Isaac Herzog's plea to the Labor Party to shed their 'Arab-loving' image is the latest in a series of pathetic attempts to pander to the right. Might offering a viable political and moral alternative to the right do the trick? By Orly Noy Labor leader Isaac Herzog was absolutely right when he said on Tuesday that his party is a fountain of endless and unremitting Arab loving. As the following (very partial) selection of quotes may attest, adulation of Arabs is a long-held Labor Party tradition: In 1981, during an election rally in Beit Shemesh, former Chief of Staff and…

Like Netanyahu, who harped on Iran, ISIS, and the Arab citizens voting in droves, the left has a bunch of fears that it can stoke and channel in its favor. All it needs to take its gloves off and go down to business. By Elie Podeh The Knesset election results have put the left on the defensive. It has since had to explain why it lost, and the blame was placed on the usual suspects: An ineffective campaign, a lack of charismatic leadership, abandoning peripheral and low-income populations, demographic trends in Israeli society, and more. The truth of the matter…

It is a shameful lie to make opposition to 47-year military rule an issue of supporters or traitors of Israel. The war in Gaza yielded a large crop of articles about Liberal Zionism. Suddenly numerous authors felt an urgent need to reject, redefine, defend or deconstruct a term that the vast majority of Israelis have never heard of. However, Israelis are familiar with the same basic concept, except they call it the “Zionist Left,” or national left. They embrace the label “Zionism,” but unlike diaspora-based writers, don’t spend too much time trying to define it.  I can’t recall anything like…

Following the public refusal of 43 reservists of the IDF's 8200 intelligence unit, politicians and other veterans of the unit have openly denounced the reservists, viewing their refusal as an unacceptable politicization of their army service. Political leaders both from the government and the opposition condemned 43 reservists from Israel’s prestigious 8200 intelligence unit who stated their refusal to take part in intelligence-gathering activities that, they claim, deepen Israel’s military rule over Palestinians. Unlike the issue of refusal during Protective Edge, which was hardly noticed or covered during the war, the 8200 letter grabbed headlines over the weekend, appeared on most major news Internet sites,…

I was never a big fan of Merav Michaeli during her showbiz career. But I have to admit: over the past two years, since her writing in Haaretz and political career began - I've been hooked. Now, as a newly elected Labor MK, she has the chance to live up to the high expectations many have of her. Yair Lapid, who promised his voters “new politics” but instead gave them cooperation with Naftali Bennett's right-wing Jewish Home party, could learn a bit about the real change that is needed in this place from Michaeli’s inaugural speech in the Knesset last…

With all due respect to Meretz and Hadash ...  Until yesterday, the occupation was not an issue in the Israeli election campaign; the only parties running against it were Meretz and the non-Zionist, Arab or largely Arab slates, all of which are marginal to the country's politics. But with Amir Peretz's departure from the Labor Party for Hatnuah (The Movement), where he will be No. 3 after Tzipi Livni and Amram Mitzna, there is now a mainstream party with a critical mass of leadership material at the top whose focus is on ending the conflict with the Palestinians, and whose…