Turnabout thoughts in and out of season

Can somebody to comment about this article?

Israel's Right - a field guide

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent

Half a year after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced its broad outlines, his disengagement plan remains firmly clamped to the drawing board - still undergoing refinements and revisions, still as many as eight months or more even from a cabinet green light for the slightest hint of substantive implementation.

Nonetheless, perhaps more than any development since the Oslo process, the initiative has radically re-engineered the workings of Israel's right, rescuing old names from obscurity and seclusion, thrusting new and controversial figures into key roles.

Certainly, change is no stranger to the right. Of the many names by which the nation's rightists are known, one is conspicuous by its absence: conservatives.

In fact, the tradition of the right in Israel is one of unceasing ferment, a volcanic process of perpetual revolution and re-invention. Molded by decades spent in the political shadow of the Labor collossus, the Likud, flagship of the Israeli right, lifeboat of the embittered Sephardi Second Israel, became a force that - even when it ruled the country - has ever and always remained a party in opposition.

An expression, even today, of reaction to the pro-socialist establishment that once controlled Israel from statecraft to sports, from diplomacy to department stores, from agriculture to popular culture, the rightist tradition is determinedly iconoclastic, founded in the rebellions represented by Menachem Begin's Irgun Zva'i Leumi pre-state underground, Yitzhak Shamir's even more militant Lehi armed group, and the come-what-may settlement cadres of Gush Emunim.

For decades, internal rightist political activity has been at once stoked and undermined by what may be called the Davka Factor - the contrarian, attention-attracting lurch to the further right, of which Ariel Sharon, for decades the leading also-ran of his creation the Likud, was a principal exponent.

That's how it came to be that dissension among hard-liners in the national camp was what helped end the Likud reigns in 1992 and 1999. In what may be a corollary of the axiom that "Only the Likud-led rightist government can bring peace," it may also be argued that only the right can bring down a Likud-led government.

This year, the tectonic shock of the disengagement plan has jolted the latent oppositionism of the right into the fore once again.

Long opposed to the evacuation of even one settlement, the right - faced with a Sharon plan to level more than one out of every six settlements in the territories - is now struggling with a number of possible responses, including accepting the disengagement as a springboard to future Israeli annexation of West Bank settlement blocs; refusing to follow orders to evacuate; and fighting an indefinite delaying action within the government, against implementation of the plan.

For a growing circle of hawks, the downfall of the Sharon government has become the immediate goal. The Yesha settlers council, the nation's best-oiled political machine, this month vowed to send the government to the bottom. Then Effi Eitam, the gruff, at times messianic chairman of the National Religious Party, jumped ship this month, soon after Sharon shoved the pro-transfer National Union overboard.

At the same time, there are signs of the emergence of a different form of a New Right in Israel - a center-right public that may portend a powerful force in the country's political landscape

The right as center
Earlier this month, the results of a public opinion poll suggested that there has been a shift in the way Israelis have come to view the political spectrum itself.

Asked whether they defined themselves as right, center or left, the Peace Index poll showed that fully 50 percent of Israeli Jews currently define themselves as right, 21 percent as center, and 18 percent as left.

Even though 71 percent defined themselves as right or center, the same poll, taken after Sharon's resounding defeat in the Likud referendum on the Gaza evacuation plan, showed that 63 percent of Israeli Jews believed that the prime minister "should remain in his post and continue promoting the disengagement plan in other ways."

According to Haaretz commentator Gideon Samet, "There has been a major change in the definition of 'right' and 'left.' The right is no longer what it used to be in the time of Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu, and even what it was during Sharon's first term."

As a whole, Samet says, "The right has withdrawn from the dream and the vision of a Greater Israel. Moreover, it has deserted the idea of 'no withdrawals,' and has come close to the center."

Likud voters still regard themselves as belonging to the right, Samet notes, "but what they are saying is no longer the stuff of the right, it's no longer the classic stuff of the Likud."

Within the new climate, with disengagement in the air if not on the ground, the following are a few of the less-renowned principals who have taken notable recent roles in what may be a fateful struggle for Israel's future:

URI ELITZUR

Former bureau chief of the head of the Prime Minister's Office during the Netanyahu administration, Uri Elitzur has long headed election-time public relations for the National Religious Party, and is currently editor of the Yesha settlement council's Nekuda monthly.

Elitzur, who once headed an organization opposed to the evacuation of Sinai settlements under a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, stirred wide reaction last week by writing in a national religious publication that "the uprooting of a settlement is illegal and shocking and thus justifies the refusal of orders, violence excluding the use of firearms, and any method by which an individual is able to defend his home from which he is being evicted for political reasons."

He further advised soldiers to refuse to evacuate settlements because "these would be illegal orders and whoever carries them out would be put on trial."

Heretofore, support for refusal to obey military orders had come largely from the left.

ZVI HENDEL

A farmer by profession, Zvi Hendel is the only member of Knesset who lives in the Gaza Strip, in the settlement of Ganei Tal.

He is a member of the firebrand National Union faction, a far-right amalgam of transfer supporters, anti-compromise settlement officials, and hard-liners who emigrated from the former Soviet Union.

Even before he became one of the most strident anti-disengagement voices of the right, Hendel came to public notice with his response to a reported January 2002 statement by U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, that Israel would rather spend money on settlements in the territories than on its disabled citizens, who were then in the midst of protest strike for government benefits.

"It can't be that Israel allows the interference of a little Jew-boy, a little Jew-boy, that represents the United States ... in an internal Israeli dispute," Hendel told a dumbfounded Knesset.

More recently, Hendel strongly implied that Sharon had devised the disengagement plan in order to divert attention from police investigations into alleged corruption on the part of the prime minister, parodying a one-time Labor diplomatic formulation ("The deeper the peace, the deeper the withdrawal") by saying, "The deeper the investigation, the deeper the withdrawal."

ZEVULUN ORLEV

Leader of the relatively moderate sector of the strongly pro-settlement National Religious Party, Zevulun Orlev is seen as the key to the future of the current Sharon government. When NRP chief Eitam and his predecessor Yitzhak Levy bolted the government - leaving the coalition with only 59 seats in the 120-seat Knesset - it was Orlev who kept the NRP's remaining four legislators in the Sharon camp, keeping the government afloat, at least for the near future.

In an argument that has resonated with Likud backbenchers, who fear new elections could leave them out of parliament, Orlev maintains that the current framework keeps Labor out of a unity government and simultaneously forestalls new elections.

REUVEN RIVLIN

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, who until the disengagement plan was one of Sharon's signal confidantes and vocal champions, has taken advantage of his position to lobby against the initiative during state observances and official functions.

Drawing leftist criticism for politicizing the central Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony, Rivlin dedicated a torch to the Knesset and the "pioneers who go before the camp, those who settle the land of our forefathers and redeem its earth, from Hanita [on the northern border] to Kfar Darom [a Gaza settlement slated for evacuation under the disengagement], and from Negba [in the south] to Kiryat Arba which is Hebron."

Last week, Rivlin followed Sharon in addressing the dedication ceremony of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. Sharon quoted Begin as having said it was his duty to carry out the evacuation of Yamit as part of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. "Until the day I die, I will carry this pain in my heart," Sharon quoted Begin as saying. "But it was my duty as prime minister."

"It is in this spirit that I have acted up until now," Sharon declared, "and this is how I intend to continue."

In Rivlin's address, he responded by quoting Begin as well. "So long as I lead the nation as prime minister," Rivlin quoted Begin as vowing, "I promise that we will not leave any part of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and Jerusalem will be the only capital of Israel forevermore."

What do you think of the term reactionary?

True or false?: Our side desires to make progress. True or false?: The left is incapable of making progress. True or false?: Between us and the left, ours is the only side capable of making genuine progress. OK — so, why are they called Progressives and we not? Shouldn't it be the reverse?

Let's say in some extremely weird cult the members drank poisons that caused harm to themselves — this poison harmed the liver, that one the heart, that the kidneys, that other one the lungs, and so on (so that after a few years the cult members became sick and debilitated). In order to distinguish ourselves from that cult, would we call ourselves the Conservatives? Or, perhaps, the Traditionalists? Of course not. We'd call ourselves the Normals and them the Weirdos. Moreover, calling ourselves one of the other two would almost concede legitimacy to the cult, as if they had a valid point of view which was merely different from ours. That would be not only wrong but ridiculous. Drinking poison isn't the only way to be weird. Is government abolishing races weird? Is government importing literally the entire nations of Mexico, Somalia, and Nigeria with the intention of replacing our original population weird? Is government trying to make men into women and vice-versa weird? Is government encouraging all fifteen-year-old schoolgirls in a England and Wales to perform fellatio on their classmates weird? Is government cracking down on cops because they are too manly (too "macho") or because what is referred to as their after-hours "heavy-drinking bar culture" excludes teetotalers weird? Is outlawing God and abolishing religion weird? Is forcing society to accept the idea of "marriage" between two men who suffer from a sexual perversion weird? Yes, it is? All that — and so much more — is weird? Plenty weird? Well then, does it make sense for us to distinguish ourselves from all that weirdness by calling ourselves "Conservatives" or "Traditionalists"? It wouldn't appear to…

In the poll I favored two choices: "Normal people" and "Progressives." (I had to choose only one, so I chose "Normal people.") I concede nothing to the other side — not legitimacy, not anything.

"Progressive" because conservatism is progressive compared to the old-fashioned "Progressives" who rule at the moment.
http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/title/on+to+restoration On to Restoration!

monarchists.

;)

lazy rich people,crackers,losers white trailer trash,suburbanites with a trailer in his/her minds,weisse untermenschen, garbage pale kids,root beer catholic irish acting as white anglo saxon people,morons,conservatives retardos,disposable people,etc.

I don't particularly care for any of the suggested terms. Well, I like Conservative, but it's a blanket term at this point that is inadequately descriptive for the endeavor.

I like Reclaimers, but it's probably too cheesy.

Hard to come up with something to sum up an opposition to supercilious bullying of liberalism and a return to and inheritance of received tradition as well as a forward-looking rationalism.

I like reactionary.

Here's a thoughtful article on the nature of leftism by a blogger, John Ray, whom I've been aware of for some time now but hadn't really begun exploring until the other day. In this sampling taken almost at random from a very long piece he gets into the "Was Brezhnev a conservative?" paradox among many other analyses of the left-right divide, making lots of points having inevitable bearing on the subject of this Turnabout poll: What should conservative call themselves? Is the appellation "Conservative" satisfactory? (I find it wholly unsatisfactory and, though I use it to refer to myself out of convention -- and sort of cringe inwardly each time I do -- I no more consider myself a "conservative" than I consider myself, let's say, a Country Club Republican -- or the Man in the Moon, for that matter. I continue to feel a name change is needed for our side, while agreeing that's easier said than done. But no, "conservative" is not satisfactory.)

Here's Ray:

"And the great rubric of 'conservative' long fastened on Rightists seems equally moribund. 'Conservative' is generally amplified as meaning 'opposed to change' or 'favouring the status quo' but from the Reagan/Thatcher years onward, Rightists have been the great advocates and practitioners of social and political change. Rightists have been almost revolutionary in tearing down the proud edifices of the Left -- with privatization, deregulation, welfare cutbacks, tax reductions etc. Judging by the politics of the last 20 years, Rightists LOVE change! Certainly, they have clearly and energetically changed what was once the status quo.

"So what is going on? Again, what really IS Leftism/liberalism and WHY are people Leftist/liberal? What, if anything, do people have in common who describe themselves (and are described by others) as 'Leftists,' 'socialists,' 'social democrats,' 'Communists' and (in North America) 'liberals'? However unsatisfactory and apparently simplistic the Left/Right division of the political world may be, there is any amount of research showing it to be a powerful, ubiquitous and perhaps inescapable way of identifying both people and political parties[, ...] so we do need to answer such questions.

"The central proposal here may seem at first paradoxical but it is that attitude to the status quo defines Leftists rather than Rightists. It is proposed that it is not Rightists who are in favour of the status quo. They are in fact indifferent to it and may equally favour it or oppose it according to circumstances. Leftists, on the other hand, always RESENT the status quo in the modern democracies, no matter what. Whatever else the Leftist may be, the bedrock of Leftism is a strong dislike or even a hatred of the way the world is. They have a strong desire or even a need for political change, often extreme change. This does not, of course, mean that Leftists will favour all sorts of change equally. What sort of change the Leftist favours will depend on what it is about the world that the Leftist dislikes. It will depend on the needs that drive his/her desire for change.

"The Rightist, by contrast, generally has no need either for change or its converse. If anything, Rightists favour progress -- both material and social. So most Rightists are conservatives (cautious) not because of their attitude to change per se. On some occasions they may even agree with the particular policy outcomes that the Leftist claims to desire. They resist change, then, mainly when it appears incautious -- and they are cautious (skeptical of the net benefits of particular policies) generally because of their realism about the limitations (selfishness, folly, shortsightedness, aggressiveness etc.) of many of their fellow humans [...]. So it is only vis à vis Leftists that the Right can on some occasions and in some eras appear conservative (cautious about proposals for social change)."
_______

Notice how in the last part of this excerpt Ray makes the obvious point that "Rightists favor progress." It's a point I've made in support of my feeling that the "Progressives" are us, not they who laughably claim to be. Wrongness and untruths cannot make progress, only rightness. Leftism, being wrongness and untruths, is incapable of contributing to social progress. Social progress can come only from our side.

________________________

"If a tree falls and an expert doesn't hear it, is there a sound?" Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.

The nature of conservatism is discussed in a log entry by Martin Hutchinson up tonight at MajorityRights.com and well worth a read (apart from rare blemishes such as where, at the end of the following excerpt, the author refers to Pat Buchanan as a "isolationist nativist").

"The etymology of [the political term 'Conservatism'] is straightforward. The term was first used as a description of a political party in a 50 page article, probably by John Wilson Croker, in the January 1830 Quarterly Review, a publication that generally supported the great Tory governments of 1783-1830, then in their last months of power before losing definitively to the Whigs in November of that year. The 'Conservative' party was indeed the party that sought to preserve what was already there; in this case the specific constitution and policies of those Tory governments, which were by that time embattled.

"After the series of Tory disasters in 1830-32, the term 'Conservative' was picked up by Sir Robert Peel, leader of the Tory remnants, and was used to do three things. First, it was used to reassure traditionalist voters that the party was opposed to further destructive change. Second, it was used to give the party a 'new image' that might appeal to moderates. Third, by stigmatizing them as not 'Conservatives' but 'reactionaries' it was used to de-legitimize the remnants of the Tory right, such as the Duke of Wellington and more distantly the aged Lord Eldon, who were a threat to Peel’s dominance.

"By the time Disraeli became leader of the Conservative Party in 1868, the term had been in use for nearly two generations. It had been set aside after the 1846 split over the Corn Laws, when the party divided into 'Peelites' and 'Protectionists' but had been brought back into full use by Disraeli’s predecessor as leader, the 14th Earl of Derby, after Peel died in 1850 and the party abandoned protectionism in 1852.

"Since the original coiner of a term has a prescriptive right to define its meaning, Conservatism therefore means Conservatism as defined in the Quarterly Review article. It does not mean internationally belligerent Woodrow Wilsonian 'neo-Conservatism' nor the mystical religiously oriented 'social Conservatism' of the U.S. 'red states' nor the isolationist nativist 'paleo-Conservatism' of Patrick Buchanan, nor the leftist social democrat 'Conservatism' of Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath, nor even the 'two nations' modified Whiggery of Disraeli. It means the preservation and where necessary restitution of the constitutional, economic and social policies of the Tory governments of 1783-1830, and in particular of the two great Tory prime ministers William Pitt and Robert, Lord Liverpool."

____

The author draws some stark distinctions between conservatism and libertarianism:

"Conservatism is not libertarianism; individual liberty is an important facet of Conservatism, but it is set within an overall framework of a secure social and constitutional order. Unlike Gladstonian liberalism, Conservatism recognizes the imperfections of mankind, and recognizes also that the perfect nirvana of the libertarian social and political order, with minimal government, minimal economic interference and minimal social regulation would in practice be a perfect hell for all but the toughest and least scrupulous. Without government imposing a rule of law, crime would soar unchecked; without market 'rules of the game' (preferably imposed by practitioners rather than by government) fraud and criminality would run rampant; without social order, decent family life would collapse."

____

The following characterization of King George III (the king whose judgment in regard to the American Colonies was so faulty he's thought to have been borderline-insane) will surprise Americans:

"A wise monarch such as George III could be very helpful to Conservatism;"

____

A perfectly legitimate part of the Church's societal role:

"The Church played an important role in all this. Both Pitt and Liverpool were no more than conventionally church-going, with a strong admixture of the rationalism of David Hume. Nevertheless the Church hierarchy played an important social role. By encouraging an Established Church, for example embarking in 1818 on a substantial church building program in factory towns, Pitt and Liverpool ensured that conventional morality and respect for the constitutional order would be well propagated among the entire community and that sectarian or milleniarist religious radicalism would be discouraged. By discouraging vice and encouraging loyalty, Tory bishops and clergy were doing society’s work as well as God’s. Outside moral questions, the Church had a major voice in political, economic and scientific matters through the Bishops’ membership of the House of Lords, but it did not dominate them."

____

As I said, the piece contains blemishes. Here's one:

"a Conservative believes that the world’s population is of inadequate and in rich countries worsening average quality, in terms of intelligence and education, and welcomes advances in genetics as a means towards changing this."

I don't see where an endorsement of eugenics has a role to play in genuine conservatism. I'm open to persuasion. But I just don't see it.
________________________

Long live Flanders!

How about Conservative Revolutionaries?

Either that or Traditionalist or Reactionaries is good IMHO.