on, it lost the Russians. It simply doesn’t represent their worldviews,” Peri explains. “But even more recently, it lost the ‘millenialists,’ the young, first time voters – which is where US President Barack Obama was very successful during his first presidential campaign. In contrast, only 6 percent of first-time voters in Israel voted for the left in the last elections. These three main groups – the Mizrahim, the Russians and the millenialists – could have won the elections for Labor.”
But Labor, he says, has a new window of opportunity. “What Labor needs to do today is reinvent themselves as a new brand. Lately, I’m a bit more optimistic. The social protests have given them a slight push. It has re-legitimized the policies of the Labor movement, and I believe they could benefit from this.”
Ben-Simon believes that the Israeli public still believes in the party, despite all its drawbacks.
“The relationship that Israelis have with the Labor party is complex. They’re not letting us die…When Rabin was assassinated, the whole party was essentially assassinated.
As a journalist, I thought Israelis wanted the ‘mother’ of this country, the party who founded it, to go away. But today, suddenly, the messages of the Israeli people fit the message of Labor.”