Filling the Gap Left on the Left; Welcome, Makom Lekulanu
The announcement of the formation of a new party, Makom Lekulanu (A Place for Us All), by leading members of the Standing Together movement set off a lively debate in the left-wing camp. Most of the reaction was negative, and most of it for baseless reasons.
It would appear that the Israeli left has yet to recover from the trauma of the previous election, when Merav Michaeli’s refusal to form an alliance between Labor and Meretz crippled the former and left the latter below the electoral threshold. The left is still struggling to recover its footing after that devastating blow and the near knockout it suffered following the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. As a result, in the tension between ideology and pragmatism that lies at the foundation of political life, the left is showing a clear preference for playing a numbers game rather than promoting unpopular but just positions. That has left the field open for a new party that is ready not only to support the inclusion of Arab parties in the coalition but actually promote equality for all citizens of the state and that doesn’t only talk of the two-state solution as a vision for a distant future but actually speaks of the urgency of ending the occupation.
It is in the interest of Hadash and the Democrats to dismiss Makom Lekulanu as a spoiler whose run, they claim, will simply take votes from them and throw them in the garbage. Why would they want to admit that there is gaping hole between them which Makom Lekulanu promises to fill? Many left-wing votes are going to those parties because of the lack of an alternative, and many others may choose to not vote at all. Those are the votes that could lift Makom Lekulanu over the threshold needed to win the four mandates necessary to enter the Knesset.
Most of those wringing their hands and warning of votes going down the tubes preface their words with the admission that they actually support what the new party stands for and would vote for it if they didn’t fear that their vote would be lost. Simple math shows that if everyone making this argument got over their fears and supported a party that reflects their views rather than a center-left party in left-wing clothing, Makom Lekulanu’s numbers would swell.
A significant number of members of the Democrats party as well as many nonmembers who plan to vote for them do not hide the fact that their choice is a default. They squirm when asked about Yair Golan’s positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict and lower their eyes, mumbling about him being the furthest left on the political map, excluding the Arab parties. They quote half-sentences in which Golan has spoken of a Palestinian state at some time in the future when the stars are aligned. They ignore his militaristic approach to security, his calls for a ground invasion of Lebanon in 2024, his enthusiasm for the war with Iran, and other troubling positions. True, Golan repeatedly faults the Netanyahu government for failing to leverage military successes to score diplomatic achievements, but Golan advocates for diplomacy after, not instead of, military operations. That alone should make him ineligible for the title of leader of the Israeli left.
And then there is the issue of equality for all citizens of the State of Israel. It was actually the alliance with Yair Golan that played a large part in my decision to resign from Meretz in 2020. Golan had been running a campaign under the slogan: “I am Zionist; I am Jewish; I am left.” He refused to accept that touting Jewish identity within the context of a political campaign is inappropriate, demonstrating that he, too, suffers from the subliminal integration of Jewish supremacy that plagues so many on the Zionist left. When I challenged him, Golan suggested that I was ashamed of being Jewish. (No, I am not. I simply am more selective about the situations in which I find it relevant to trumpet the fact.)
Of course, the Democrats are well to the left of the current coalition parties and those in the opposition seeking to take their place, but that’s a pretty low bar to clear. Many of those flocking to the party come from the liberal camp that led the protests against the judicial overhaul, the same people who didn’t see any problem with excluding Palestinian citizens of Israel from the fight to save democracy in order to reach the broadest number of Jews and who exiled the antioccupation demonstrators to a corner of Kaplan Street so that they wouldn’t drive others away.
The left-wing flank of the Democrats, made up primarily of former Meretz MKs, knows full well that there is a gaping hole to the left of Yair Golan that can’t be filled by the fundamentalism of Mansour Abbas, the communism of Hadash, or the Arab nationalism of Balad. In fact, back in 2019 several of them made a decision to break away from Meretz and form a true Jewish-Arab party, but they did the same calculations then that they are doing now and got cold feet. Imagine if instead of dismissing the new party’s chances of crossing the electoral threshold, they bolstered those chances by joining Makom Lekulanu, where they would surely feel more at home. I still remember the thrill of seeing Yossi Beilin join Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarid on the podium after Beilin’s exit from Labor, and the thought of Mossi Raz, Gaby Lasky, and Michal Rozin standing arm-in-arm with Alon-Lee Green, Rula Daoud, and Ghadir Hani is no less thrilling, but unfortunately far less likely.
It is true that this is perhaps one of the most critical elections in Israeli history and every vote counts. But unseating the current wretched coalition is not enough. Israel will never know peace and quiet if the conflict with the Palestinians is not resolved, and every member of the left who shares that view but is ready to set it aside in order to bring down Bibi will have a share in the responsibility for the next October 7 that will be perpetrated by Palestinians who have nothing to lose. This is the moment for the left to vote its conscience. If enough people do so, Makom Lekulanu will be a shoo-in.
