Can the Labor Partys Merav Michaeli save the Israeli left?
For years, Merav Michaeli has worn only black. Shes done a TEDx Talk pushing to cancel marriage. She casually quotes bell hooks. A few months ago, the former television personality became the unlikely head of Israels Labor Party. At a youthful 54, she is the latest last hope of the beleaguered Israeli left and, barring another unforeseen twist, a key member of its new government. I have been in the public eye for most of my adult life, Michaeli said. For the past 25 years I have been, as my beloved nonhusband calls it, a professional feminist. In Israel, we started late, in the mid-90s, and this feminist wave that came thenI was privileged to have a big part in that.  Advertisement  I first spoke to Michaeli before the recent Gaza War. At the time, Labor was part of a promising drive for a parliamentary change bloca right-center-left coalition united by its desire to oust the government of the increasingly lawless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under indictment in multiple bribery and fraud cases. Advertisement  Advertisement  My interview was pushed back again and again. I could almost feel the sweat coming off Michaelis comms persons WhatsApp messages. At one point, Michaeli called from a traffic jam and I heard her frustratingly reference Israels beloved map app: Aval lama lo histaklata al ha Waze?Why didnt you look at Waze?  After we first spoke, and as the change bloc was nearing an agreement to form a government, the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah became the unexpected locus of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Palestinian families fought eviction orders that would have seen them kicked out of homes theyve lived in for decades; Palestinian protesters bolstered the cause with street marches; and Israeli police responded with panicked, heavy-handed tactics that injured hundreds of Palestinians. What began as a civil protest movement became a military confrontation when Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces began a new round of retaliatory missile launches and airstrikes. According to the Gaza health ministry, after 11 days of fighting, 243 people were killed; among them were more than 100 women and children. According to Israels medical service, 12 Israelis, including two children, were killed. Within Israels mixed townsplaces where both Arabs and Jews livemob violence erupted. Advertisement  Advertisement  It escaped no ones attention that the conflict arose just as the change bloc was moving toward forming a coalition to replace the prime minister. Its clear that the tensions in Jerusalem and in Gaza and with the Israeli Arabs were mishandled, she said. It really is bad either way. The problem with Netanyahu is the fact that people even think it was intended. It goes to show you that he does not have a legitimacy as a leader any more. I dont know, she said. I really do not know. What I know is that the mere fact such a question is hovering over us is alone bad enough.  Advertisement  I moved on to one of the original sparks of the current tensions: the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah. I was curious to hear how Michaeli, if she had been in control of the situation, would have handled it differently. I would have handled everything differently, she answered. Its not how you deal with the crisis already on the ground. Its the whole attitude toward the Israeli Arab citizens that deserve a much more equal care by the government.  Advertisement  In any event, if the conflict was part of a gambit by Netanyahu to hold onto power, it didnt work. At the end of May, and beginning of June, the eight parties of the change bloc finally agreed to form a government. Naftali Bennett of the right-wing Yamina party will serve as prime minister for two years, followed by Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atidassuming this unlikely coalition of right-wing, centrist, left-wing, and Islamist parties lasts that long. With only a 61-vote majority in the Knesset, basically every part in the coalition will have a veto, including Labor. Michaeli is currently expected to serve as transportation minister in the new government, which is already putting her in the midst of contentious disputes over settlement construction in the West Bank. The formation of the government was nearly held up by last-minute wrangling between Labor and Yamina over a key judiciary panel. Advertisement  This is still a long way from the past power of the party of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin, but under Michaelis leadership, Labor at least will have a seat at the table again. Its not a path many would have expected earlier in her career. Michaeli first made a name for herself as a talk show host in the early 90s. Eventually she developed into a public intellectual with a presence on campus-lecture circuits and an advocate for sexual assault survivors. She joined the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, as a member of the Labor Party in 2013. During the run-up to Israels latest election in Marchits fourth in two yearsvintage Michaeli clips made the rounds. One, a bit from an old talk show, featured Michaeli and then newsman Yair Lapid climbing out from behind a couch, pretending theyd just had sex. Back in those days, Michaeli and Lapid were just two telegenic celebrities. Advertisement  Labor is Israels historically dominant leftist faction but has been hemorrhaging voters for decades as Israel has moved rightward. After the previous election cycle, just last year, then-leaders broke a promise not to join a Netanyahu-led coalition. Michaeli was the only Labor Member of Knesset to refuse to go along with it. She stayed in the Knesset as a rogue, unaffiliated member of Labor. She was, as she put it, a one-person opposition.  Advertisement  Advertisement  The split suggested Labor was truly crumbling. Additionally, polling indicated that in the fourth election, Labor would fail to pass the minimum threshold of votes required to join the Knesset. The consensus was that it was over and done with, Michaeli said. Really, its dead, and that is the end. But when Michaeli won the primary to lead Labor, suddenly, the party shot up in the polls. And when Michaelis Labor eventually managed to win a respectable seven seats in the fourth election, it seemed a minor miracle. Haaretzs Uri Misgav wrote, Israels bruised and vilified Zionist left, the object of endless ridicule by its myriad enemies and detractors  came off the respirator on Tuesday evening.  Advertisement  Any positive feeling was tempered, Misgav made sure to point out, by simultaneous historic gains made by a gaggle of far-right extremist groups, who all won Knesset seats, including Kahane Chai (deemed an illegal terror organization by the state in 1994) and Itamar Ben-Gvirs Lehava. In the short term, Michaelis Labor Party is the first ever female-majority faction in Israeli Parliament, she said. (Of Labors seven Knesset seats, four are held by women.) In the long term, we look at life through the angle of equality. Not just gender equality but equality for human beings. Any issue that we are dealing with has a feminist angle to it. Where are the inequalities, and how can we fix them?  Advertisement  Its an elegant answer that cuts through a lot of thorny issues. Equality! Equality! In practice, the terminology can feel stilted or forced. As Haaretzs Allison Kaplan Sommer reported from a Michaeli campaign stop, Her metaphor for the current state of the Labor Party is that of a battered woman. (In our conversation, Michaeli said, the center-left camp has been behaving like the victim of violence that it is.)  We here in the center-left political camp need American Jews not to give up on Israel, and not to give up on us.  Merav Michaeli  Michaeli pines for Israel to return to an American-style two-party system in which Likud represents the traditional right and Labor represents the traditional left. She argues that Israel is deeply sunk in its never-ending political crisis because theres only one ruling party, and its Likud. This is not a democracy when you only have one ruling party. She catches herself. Critics of Israel argue Israels self-vaunted democracy is, in reality, fundamentally compromised by the occupation. Human Rights Watch just labeled it an apartheid state. But that, surely, is a more radical point of view than Michaeli intends to espouse. Advertisement  I mean, its not not a democracy, she continues. But its a flawed democracy. Like many other Western democraciesincluding the U.S.it is facing serious challenges and hardships and it is being, sometimes, eroded. But Im not saying that Israel is not a democracy anymore.  Advertisement  As Michaeli campaigned, the reactions to her vision of Labor were impassioned. The extreme Left has taken over the Labor Party, one Jerusalem Post column screamed. Merav Michaelis nihilism will make Labor fall further from grace, squealed another. The reactionary critique is rooted both in the personal (Michaelis decision not to have children, in particular, provokes dismay) and in the political: Even Michaelis mild critiques of the state are deemed treasonous. Advertisement  From another point of view, Michaelis Labor is, naturally, seen as not nearly radical enough. The famously leftist journalist Gideon Levy argued that Israels Jews must vote for the Joint List, the Arab bloc. Anyone who dreams of genuine change, not [just] about replacing Netanyahu  must vote for the Joint List.  Michaeli, understandably, is focused primarily on replacing Netanyahu, and she seems to ascribe much of Israels political climate to Netanyahu alone. Israel is living in the Netanyahu era, she said. Its the process thats been going on ever since 93, when he became chairman of Likud and he started the campaign against the left and against the Arabs and against peace. (Netanyahu didnt become prime minister until 1996, for a three-year stint, and then again in 2009, until the current day.) He introduced to Israel language and standards that never existed before. He turned the word left into a curse, meaning a pejorative. Now the word left is evil. People are afraid to be called left! Seriously! It really is a synonym for treason. Shes not wrong. Advertisement  Advertisement  Michaeli is careful to explain that, in her view, Labor is now just at the beginning of something. We here in the center-left political camp need American Jews not to give up on Israel, and not to give up on us, she said. The political right in Israel is so heavily supported by this huge influence industry that is financed by very rich American right-wing Jews and the equivalent on the other side does not exist. So, Im telling them not only not to give up but, au contraire! This is the time to invest in us! Theres so much potential in Israel. Its here.  Throughout this latest round of violence, Michaeli was vocal in her support for the IDF. I ask her if its actually possible for an Israeli politician to criticize the IDF, or if doing so would be career suicide. Advertisement  I think I have criticized the army as a politician, more than once, she said. (Later, her comms person explains that Michaelis criticisms are rooted in lack of opportunities for women inside the IDF.) As for the recent crisis, she said, In this case the problem is not the armythe problem is the policy. And Netanyahu is the one responsible for the policy.  Advertisement  Advertisement  This is what Michaeli is best at: presenting a humane, positive, and intelligent face for the Israeli left. Even if the undergirding facts suggest otherwise, it feels like she could be a sane savior. When she is covered in American mediaher accent in English is almost as pristine as Netanyahusthe focus is usually on the feminist credentials. Theres less talk on how Michaeli does not support the International Criminal Courts investigation into Israeli war crimes in Palestine. After the clashes both in Jerusalem and in the mixed towns throughout Israel, it felt like the idea of coexistence between Arabs and Jews had been revealed as a myth, or a lie. Michaeli, ever hopeful, didnt see it that way. The majority, both of Jews and Arabs in Israel, are peaceful people who want to recognize the other as a human person, she argued. And there is the potential for coexistencenot coexistence, a shared society. A much more just and equal one thats thriving. The majority are people who totally see the possibility of peaceful coexistence. To bolster her case, she mentioned Israeli media reports that a majority of Israeli Arabs who had committed acts of violence had previous criminal records. But there were also clearly documented cases of extremist Jewish mob violence, calculatedly and carefully organized via WhatsApp groups. And yet 90 percent of the indictments over the clashes in the mixed cities were Arab. When I cite the stat, she said, Listen, I never think that the blame game is constructive. There was a lot of Arab violence and Jewish violence but now, trying to figure out the percentage from each sideI dont see how that leads us anywhere. What we need is healing.