Center, We Have Come Back to You Again

One of the marvels of politics here is that in times of crisis, what arises is not a convincing opposition, but that same hybrid called the center. And as in deja-vu, we have lately being seeing the still-blurry lines of an old-new force. This time, it is related to the disengagement from Gaza, and is demanding a continuation of the unilateral withdrawals. It is convinced that there is no chance of an agreement with the Palestinians, who are determined to defeat us, and therefore, in light of what the new center sees as an existential threat to the country, there is no solution other than independent decisions regarding the borders of the country and of its neighbor. This approach has already received initial international approval. Columnist Tom Friedman wrote this week in The New York Times that it is the rebellion of the "new Israeli center," which is arising to combat helplessness on the right and the left.

But in a public debate this week about the book "Halukat Haaretz" (Dividing the Land) by Ari Shavit, which explains the thesis in detail, one of the participants in the debate, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrogantly called it "our book." The man who is opposed to unilateral withdrawals without reciprocity has appropriated the book. In fact, as is always the case with the center, what crops up first are the contradictions that are due to the very nature of the package whose overall label is "we're fed up with you." That was the case in the early 1990s with the "corrupt politicians, we're fed up with you" movement, which gave rise to a change in the election system, until the change was canceled in a cold sweat.

The center will always be a colorful collection of VIPS. Yigal Yadin, Amnon Rubinstein, Shmuel (the "Free Center") Tamir and Meir Amit, Ami Ayalon, Tommy Lapid, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Yitzhak Mordechai ("only Mordechai can win big"). And always, before falling apart, the center party ends up in a coalition with the hated ruling party, or in a national unity government or outside.

From its inception, the center is meant to be a deciding factor. Sometimes it has turned out to be nothing but talk. Its new buds, which appear approximately once every decade, can be seen even through the smoke of the present catastrophe. Because, although it pretends to be refined, the center will be fueled by disasters and by the corpses of the dinosaurs of the leading parties.

It has names taken from the dictionary of change. Like "Shinui" (Hebrew for "change") both times. Now the name being hinted at for the newborn is the "Third Way." It is being supported by the usual suspects (Uzi Dayan, Shabtai Shavit, Ruth Gavison), and also, with the necessary vagueness, by important personages such as Dan Meridor and Prof. Shlomo Avineri. They were joined in the above-mentioned collection of interviews and the discussion about it, by an interesting figure, Brigadier General (res.) Eival Giladi, director of the Strategic and Coordination Staff in the Prime Minister's Office, a man of great fluency, who sometimes sounds like a too-perfect general-intellectual, whom the forces of the center will be able to enlist when the time comes.

For many, the thesis is likely to look like a tempting proposal. But the despairing assumption that there is never going to be a chance for a peace agreement creates its own self-destructive mechanism. If the eternal destructive intentions of the Palestinians are preventing an agreement, as most of the new centrists claim, they will also prevent far-reaching unilateral withdrawals. The no-choice vision of the 2005 version of the center party is a barracks surrounded by a wall. But the street, which is now being wooed by a simplistic temptation, will not allow its leaders to abandon unilaterally more territories, when they claim that a herd of murderous Palestinians is rampaging toward these territories.

Therefore, even if it doesn't turn into another political centrist movement prior to the coming elections, this bloc is playing into the hands of the right. Tom Friedman, for example, sees Sharon as its spiritual leader. The real meaning of this is that in spite of the desire of the centrist pioneers, there will not be any further withdrawal after Gaza. Not during Sharon's present term, nor if he is reelected in his party on the basis of hawkish promises, nor in the term of his successor, apparently Netanyahu, who loathes withdrawals.

The energy is therefore being invested in acting out a mirage. That's a shame, because if the architects of the new center are justified in their fear that the country will come to an end, a great deal remains to be done prior to this hollow vision.

To the Haaretz article