Likud, Kadima and Labour: Hollow Rivalry

Last week journalists and analysts of the various newspapers recommenced digging through the rivalry, hollow from an ideological perspective, that exists between Netanyahu and the opposition, which includes Kadima from outside the government and Labour of Barak from within.

Without a conflict the analysts, most of whom do not excel in intellectual or ideological depth, have nothing to contribute to the national discourse in light of the truly serious problems of the state, including external relations, the socio-economic gaps, development of nuclear deterrent weapons, the type of relations with Hamas and the necessity of removing Syria from the circle of conflict with Israel in exchange for the occupied Golan.

It could be that Haim Ramon, who has moved to the Right since he became a man of Ariel Sharon in Israeli politics, attempted to incite the heads of the Palestinian Authority to refuse talks with Bibi. This is not good or bad, it simply sheds light on the more negative aspects of the political practice of such people.

The declarations of Barak about concessions in Jerusalem were only intended to mobilise  journalists and politicos to support him in his decline. Barak has always been a provocateur  everything related to the Israeli-Arab conflict, and he tried to cheat the Arabs and the world until the cat was let out of the bag. Currently he explains to the world that there is no alternative but to initiate an escalation of the crisis with Iran and he justified to the American public the government decision to halt the settlement freeze at the end of September.

Barak wishes to remain in the government, with or without Avigdor Liberman, and to this end all of his tricks are directed. An emphasis on the apparent differences aims to appease the analysts from the moderate side of the nationalistic centre. Tzipi Livni also uses this same approach, such that an impression is created that the Israeli political arena is truly buzzing due to the important political and ideological disagreements, which will determine the future of Israel in the short term.

In order to comprehend the vacuous nature of this discussion, and the pointlessness of so obsessively dealing with it, it is important to note here the common ground existing among the (dominant) wing of Bibi in the Likud, Kadima and Labour:

Economic policies: The three parties favour neo-liberalism, the rule of capital in society and the economy, privatization that involves massive lay-offs, wide social gaps, cuts in payments to the weakened sectors of society, subsuming economic policy to the (socially )right-wing demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The differences, as in every other topic, are not ideological but in various aspects of implementation, such as the extent of social payments in specific sectors.

Support for the United States: All of them support American hegemony (in its old formulation) in the world arena, and tend to support the foreign policy of American conservatives. The opposition to President Obama’s attempts at appeasing the Muslim world are common to them all, together with the hope that Obama is a mere passing phenomenon, and that policy a-la George Bush will return to the White House.

Support for Israel’s nuclear arsenal: All of them support the nuclear deterrent weapons of Israel, and all the legal and illegal means employed by Israel to build them, hold them and oppress their dissenters. They simultaneously also wish to preserve Israel’s status as the sole nuclear regional power, and are further prepared for a military adventure which endangers our future in order to thwart Iran’s intention to build similar weapons.

Turkey: None of the three parties internalized the disaster inherent in confrontation with Turkey and the necessity of appeasement, despite the differences in rhetoric on this topic.

Anti-Palestinian citizens: All three parties are radically anti-Arab, and are partners to the incitement against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Kadima is the most radical in this area; the Labour Party, responsible in the eyes of Palestinians for the bombings of Gaza, the 1976 Land Day and the murder of Palestinian citizens in 2000, is a no-go within Palestinian society. In Likud there are numerous members of Knesset with neo-Kahanist perspectives, but people such as Ruby Rivlin and Dan Meridor are more liberal and sensitive in this topic than the parliamentarians of Kadima and Barak.

Occupation: All three parties absolutely avoid confrontation with the settlers in the West Bank and Golan, and with their hundreds of thousands of supporters from within the Green Line. The disagreements about dismantling this or that outpost, or restraining the fascists in the settlements, are marginal. No leader has a plan for the withdrawal necessary for peace.

So where exactly is there a real disagreement of any kind?

This is an edited version of the original article appearing in the Hebrew-language weekly newspaper of Jerusalem, Kol Hair. Edited and translated to English by the Alternative Information Center (AIC).