The Truth About Labor

[David Ben-Gurion, the first Labor Prime Minister]

For a long time Zionists have become more and more skeptical of the Labor party's drift further and further left into fantasy and irrelevance. But at the back of one's mind is the tickling thought that Labor all but founded Israel. The founding leaders and the first prime ministers were all Labor - David Ben Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and more recently Yitzhaak Rabin. Could Labor be as wrong-headed as they seemed?

But sixty years on, the Labor position and the left position generally seemed to me and many other Zionists, that Israel was not making enough concessions to the Palestinians. When the facts are that Hamas and the PA have been perfectly clear that they do not accept a two-state solution. Which is to say that there is war because the Palestinians don't want peace.

Is it really possible that Labor could be so wrong? "Am I missing something that they see and I don't?" I secretly wondered and doubted.

Today Ehud Barak, the head of Labor split off from the rest of the party and created the Atzmaut (independence) party. He and 4 other Labor MK's split off, leaving only 8 remaining Labor members. Barak is a former prime minister and the current defense minister.

Upon announcing the withdrawal of the 5 MK's (Member of the Knesset) from Labor and the formation of the new party, Barak said the following, "We also did not accept the self-flagellation of those who see the State of Israel as exclusively responsible for the lack of a diplomatic process.”

This is from the head of the Labor party. In short, we Zionists were not mistaken. Labor and the left are as adrift from reality as they seem.