Labor leader Isaac Herzog. 'Doing same thing over and over again and expecting different results'
Photo: AP
Dr. Michael Bar-Zohar
Labor must raise security banner again
Op-ed: Ever since it lost power to Likud in 1977, Labor Party has abandoned Ben-Gurion's way and shifted to the left; it will never win an election by doing the same thing over and over again.
"What is insanity?" Albert Einstein once asked, and replied: "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
At the time, Mapai party was at the center of national consensus. It was also loyal to the perception of its founders that it must raise two banners: The security banner and the social justice banner. Because of our special situation and our unsympathetic neighbors, the security banner was the most important one.
That is exactly what my party, the Labor Party, has been doing since 1977. Ever since it lost power to the Likud, it has abandoned David Ben-Gurion's way and hasn't stopped shifting to the left.
Ben-Gurion once said to me, "Israel cannot be led from the radical left or from the radical right. It can only be led from the center."
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In the era of Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and the first Yitzhak Rabin-Shimon Peres government, Mapai and its successor, the Labor Party, were identified with concern for Israel's security.
Most IDF commanders, in compulsory or reserve service, were supporters of the Labor Party. Some of them were former Palmach members, some came from a different background. Even Ariel Sharon was a Mapai supporter and a devoted follower of Ben-Gurion. The Labor movement leaders adopted a tough security policy and were very popular among the public.
Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni on election night (Photo: Reuters)
But after the 1977 upheaval, the Labor Party began shifting to the left (from a political and security aspect), reaching the situation we are witnessing today, in which its main competition is with Meretz, which has shifted even further to the left. It left the center of the political map to the Likud, Shinui, Yesh Atid and other parties.
It's obvious – and that's what I have been fighting about for years with my party's leaders – that in order to restore its hegemony, Labor must attract additional voters from the center, not from parties on its left. It must raise the security banner once again.
The Labor leaders wouldn’t listen. The fact that the party rose to power again in 1992 and in 1999, mainly because it was headed by two former chiefs of staff, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, who were known in the public as clear security people, did not affect them. The Labor Party reiterated its "dovish" views and repeatedly failed in the elections. The public no longer saw it as a party which would work for its security.
Many security officials drifted away from the party, and the clear example may be the fact that people like Uzi Dayan, Shaul Mofaz and Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon joined the Likud. Who would have believed that Uzi Dayan, a member of the Nahalal tribe and Moshe Dayan's nephew, would cross the line to the opposite camp? And that Ya'alon, a member of Kibbutz Grofit, who belonged to the Working Land of Israel and Kibbutz Movement, would join the Likud and even become one of its top leaders?
Zionist Union activists. Israel can only be led from the center, not from the left (Photo: Ido Erez)
Before the latest elections, there were people in the Labor Party, including myself, who believed that the vote would eventually be decided by the security issue. There is no doubt that the social protest, the cost of living, the housing problems and the shameful gap between the rich and poor are issues with huge national importance – but the public was more troubled by security than by these issues.
The Labor leaders' partial and marginal effort to include security officials within their ranks appeared artificial to the public and didn't convince anyone. The people thought otherwise – and it doesn’t matter if they were charmed, intimidated or tempted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These are the people, and the people cannot be replaced. Not to mention the fact that even today, when many of us are frightened by the Iranian issue, the Labor leaders are dismissing it with deafening silence.
And what happened in the elections? Meretz lost one Knesset seat to the National Union, and the National Union managed to take two more seats from Yesh Atid, a party with many members who are deeply rooted in the left-hand side of the past. That's not the way to win an election.
Now that the question of a national unity government is being raised, every child understands that in a reality of heavy dangers and threats against Israel, a unity government is necessary. Every child understands that a narrow right-wing government is not good for Israel, and that it should rather have a wide, balanced government, which represents the majority of the public and will curb the radical right's dangerous initiatives.
But the Labor Party is insisting again: It will "fight" in the opposition (it has already done that unsuccessfully during the days of the previous government), it "won't let the Iranian issue push it into Netanyahu's hands" – as one of its leaders said during Passover – and it will prepare for its next defeat in the polls.
As Einstein said, it will continue doing the same thing it has done in the past 38 years and expect different results. I hope it is right, but it's highly unlikely.
Dr. Michael Bar-Zohar is a historian and former Knesset member. He co-authored the books "Mossad – The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service" and "IDF – The Great Operations of the Israeli Army," which were published by Yedioth Books.
