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PARTISAN REVIEW
titled "Revolutionary Guards," "The communist parties of France and
Italy are to [the Israeli communist party] as Brecht is to Ulbrecht."
As for the inflated rhetoric of the left, "IfIsrael is almost Nazi, Nathan
Zach is almost Thomas Mann.
If
Israel is only sick with religious and
nationalistic fanaticism, Nathan Zach is only Nathan Zach."
The split in the left can also be read as the clash between an
emerging "new" and the traditional "old" left. The new left is middle–
class and not necessarily socialist. It is dovish and concerns itself with
civil rights and civil liberties (and is therefore perceived to be anti–
religious). In an article in
Nekuda
(May 30, 1986), the monthly jour–
nal of the Council of Jewish Settlements, Yehuda Zoldan attacked
this new left for a politics based on cultural narcissism and atomized
individuals. "Unlike the past," he wrote, "the secular left now does
not accept national and social views which unite in the realization of
the national renaissance, but [rather] in a wider, more universal,
human vision, at the center of which stands the individual. Society,
the state, the nation (including the family) are merely tools for the
enrichment of the individual life."
Aharon Megged is an Israeli short story writer and novelist who
for many years contributed a weekly column to
Davar.
In March
1986, he published an article in the left-wing
Ai Hamishmar
in which
he turned the full force of his considerable literary talents against this
new and doctrinaire left. "The left - educated, intelligent, master of
morality, the 'salt of the earth' in its own eyes - appears now to be a
small aristocratic minority," suffering from the "arrogance" which is
both cause and effect of its being "cut off from the masses."
Like Eshed, Megged thinks the left has given up the politics of
national reconstruction to the right. Rather than "dirty its hands" in
building a new society, Megged argues, the new left is taken up by
"speeches, protests, demonstrations ." It is as if, he concludes, "they
inherited the pathos of the Revisionists [right-wing Zionists] who
loved the power of words over the power of action."
Supporters of this left can be found demonstrating in solidarity
with Israeli Arabs on "Lands Day" but not living in the hilltop settle–
ments along the border with Lebanon. The left is "apathetic" to the
struggle for Soviet Jewry-and not only failed to welcome Anatoly
Shcharansky when he arrived at Ben Gurion airport, but was posi–
tively ambiguous about his coming home. (Many Soviet Jewish activ–
ists, including Shcharansky's wife Avital, support the right in Israel.)
Megged is emphatically not of the right which he describes as
"a world completely alien to me." He continues to support a solution
