There has never been an Israeli peace camp

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Zionism, Palestinians


The Israeli peace camp didn't die. It was never born in the first place. While it's true that since the summer of 1967, several radical and brave political groups have been working against the occupation - all worthy of recognition - a large, influential peace camp has never existed here.

(snip)

... the problem was rooted in the left's impossible adherence to Zionism in its historical sense. In precisely the way there cannot be a democratic and Jewish state in one breath, one has to first define what comes before what - there cannot be a left wing committed to the old-fashioned Zionism that built the state but has run its course. This illusory left wing never managed to ultimately understand the Palestinian problem - which was created in 1948, not 1967 - never understanding that it can't be solved while ignoring the injustice caused from the beginning. A left wing unwilling to dare to deal with 1948 is not a genuine left wing.

The illusory left never understood the most important point: For the Palestinians, consenting to the 1967 borders along with a solution to the refugee problem, including at least the return of a symbolic number of refugees themselves, are painful concessions. They also represent the only just compromise, without which peace will not be established; but there's no sense in accusing the Palestinians of wasting an opportunity. Such a proposal, even including the "far-reaching" proposals of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, has never been made to them.

Meretz will surely find some kind of organizational arrangement and will again get half a dozen members elected to the Knesset, on a good day maybe even a dozen. This doesn't mean much, however. The other left-wing groups, both Jewish and Arab, remain excluded. No one has any use for them, no one thinks about including them, and they are too small to have any influence. So let's call the child by its real name: The Israeli peace camp is still an unborn baby.

read it all...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1154539.html

[LeftishBrit]

1. Yes there has.

Arguably they have never been a majority; but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

2. I don't agree with his title, but it's an excellent article.

The Israeli peace camp has always been small and is currently a) tiny, and b) very much reviled by the Israeli mainstream, but it does exist - Levy himself is a member of it, after all...