Acting Prime Minister and Interim Kadima Chairman Ehud Olmert
Photo: AFP
Members of the Kdima faction at the Knesset
Photo: AFP
The path, not the person
Kadima is not like other attempts to capture the Center
One can agree or disagree with the Kadima Party, but attempts to compare it to previous efforts to create a large centrist party – parties that appeared in a flash overnight and disappeared just as quickly – are pointless.
While there certainly have been other attempts to create centrist parties in Israel – Dash, Shinui and the Center Party all come to mind – what caused them all to disappear was the fact that they were essentially protest movements, rather than political parties with real programs and policies.
Dash capitalized on widespread dissatisfaction with the leadership of the Labor Party, but it is tough to point to a meaningful policy objective the party had. It is no wonder the party disintegrated after joining Menachem Begin's government.
So, too, Shinui: its success came from general unhappiness with the existing parties and from the open, anti-religious incitement from party chairman Yosef Lapid. As we soon found out, the road from popular television host to responsible policy maker is long indeed.
More than that, all these parties came from the sidelines of Israeli politics, and wanted to break through to the center.
Kadima – with or without Sharon - has two defining qualities.
One, it does not come from the sidelines, but rather from the center of Israel's political map. It does not need to create a political center; rather, it IS the existing political center, and is eating away at the two existing major parties.
Secondly, Kadima is certainly not a protest party, but rather represents a policy, successfully forged despite more than a few obstacles – and the party's leaders have been accepted for it.
The vast majority of Israelis – between 65 to 70 percent – who supported the Gaza disengagement were a varied group. Some right-wingers worried about Israel's future as a Jewish country. Others, on the left, saw the move as a chance to dismantle at least some of Israel's occupation.
Either way – and with the reasonable assumption that there won't be a Palestinian partner for a long time – these are the people who have expressed the need to deal with the fact that both right- and left-wing governments have failed to create a solution for our relations with the Palestinians.
As much as we are speaking here about a policy, not a man, to that degree we can learn from the fact that surprised many people: despite Sharon's departure from the political stage, support for Kadima remained high.
This is a real revolution in Israeli politics. Just as DeGaulle-ism survived DeGaulle in France, so, too, Kadima will survive Sharon.
