Last summer, Mitzna declared himself a candidate for this position, saying that Labor's continued presence in the national unity government of the day was destroying the party from within, and that he would begin to rebuild the party as an ideological and political force following the disaster that was the 2001 election. That disaster was the result of two thirds of the population rejecting Ehud Barak's diplomatic posture in response to renewed violence by the Arabs. The utter collapse of Oslo in response to Barak's final settlement offer proved the bankruptcy of Labor's ideology over the last decade and led to an unprecedented rejection of that party at the polls. When Sharon formed his government, Labor limped into the cabinet with no direction and no real presence.
In 2001, Labor had no choice. They had no leadership, no vision, no policy alternatives that were in any way acceptable to the population. The only alternative to joining the government of Ariel Sharon was to disappear into history as a party that had outlived its usefulness. It was only through the courage of Binyamin Ben Eliezer in remaining in the government for close to two years that Labor even managed to hang on to 19 seats in this year's general election. Had it stayed out in 2001, it would have been basically eliminated this year.
Along came Mitzna last summer and challenged that line of thinking. He promised Labor voters a new vision, a reinvigorated party following a new line of thinking. What he gave them was a rehash of Ehud Barak without the charisma to gain new votes or maintain control over his caucus. The infighting in the Labor party during the past year is incredible. It has erased from the public memory the legendary cockfights that hampered the Likud in the 1980s and early 90s. Finally, this week, Mitzna threw in the towel.
Perhaps Labor can breathe a sigh of relief and now get on with the rebuilding that is so vitally necessary if they are to remain a force of any kind. Mitzna could not offer any alternative vision in any realm of politics. He allowed the Histadrut total control over opposition to Netanyahu's economic plan -- a fight that is being waged so half-heartedly and with so much ignorance of the real problems with the plan and those it is meant to fix that it has no public credibility. Mitzna could not offer any vision of social policy or rapprochement with his new-found ultra-Orthodox friends on the opposition benches. And he could not offer any diplomatic, foreign policy, or defense policy vision other than a continuation of the already failed and rejected Barak plan.
Nahum Barnea is perhaps the most gifted columnist in the Israeli media. He compared Mitzna's time in national politics to a meteor. "Israeli politics have known many 'meteors' in recent years," Barnea wrote. "They come from the army, full of glory, sending out a great light. And then they crash and get put out."
Barnea compared Mitzna's fall to that of former IDF chiefs of staff Barak and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. All had assumed that being a politician was not a profession acquired through hard work and experience, Barnea wrote. But he didn't finish the point. We have often heard the term "meteoric rise" applied to politicians, and Barak certainly was one. But meteors don't rise. They fall. And here too, Barak, as well as Shahak and Mitzna, certainly qualified.
If such leaders as Barak, Shahak, and Mitzna are meteors, "full of glory, sending out a great light", in the end they not only "crash and get put out", they crash and burn, destroying a lot of peripheral beauty on the way, and get put out by leaving gaping holes in the landscape. Poor planning, non-existent economic policies, diplomatic failures, improper anagement of resources and people, bloated bureaucracy, and a lack of real solutions to the vast amount of problems facing the country are the legacy of such meteors. Other leaders come along, and attempt to fill in these gaping holes with so much landfill, leading to deeper problems, worse recessions, greater diplomatic failure, and huge missed opportunities for real national progress.
The group of people who will now vie for Labor's leadership largely fall into this latter category. They all have experience, and at least two are former generals. But none have a vision or a deep appreciation of how the problems facing Israel can really be solved. Whoever emerges as leader of the party, the job of rebuilding its ideology and vision into something the electorate can accept is not a job they will likely be capable of completing.
At the same time, Israelis go on wishing for a real star -- a leader with real, long-term, properly planned and implemented solutions that will remove the scars from our national landscape. It is possible that such a star can come from the military, but it is not necessarily the case. Israeli voters need real political stars burning brightly over our nation rather than meteors falling to earth and causing more problems.
Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
