Closer to consensus
The diplomatic outline unveiled on Monday by Labor MK Hilik Bar with Labor leader Isaac Herzog looking on marked a significant shift in Labor's view of a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Bar criticized the Right, but actually two main truths were made clear. First, in an attempt to wriggle free from the grip of post-Zionism, Labor is once again declaring that Jerusalem will never be divided. And second, it has adopted the mantra that Jews do not expel other Jews from their homes if they are living in them legally.
This mantra came into being after the Gush Katif communities were uprooted in 2005. A majority of politicians (including from Likud) have refrained until now from adopting it, but now we are seeing a real change. Just as the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm can exist decently and with equality and cultural autonomy within the Green Line, Jewish settlers will be allowed to remain in Palestinian-controlled areas with the same conditions, and there is no need to evacuate them. Israel will compensate the Palestinians for the land and will not expel the settlers. This is the essence of the framework for any future peace agreement.
Naturally, there will be all sorts of contradictory analyses about the motives behind Labor's new approach. It could be said that this is an updated outlook, but also that it stems from opportunism that seeks to garner support before the next elections. Most likely, it is a combination of worthy and less worthy motives.
The new outline was welcomed in an original and enlightening manner. Habayit Hayehudi MK Yinon Magal and the Peace Now movement both backed it, while Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely and the right-wing Im Tirzu movement expressed reservations. It is natural that people from Likud mock their Labor counterparts for reaching the conclusion in question so late, but it would be better for them to accept that fact happily. That is the most important thing.
This is not to say that the new outline must be accepted completely. Not all of its points are feasible. An Israeli response to the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 would look outdated. But those are addenda. The main thing is that the centrist-moderate faction of the Likud, which gives at least verbal support to the solution of two states for two peoples, and the core of Labor, both do not see settlements as an obstacle to peace, but rather as an issue that should be included in any future deal.
The new gambit was launched just as the Blue White Future movement announced -- based on psychological research from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya -- that the settler public is more moderate than one might think. According to the movement, the settlers "see loyalty to Israel as a supreme value, and so in certain circumstances would agree to a withdrawal."
The change announced on Monday without any opposition by the left flank of Labor leads us to conclude that in the future, if an opportunity presents itself, conditions will be more favorable for the Zionist Union (the Labor-Hatnuah joint ticket) to join the government.
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