Tzipi Livni is the closest thing we've got to a Barack Obama.
By LARRY DERFNERlarry derfner 88(photo credit: )
There were times in this country's history when Israelis, or most Israelis, might have identified with the sort of thing that just happened in America - when the meek inherit the earth, when old hatreds are put to rest.
If an idealistic, multicultural black man had been elected president of the United States after Israel's War of Independence, we might have felt a kinship with him and Israelis' eyes might be glistening, too. After the Six Day War, we might have recognized the new president as a David just like us.
After Sadat came to Jerusalem, after the peace treaty with Egypt, after the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn, I think most Israelis might have felt at one with an election-night crowd in Chicago chanting "yes we can."
But today, the general reaction in Israel to Barack Obama's election is, shall we say, restrained. Beyond his middle name, beyond his associations with some harsh critics of Israel, people here sense that he sides with the have-nots of the world, with the Third World masses - and Israelis not only have become eager conservatives and capitalists, they've lost hope of even reaching a truce with the Third World masses around here.
Obama talks about bringing people together, and Israelis think: We've tried that before, and it got us killed. We don't want to be brought together with these people, we only want to be fortified against them. We don't want change, we want things as they are - a clash of civilizations, a war on terror, us against them. It's safer this way. We're through letting down our guard. We're through hoping.
This is so awfully sad. Obama's election is a great moment for America, a great moment for the world, and Israel is pretty much alienated from it. Israel is basically threatened by it.
The overwhelming majority of Jews in America are celebrating - and what's the main source of the fear and anger that the anti-Obama minority of American Jews is feeling now? Israel. Israel, post-Oslo, has become largely a source of insularity, suspicion, pessimism and belligerence for American Jews.
Today, Israel only inspires Jews who want to fight. That's not what Obama's about.
THERE IS, however, another Israel, an Israel that, as Olmert once put it, is tired of fighting, tired of defeating the enemy at such a terrible cost. The Israel of Begin's "no more war, no more bloodshed," the Israel of Rabin's "enough!"
And that Israel inspires the same people Obama does, and for the same reasons - because we don't want to be anybody's master or slave, because there are better things in life than wealth and power, and because there is a worthier life for individuals and nations than the one built around fearing, hating and fighting an enemy forever.
We in Israel are going to have an election of our own on February 10. Tzipi Livni is not Obama, nor is she Begin, nor is she Rabin. She's not properly a "peacenik" at all. But she is a woman of integrity, a woman of justice, a woman whose patriotism - her devotion to "country first," as another inspiring American put it - is unmistakable, and who appears sincerely eager and determined to make peace with the Arabs.
That cannot be said of her rival. Binyamin Netanyahu is an Arab-basher and liberal-basher who combines the arrogance and zealotry of George W. Bush with the cynicism of Richard Nixon.
I think, I hope that Obama's victory is going to influence the Israeli election campaign, and if there's any Israeli candidate who can catch the fire he lit, it's Livni. If there's anybody in Israeli politics who can give people in this country a reason again to hope, she's the one.
This is not 1938. It's 2008. The winds of change are back. We don't want to miss this chance.
We've made peace with Egypt, we've made peace with Jordan. We're no longer fighting in Lebanon. We've got a cease-fire with Gaza, shaky as it is. There's hardly any terror coming out of the West Bank. Living in this country is about as safe now as it's ever been. We've never found and never will find two more conciliatory Palestinian leaders than Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad.
It's Israel's turn now. The choice for us is as clear as it can be, as clear as it just was for the American people. Tzipi Livni is the closest thing we've got to a Barack Obama. Alone among Israeli leaders, she offers hope for the change we so greatly need.
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