[NYTr] Avnery: The Beilin Syndrome

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Gush-Shalom - Dec 29, 2007
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1199006629

The Beilin Syndrom

by Uri Avnery

MEPHISTO, the demon who bought the soul of Faust in Goethe's monumental
drama, describes himself as "a part of that force which always wants
the bad and always creates the good."

Yossi Beilin, who resigned this week as chairman of the Meretz party,
is Mephisto's opposite: he always wants the good and all too often
creates the bad.

THE "SETTLEMENT BLOCS" provide a glaring example. It was Beilin who
invented this term a dozen years ago. It was included in the unofficial
understanding that became known as the "Beilin-Abu-Mazen agreement".

The intention was good. Beilin believed that if most settlers were
concentrated in several limited areas near the Green Line, the settlers
as a whole would agree to a withdrawal from the rest of the West Bank.

The actual result was disastrous. The government and the settlers
jumped at the opportunity. The permit of the "Zionist peace movement"
was displayed like a Kosher certificate on the wall of a butcher shop
selling pork chops. The settlement blocs were enlarged at a frantic
pace and became veritable towns, like Ma'aleh Adumim, the Etzion Bloc
and Modi'in Illit.

For dozens of years, the United States had insisted that all the
settlements violate international law. But the approval granted to the
"settlement blocs" enabled President George W. Bush to change this
stance and approve Israeli "population centers" in the occupied
territories. Haim Ramon, who in the past had been Beilin's partner in
the group of "eight doves" within the Labor Party, went even further:
he initiated the "Separation Wall", which in practice annexes the
"settlement blocs" to Israel.

But Beilin's brilliant idea did not in the least diminish the
opposition of the settlers to a withdrawal from the rest of the West
Bank. On the contrary: they continue to prevent by force the
dismantling of the settlement outposts, even a single tiny one. Nothing
good came out of this idea. The result was totally bad.

ONE CAN GO ON enumerating Beilin's brilliant ideas. As in the song of
the former master comedian (and current orthodox rabbi) Uri Zohar: "The
Jewish head is inventing patents for us." In Israel's political and
diplomatic arena, there is no head more fertile than Beilin's.

I don't know what exact role Beilin played in the invention of the
patents displayed at the 2000 Camp David conference. For example: the
idea that Israel should demand sovereignty over the Temple Mount, but
only below the surface. It did not appease the Israeli Right, but it
terrified the Palestinians, who feared that Israel was intending to
undermine the Islamic holy shrines until they collapsed, thus making it
possible to replace them with the Third Jewish Temple. The next step
was Ariel Sharon's "visit" to this sensitive site, which triggered the
outbreak of the second intifada.

After the 2006 elections, Beilin had another brilliant idea: to invite
Avigdor Liberman to a well publicized friendly breakfast. The intention
was no doubt good (even if I can't fathom what it was) but the result
was calamitous: it gave Liberman a "leftist" Kosher certificate which
enabled Ehud Olmert to include him in his government.

After that, Meretz announced that it would not, under any
circumstances, sit in a government that included Liberman. But one
cannot return Rosemary's baby to the womb of its mother. Liberman stays
in the government, Meretz remains outside. Now Olmert explains to the
Americans that he cannot dismantle even one settlement outpost, nor
negotiate about the "core issues" of the conflict, because Liberman
would then bring the government coalition crashing down.

Indeed, Beilin is very generous in dispensing Kosher certificates to
extreme rightists. On the eve of one of the annual mass meetings of the
"Zionist Left" in commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin, he announced that he
was prepared to appear together with the leader of the most extreme
Right, General Effi Eytam. Fortunately for him, nothing came of this.

There must be some connection between these ideas and his stand at
critical junctures. For example: his support for Ariel Sharon's
Separation Plan, without making it conditional on reaching an agreement
with the Palestinians. The result: the Gaza Strip turned into the
"biggest prison on earth".

Worse: the determined support of Beilin for the Second Lebanon War
during its first and most critical stage. In the course of the war, he
proposed attacking Syria, too. Only in the fourth week, after a dozen
stormy anti-war demonstrations, did Beilin start to voice any criticism
and have Meretz organize a demonstration of its own.

IN THE other pan of the scales lie two of Beilin's major positive
contributions: to the Oslo Declaration of Principles and the Geneva
initiative.

His input to Oslo was certainly significant. But he did not prevent two
black holes in the agreement: the omission of the crucial words
"Palestinian state" and the absence of an unequivocal ban on the
continuation of settlement activity.

These two faults have buried the agreement. The negotiations for a
permanent peace agreement, which were to be concluded in 1999, did not
even start. The settlements were being enlarged rapidly while everybody
was talking about peace.

The Geneva Initiative, on the other side, was entirely a creation of
Beilin. It could have crowned his career. Its inauguration became an
international event. The Great of the Earth gave it their blessing. It
seemed that it would give a decisive push to the peace process.

This did not happen. Ariel Sharon brushed it from the table with the
back of his hand: he announced the Separation Plan and diverted
national and international attention away from Geneva.

That need not have been the end of the initiative. There could have
been a sustained campaign in Israel and throughout the world, preaching
it from every pulpit, putting it on the agenda again and again. But
then Beilin made the greatest mistake of his life: he ran for the
chairmanship of Meretz - and won.

THE ERROR was clear from the first moment: there is a basic
contradiction between being a party chairman and being the Prophet of
Geneva, a person totally identified with the initiative and its main
advocate at home and abroad.

When the Initiator of Geneva became the leader of Meretz, he crippled
the initiative by turning it into the platform of one small party. And,
on the other hand, he turned Meretz into a one-issue party entirely
devoted to the promotion of the initiative. Both the initiative and the
party lost.

A smart person like Beilin should have understood that. But I suspect
that he has two souls struggling for mastery: the soul of an ideas-man
and the soul of a party operative. He is not satisfied with being only
one.

The mistake carried a high price. This week, Beilin was compelled to
announce his resignation from the Meretz chairmanship.

There is something mysterious in the character of this party: it
devours its leaders, one after another. First its founding mother,
Shulamit Aloni, was practically kicked out. The man who did this, Yossi
Sarid, was compelled to resign in his turn, when the party shrank from
12 to 6 Knesset seats, turning from a medium into a small party. After
the last elections, under Beilin, it was down to 5.

Under his leadership, the Meretz faction was a strange bird: neither a
real opposition party nor a member of the coalition. Beilin grew up in
the establishment, and even when he is formally in opposition he thinks
and acts like a member of the establishment. Not only did Meretz, under
his leadership, support Sharon's Separation Plan and Olmert's Lebanon
war, but even since then Beilin has been openly flirting with the Prime
Minister. Just when the great majority in the country has reached the
conclusion that Olmert is unfit for his job, Beilin gives him a Kosher
certificate.

He says that he believes that Olmert sincerely wants peace. He quotes
with approval the sayings of the New Olmert: "My father was wrong and
Ben-Gurion was right" (Olmert's father was an Irgun stalwart), and also
"Israel is lost" if it does not implement the Two-State solution.
Nice-sounding sentences - only Olmert moves in the very opposite
direction, avoiding serious peace negotiations and waging war in Gaza.
Now the Meretz people seem to have had enough.

When a party kicks its leader out, it is always a sad event. But this
is not the first time it has happened to Beilin, and that invites some
serious questions.

He grew up from early youth in the Labor Party and was one of the
promising foster-children of Shimon Peres. As Deputy Foreign Minister
he had the opportunity to give full scope to his untiring creativity.
But then Ehud Barak came to power, with his uncanny ability to put the
wrong person in the wrong position. Beilin was appointed Minister of
Justice, a job that paralyzed his special talents.

On the eve of the next elections, the Labor Party banished Beilin to a
hopeless place on its election list. In fury and frustration, he left
the party, slammed the door behind him and joined Meretz. Now he has
been practically pushed out of there.

Unlike Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarid, Beilin has no intention of
"going home". His fertile brain is already hatching new plans. In
recent interviews he prophesies a fundamental change in the political
landscape and the creation of a new political force including members
from Kadima, Labor and Meretz. Presumably he imagines that this party
would be headed by Olmert, and that Beilin would play a central role.
It would be fighting against Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak.

An interesting idea, but its chances are close to nil.

BEILIN'S PROBLEMS go beyond his personal story. They symbolize the
tragedy of the camp which calls itself the "Zionist Left". Probably the
appellation itself already contains the problem.

This camp was born a hundred years ago, and it seems that it never once
engaged in real self-criticism. In his last interview, Beilin uses all
the terminology of the Zionist establishment. Like everybody else he
calls the Palestinian fighters in the Gaza strip "terrorists". In his
scale of values, "it is important that a boy attains the rank of an
outstanding soldier". And, of course, "If Israel ceases to be a Jewish
state, I will have no more interest in it."

With such views, the Zionist peace camp cannot become a political
fighting force, engage in a real opposition struggle, bring about
change in the country. And that is more than just one of Yossi Beilin's
personal problems.