The Price of the Left
by Michael Freund
September 30, 2003

There was something truly sinister about this past Friday's
edition of Haaretz, the paper of record of Israel's left.

Although it was the eve of Rosh Hashanah, which is
traditionally a time for spiritual introspection and
national unity, the editors of Haaretz had other,
far less holy thoughts on their minds.

After three months and countless hours of investigation by
over a dozen of its top journalists, the paper decided to
devote an entire special section of its holiday edition to
"The price of the settlements".

The 40-page (!!) pullout, complete with charts, maps and
colorful graphs, was clearly designed with one goal in mind:
to persuade the Israeli public that the Jewish settlement
enterprise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza has been one big,
costly mistake.

Haaretz, of course, has every right to adopt such a position,
even if it appears to have more in common with Palestinian
nationalism than with Zionism.

And, in fact, this has long been the paper's stance, as Editor
in Chief Hanoch Marmari himself pointed out in last week's
special section. "Since the Six Day War of 1967," Marmori
wrote, "Haaretz has published more than 10,000 editorials…
Many of them - hundreds - over the years addressed the need
to evacuate the settlements in order to make possible the
establishment of a viable Palestinian state."

Aside from the questionable methodology employed by the
newspaper, which compared the cost of providing services in 
distant, outlying settlements with those offered in the center of 
the country, there is something far more disturbing at work here.

After all, what does it say about the Left's worldview when
they begin to place a price tag on minority groups within society?
Do they mean to suggest that some groups are "worth" the price
involved, while others are not?

To appreciate just how chilling this entire approach can be,
try replacing the word "settlements" in the Haaretz report with
"the elderly", or "Ethiopian immigrants", or "development towns".
You would rightly be denounced as heartless or racist or both.

It should go without saying that Israeli citizens over the
so-called Green Line are entitled to the same array of government
services as their fellow citizens living within pre-1967 Israel.
But the entire thrust of the Haaretz report seems aimed at
singling out the settlers and effectively presenting them as
pricey parasites sucking the country dry.

The result is the demonization of an entire population group,
one that loyally serves in the army, pays its taxes and
defends the state.

Indeed, the authors of the Haaretz report seem to think
that the cost of providing protection to Jewish settlers
is the fault of the settlers themselves, rather than of
those attacking them.

But that's like blaming the victim of a robbery for the
high cost of catching criminals. If Palestinian terrorism
did not exist, there would be no need to spend billions
defending against it.

Moreover, if we start applying Haaretz' cost-benefit
analyses to other parts of the country, what might one
conclude about front-line communities such as Kiryat
Shmona in the north or Sderot in the south? Are they
"worth" the extra defense budgets they require because
they sit near a boundary line adjacent to hostile forces?

But, to really grasp the absurdity of all this, just
consider an alternative report one could draw up regarding,
say, "The Price of the Left".

To begin with, one would have to take into account the
billions in shekels that have gone to keep the kibbutzim
afloat over the years. In March 1996, the government agreed
to a 5.9 billion NIS plan to save some 76 kibbutzim from
bankruptcy.

Under the arrangement, the kibbutzim were allowed to write off
most of their debt and reschedule the rest over a generous
20-year period, all at taxpayer expense, no less.

This deal came barely 7 years after a December 1989 government
rescue plan in which the kibbutzim saw another 1.67 billion NIS
written off as well. At the time, the kibbutzim promised not to
seek government assistance again in the future.

On top of the "price of the kibbutzim", one should also throw in
the cost of Israel's failed socialist system, which was established,
cultivated and developed by the Left throughout the decades in
which it held power. Punitive tax rates of 50% on individual income,
endless bureaucratic red tape and archaic labor laws have all
served
to stifle Israel's entrepreneurial spirit and energies.

The Left's economic legacy was on display earlier this week,
as the Histadrut labor union shut down government offices while
customs agents caused a near-riot at Ben-Gurion International
Airport due to the work stoppage.

Who knows how many billions have been lost over the years as
a result of the Left's mishandling of the economy?

And, while we are on the subject, what about the high cost
in blood that the Left's failed peace policies have bequeathed
the country? It is thanks to the Oslo Accords that Israel
has seen over 1,100 of its citizens murdered in the past
decade in Palestinian terror attacks, with thousands of
others injured.

The human toll and economic cost of the Left's diplomatic
disaster has been, quite simply, incalculable. By bringing
the PLO army to our borders, and giving them guns, the Left
has imperiled the future of the State, weakening Israel
strategically and subjecting it to carnage and conflict.

Add it all together - the kibbutzim, the socialism and Oslo
- and the result you get for "The Price of the Left" is a
pretty hefty figure, one that almost certainly exceeds the
so-called cost of the settlements.

So the next time Haaretz decides to reach for their
calculators, they might want to stop and consider the
wisdom of such an approach.

Because the numbers, as they say, just don't add up.
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The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications &
Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former
premier Benjamin Netanyahu.