Israeli Leftists Debate New Coalition Government
A number of prominent Israeli politicians and hundreds of activists from various organizations attended a left-wing conference organized by Peace Now on Friday.
The event, deemed the Israeli Left Conference, took place at the Zionist Organization of Americaconference center in central Tel Aviv. Participants discussed Israel’s new Netanyahu-Mofaz unity government, as well as a number of issues on the Israeli left’s agenda, including the left’s response to Israel’s social protests and the possible demise of the two-state solution.
Lawmakers in attendance included Amir Peretz and Daniel Ben-Simon of Labor, Zehava Gal-On, Ilan Gilon and Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz, Nino Abesadze, Shlomo Molla and Doron Avital of Kadima, and a number of others.
Speaking at a panel on how to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the October 2013 elections, former Education Minister Yuli Tamir said that, with the new unity government, “For the first time, we will know the true face of the right.”
“Today Netanyahu has the power to do whatever he wants to do. If he does not get things done, we will get to the elections from the clearest standpoint on what it is that the right wants to do, and what it doesn’t want to do,” she said.
The real problem, Tamir added, is not how to defeat Netanyahu, but how to stay relevant. “Yacimovich, and also Mofaz and Lapid are all competing in a race over who will get to hug [Netanyahu] first,” she said, adding, “We have no order of priorities as the left.”
For more, go to Haaretz.com
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