Once great party's increasing atrophy exemplified as neither Yacimovich nor Peretz stand a chance of becoming next prime minister.
By JPOST EDITORIALLabor Party Woes 311(photo credit: Courtesy)
Despite difficult time constraints that pushed the limits of printing deadlines, the front pages of all the major Israeli dailies – including this one – had stories about Monday’s Labor primaries and early results.In the tabloids, the lead stories and color pictures featured MKs Shelly Yacimovich and Amir Peretz, the two finalists who will face off next week. Others showed some of the 43,391 Labor party members – out of about 66,000 registered members – who exercised their right to vote.No other political party of comparable size could expect to receive such extensive media coverage. Labor has just eight MKs after Ehud Barak’s Independence Party split from Labor in January of this year. But Labor, the offshoot of Mapai, is not just any party, it is an institution with an illustrious history.Labor’s first leaders founded the State of Israel and dominated the political scene here for nearly three decades until 1977. The party managed to return to power in 1992 to launch the ill-fated Oslo Accords. And in 1999, Labor candidate Barak formed a short-lived government.
The once powerful political party – which more than any other was identified with the Israeli mainstream’s Zionist ideals and the primary molder of public opinion – has for some time now embarked on a steady process of mostly self-inflicted political atrophy.Monday’s primaries were the latest chapter in this deterioration.Diplomatic and security issues have consistently determined the outcome of elections – at least in recent decades. But Labor’s tiny die-hard constituency chose two candidates with no credentials in these areas.Peretz, a former development town mayor and head of the Histadrut Labor Federation who is well versed in socioeconomic issues, performed abysmally as Defense Minister during the Second Lebanon War.Yacimovich, meanwhile, who has never served as a minister and has, like Peretz, focused mainly on socioeconomic issues, has yet to flesh out her position on diplomacy and security matters.Clearly, neither Peretz nor Yacimovich are serious contenders to become the Jewish state’s next prime minister.Apparently, Labor constituents have given hope of returning to power.True, the summer of protests have succeeded in bringing to the forefront of public discourse socioeconomic issues. And this might improve Labor’s success at the polls slightly.However, Labor leaders have failed to articulate viable left-wing economic solutions to the ills of our economy that would not dangerously increase fiscal deficits and hurt Israel’s hard-earned economic stability.In contrast, the Netanyahu government’s emphasis on encouraging competition, fighting monopolies and fixing market failures through regulatory measures – without significantly increasing government spending – are the sorts of solutions being advised by experienced economists. And Labor will be directly challenged on socioeconomic issues by parties expected to be established by journalist Yair Lapid and former Shas chairman Aryeh Deri.As a newspaper that dearly values the importance of two viable political options for leadership – one to the Right and one to the Left – as a condition for a robust democracy, we mourn the decline of Labor. Yet Labor has no one to blame for its fall from power but its own leaders.Unlike David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir or other iconic Labor leaders who were unabashed advocates of strong Jewish nationalism, today’s party leaders seem to have precious little to say about Zionism.They also seem to believe that the present deadlock in peace talks is primarily Israel’s fault, while the Palestinian leadership’s intransigence and uncompromising demands – unacceptable to the majority of Israelis – are conveniently ignored.As a result of all this, Labor has gradually pushed itself outside the Israeli consensus.Will the party continue on its path of self-destruction? If it does, Israeli society and democracy will be the real loser.
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