Window on Israel: Labor's death throes

The once mighty Israel Labor Party has descended into a deep crisis, and may even be twitching in its final moments. It led the Jewish community of Palestine and then Israel unchallenged from before statehood until the election of 1977. It came as close as any party to winning an absolute majority in a national election when it gained 56 seats in the 120 member Knesset chosen in 1969.
 
Latest polls show it winning as few as seven or even six seats in the coming election. There are conversations that could join what remains of Labor with the Kadima party. The party may go the way of the Wachovia Bank, that is also poised to disappear into a merger meant to save something from annihilation.
 
In what may prove to be the onset of its final moments, party officials had to stop a primary election after two hours as a computer voter system failed to operate. Pictures from the event looked like tea time at an old folks home. The only people under 70 that I saw were technicians wrestling with the hardware. The next day's headline quoted a kibbutznik of 103, who promised to vote a second time when the party tried again, with paper ballots.
 
When I said that the party was dying of old age, my young 62-year-old wife accused me of being a bad political scientist. "You should know that it is mostly retired people who vote in the morning. Party members who work vote only in the afternoon."
 
There may be some members who are not yet collecting pensions, but they had no chance in the primary that failed. A younger electorate might have gotten the equipment to operate. The party's mistakes might have been to introduce electronic equipment for a party membership so much older than the national average, as well as choosing the lowest-cost bidder for the system.
 
The problems of the Labor Party have been developing for some time. It has been struggling with its socialist past, while many of its middle-aged and younger voters are inclined to be liberal, but are upper-income yuppies. They see advantages in the market as well as a social safety net.
 
It did not help when a prominent representative of the party's socialist roots, the Labor Federation's General Secretary Amir Peretz, was chosen to lead the party and accepted the position of Defense Minister in the government headed by Ehud Olmert. It was his bad luck that the 2006 war in Lebanon erupted a few months into his watch. His lack of qualifications appeared in a widely circulated picture showing him alongside generals, trying to look through binoculars without removing the lens caps.
 
Ehud Barak staged a comeback to replace Peretz. Barak had reached the pinnacle of the IDF as its commander. Upon his retirement from the army, he moved through the posts of Interior Minister, Foreign Minister, party head, and Prime Minister, all in the course of four years. Two years later he lost a national election and retired from politics. Widely acknowledged to be brilliant but arrogant, he promised to consult more widely when he again sought party leadership in 2007.
 
With a paunch at 66, Barak represents the graying of the once dominant party. Among his competitors is an outspoken advocate of a more aggressive posture in favor of the poor, a young man of 47, but already with dyed hair and a wattle.
 
Barak's most recent efforts were a campaign to secure a place high on Labor's list for Benyamin Ben-Eliezer. This 72-year old former soldier, and holder of numerous ministerial positions, has often been outspoken on both sides of the hawk and dove divide that has been one of the party's problems. Alongside a history of Zionist activism to settle the land has been an accommodationist posture that has sought to make peace with Israel's neighbors. Barack sought to gain party support for saving Ben Eliezer place number 6 on the party list. That would assure him a seat in the Knesset under even the most dismal polls. Party democrats insisted that everyone compete for members' support. Ultimately Ben Eliezer tried to convince the public that he had no interest in a secure place, and was willing to compete on his record.
 
The basic problem of the Labor party is an insistence of holding onto traditional loyalties, despite some internal confusion and an electorate that has passed beyond those concerns. Socialism has limited appeal, despite the handful of ideologues who won Knesset seats in the last election. The kibbutzim used to be at the center of the party's nucleus, but they have gone to private ownership and differential salaries. Highly rewarded entrepreneurs in high-tech have replaced agriculture at the leading edge of the national economy. The kibbutzim have also lost their position as prime suppliers of the IDF's officer corps to the children of right-wing religious settlers.
 
Activists who aspire to peace with the Palestinians have not done any better than those (some of the same people) who yearn for socialism. Stubborn Palestinian adherence to their narrative (it is all the fault of the Zionists; Israel must admit its injustice and concede everything) have joined with Hamas' ascendance in Gaza to move Israelis out of the peace camp.
 
Binyamin Netanyahu has revived his own reputation and that of Likud. One should not accept all of Netanyahu's claims of being a confirmed hard-liner. Despite his efforts to fudge or deny, his record includes concessions on Hebron and offering to withdraw from the Golan. He may be more an opportunist than an ideologue. Whatever he is, he may win six times or more the number of seats as Labor.
 
We must be wary of playing taps prematurely over an assigned place of Labor in the political cemetery, or-- more appropriate --saying Kaddish. Likud's revival from a dismal showing in the last election is only the latest in the list of parties that came back from purgatory. More than once, American analysts have declared the end of Republicans as well as Democrats.
 
Currently, Labor seems fixed in a gerontological mode, and may not do much better than the Pensioners' Party. There are no youngsters, or individuals who seem able to excite young voters among its potential leaders. It does not look promising, or even hopeful, but it may be too early to call in the gravediggers.