March 31, 2008

Israel's "generous left"

Ynet seems to have stumbled on a survey that tells us what we knew all along: that Israel's "left-wing governments" are not left-wing at all.
It is now official and scientifically sanctioned: A new study has found that left-wing governments are far better for settlers than those led by the right-wing peers. Furthermore, the study also uncovered that left-wing governments are incapable of ceding Israeli lands, and that rightist have far less political clout than commonly assumed.

The study, conducted by Professor Gideon Doron of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Political Science and Professor Maoz Rosenthal, of the Open University’s faculty of Political Science and International Relations, will be presented at an upcoming conference at Tel Aviv University entitled “40 years of Israeli Rule in the Territories and Their Impact on the State”.

The study found that where as rightist governments can make territorial concessions, left-wing governments cannot afford to take such action.
Leaving aside the Vulcan saying, "only Nixon could go to China", could it be that Israel's leftist governments are no leftists at all?

UPDATE: Following a fairly legitimate complaint from a blogging comrade, Charlie Pottins, I have moved the close quote from the word "generous" in the headline and put it to close the quotes around "generous left". I've also made a change to my opening paragraph so as to remove any suggestion that colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing, relentless expansionism and aggression are behaviours of the Israeli left. They are however behaviours of successive Israeli governments since the inception of the state and more by Labour than Likud or, so far, Kadima.

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