Mordechai Nisan

The Crack-Up of the Israeli Left Mordechai Nisan

In The Crack-up of the Israeli Left, Dr. Mordechai Nisan delves into the disturbing case of cognitive dissonance, virtual thought-terror, and political disloyalty that emerged and mutated in the leftist camp in Israel. This cumulative deviance became the spring-board for the Oslo Agreement wager, a sham peace between Israel and the Palestinians which proved to be a colossal and bloody political blunder.

With academic skill and an extensive familiarity with the Israeli political scene, Nisan dissects the rise of the political Right and the decline of the Left in the corridors of power. Yet, a variety of social and institutional levers of influence remained in the grip of the leftist elites, at once set to delegitimize and hound the Likud party's electoral successes; while promoting the leftist bias, as in the media, against the "settler community" and the nationalist parties on the Right.

The left-leaning governments adopted irrational and irresponsible policies for territorial withdrawal, and all pullbacks proved disastrous. Anti-Zionism became a conventional discourse, the democratic choice of the people was thwarted by Supreme Court interventions, Prime Minister Netanyahu was vilified. These were diversions from some of the acute internal problems facing Israel: the extremist anti-Israel Arab citizenry, the arrogant ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jewish sectarians, and the illegal African migrant workers threatening the safety of Jews in southern Tel Aviv neighborhoods.

The malaise of the Left, and especially its radical extreme fringes, expressed solidarity with the Arab-Palestinian enemy at home. This filled their ideological vacuum with a purpose. Leftists fired their moralistic arrows against "the occupation." For some, the Israelis were like Nazis. Jewish self-hatred was an old disease that mutated in Israeli Left circles - at the universities, in the media, and in cultural forums.

This book sets the historical record straight about who, in Israel and beyond, was loyal to the Jewish state and its hallowed mission; and who strayed dismally from the path. It examines the cultural war at the root of the political battle-lines. It is about telling the unalloyed truth in a radical and explicit fashion. But it also points the way for intra-Jewish reconciliation among all in Israel.

The book may scandalize some readers, but offer enlightenment and solace to the embattled nationalists and level-headed Jews and gentiles everywhere. No one will remain complacent to its tone and text in these days of constant political tremors striking the Jewish state.