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PARTISAN REVIEW
would now feel at home. They constitute seventeen percent of the
Israeli population (not counting the Palestinians in the territories).
But the legitimate demands they make of what has become their
country can be met without denying the Jewish majority its right to
define the central characteristics of the state. A left which is cut off
from the desire of the majority for self-determination can never lead
the nation.
The language of the left is dominated by the negativism of op–
position-opposition to "clerical nationalism," opposition to "racism,"
opposition to brutality against Arabs living under "the occupation."
In a peculiar way, the no's of the left parody the "no" of the Israeli
right to flexible diplomacy . But a political movement which cuts itself
off from the national imperatives has no part in the political solutions
to the problems of the nation. It becomes inward, closed, doctrinaire,
and makes up in militancy what it lacks in support.
The hopeful sign is that Peres's stumbling attempts to recapture
the center are reflected rather more articulately by a significant group
of intellectuals trying to recreate the "dialogue with the majority." The
left must learn to clip the wings of its own soaring rhetoric, and com–
municate with the mainstream of Israeli society. Unless it learns to
do so, Israeli political culture will continue to be torn by false messi–
anism, bitter confusion, and hollow confirmations of the national self.
