Beilin, 'Brilliant statesman'
צילום: אלכס קולומויסקי
The man who dared
Despite all, Yossi Beilin was a brilliant statesman who dared to think, speak, and act
There were eight of them, during the 1980s. Eight wonder boys considered the Labor Party’s future – the right people to take the helm after Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres: Yossi Beilin, Amir Peretz, Haim Ramon, Hagai Merom, Avraham Burg, Nawaf Massalha, Nissim Zvili, and Yael Dayan. For years, they very opinionatedly dictated matters within the Labor party.
Yet out of the eight, only two have been left following Beilin’s announcement that he was quitting politics: Ramon and Peretz. Soon, according to estimates, Ramon will also depart. This will leave Peretz, who already missed his chance, as a symbol of the Labor party’s future, which is already gone.
These eight figures would convene at a small room in a Tel Aviv hotel once a week. They would talk all night, set the agenda, and break the way. They thought, dreamed, and believed that change was possible. They were the first ones in the Labor party to talk about a Palestinian state and to talk with the Palestinians. They were the first to dream about separating politics from the Histadrut labor federation, and the first to raise the banner of separating religion and state.
Beilin stood out back then already: A sly and intelligent politician, who completed his doctoral degree during endless trips with Peres among the branches of the pulverized Labor party, which lost its self-confidence after two defeats at the hands of Likud’s Menachem Begin. Beilin grew alongside great figures, yet once he was given the opportunity, he did not waste it. He spread his wings and embarked on an independent road: A groundbreaking path of rare courage and intellectual honesty.
During his long years in politics, more than people loved him, they loved to hate him. Beilin the statesman knew how to annoy, taunt, and swim against the current. He pushed for dialogue with the Palestinians, worked out the Oslo agreements, called for unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, and did not give up on the peace dream even for a moment. Once he was pushed out of the Knesset, he continued his efforts to outline a path for a final-status agreement with the Palestinians and change the country’s character.
This is how the Geneva Initiative was born, as did dozens of original ideas pertaining to the country’s and the Jewish people’s future, topped by Taglit – one of the most important Jewish projects in the world. Ehud Barak, who appointed him as justice minister in his government, referred to him on more than one occasion as a dreamer. Yet Beilin didn’t care. He continued doing his thing.
Learning some tricks from Peres
However, Yossi Beilin was also a politician, who thoroughly learned, became familiar with, and implemented the Labor party’s smalltime politics. The many years alongside Peres taught him a thing or two about political tricks and intrigues. When he competed for the Meretz leadership, he brought the shticks and tricks from his previous political home to the small leftist party and implemented many of them. Meretz members did not like it, but they elected him.
Beilin missed out. Under his leadership, Meretz lost Knesset seats, and lost its way. In political terms, it became irrelevant, a body that failed to gain prominence during a stormy political period. It backed the disengagement plan from the benches of the opposition, yet did not get any points from the public for that – more significantly, it did not gain any votes at the polls.
Beilin found it difficult to shape the image of his small party, and had trouble redefining it in the wake of the big political bang that gave rise to Kadima and drew the Center to it. He also found it difficult to restore Meretz’s glory days under Shulamit Aloni’s leadership, when tens of thousands of young people found something new and bold in it. Under his leadership, Meretz fell asleep and sank into existential depression.
Despite this, Beilin shall not be remembered as a smalltime politician or as a failed party leader. He left his main mark in terms of Israel’s political thinking. Beilin, more than many others in Israeli politics, dared. He dared to think, he dared to speak, and when he had the opportunity, he dared to act.
Now that he has retired from politics, he may be remembered as a politician who missed his chance, yet nobody could take away from him the fact that even Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni speak “Beilinian” today. And those who think that Yossi Beilin will give up on his lifelong struggle for peace better think again: Beilin may indeed be quitting politics, yet he is here in order to continue affecting Israel’s future.
