Liberal Zionists Lap-id up

If you haven't noticed, the Liberal Zionist brand is desperate to portray the outcome of the Israeli election as the salvation of the Israel they know is down there somewhere. I go into a lengthier explanation of why that's far from reality here:

The opposition parties that emphasized socio-economic issues and deemphasized peace, Labor and Yesh Atid, were the biggest winners. Labor focused on reaching out to female voters as well as economic issues. Lapid’s Yesh Atid stuck mostly to economic issues and reforming conscription laws to include religious communities. Parties that stressed a resumption of negotiations, even under staunchly Zionist terms, like Livni’s Hatnuah, performed significantly worse. If Israeli voters rejected anything about Netanyahu’s stances in this election, it wasn’t his pro-settlement policies and hawkishness on Iran, but rather the degree to which the government prioritized these matters over economic matters affecting the average Israeli. That successful opposition parties did not dare link the two is an indictment of just how much the polity has deemphasized peace, and has become complacent about the military occupation of millions of souls.

Yair Lapid is the Liberal Zionist darling - the last, best hope. But as Dimi Reider appropriately labeled him, Lapid is Israel's tofu man- taking on the flavor of whatever is around him. Yesh Atid is a party which sat below a drainage pipe that funneled the non-Netanyahu vote and the bits and pieces of the Kadima carcass that was sent down the garbage disposal of history.

Fittingly though, the Liberal Zionist gravitation toward Lapid shows that the movement is by definition more about being anti-Netanyahu than anti-occupation or pro-liberation or anything else. It is a superficial and reactionary movement that operates in a frame set by those it claims are its adversaries and not a frame grounded in its own moral conviction.

Take for example the Liberal Zionist mantra about the occupation. More or less, it is that for Israel to survive, its must end its occupation of Palestinian territory. Well, here is Yair Lapid in 2007 with, very literally the exact opposite message. He argues that the occupation is what is keeping him alive. Seriously:

While it may be true that the humane thing is to remove the roadblocks and checkpoints, to stop the occupation immediately, to enable the Palestinians freedom of movement in the territories, to tear down the bloody inhumane wall, to promise them the basic rights ensured to every individual. It’s just that I will end up paying for this with my life. Petty of me perhaps to dwell on this point. After all, how important is my life when compared to the chance for peace, justice and equal rights. But still, call me a weakling; call me thickheaded – I don’t want to die.

You might be saying, oh come on Yousef, you must be mistaken. Well, read on:

Make no mistake. Should we do what the honorable British lecturers are demanding, I will die. Maybe not immediately but the waiting won’t be fun. It will take two or three months until my death (don’t worry; it won’t take longer than that). I will always ask myself how I am going to be killed. Will a Katyusha fall on my home burying me in the ruins? Will a suicide bomber explode his charge at the mall as I am buying my small daughter a pair of new shoes? Will someone run pass me with an axe on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv and slice off my head? Or maybe a sniper will take me down on my way to pick up my son from school? If I could choose I would prefer the last option. It seems the most painless. At the very least, my wife will pick up our son a little late and explain to him that his father is dead. Unfortunately I don’t really have the choice of how I am to die, and the curiosity, if you’ll pardon the pun, is killing me.

So according to Lapid, the occupation is necessary for survival, not the other way around.

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