Netanyahu campaigning early for next term
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues his assault on the left.
At the end of my Al-Monitor article marking Israel’s 66th Independence Day on May 5, I quoted the responses of two past Israeli prime ministers, David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin, to the United Nation’s partition resolution of Nov. 29, 1947.
Ben-Gurion’s enthusiastic response in favor of the resolution represented the pragmatic approach, also called the “Mapai Party” (precursor of the Labor Party) approach: “another dunam, another goat.” In a speech in April 1955 to mark Israel’s seventh Independence Day, the country’s first prime minister said, “History is not made with words but with deeds.”
In contrast, Begin represented the dreamy revisionist approach, characterized in the words of the song “The Left Bank of the Jordan,” one of the most famous anthems of the Beitar youth movement: “Two banks has the Jordan: This is ours and that is as well.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to turn things upside down. Under his leadership, the left is perceived as cut off from reality. Jews who advocate an end of the conflict with the Palestinians and reconciliation with the Arab world are considered delusional. The very word shalom (peace) became a rude expression.
