Big Time Defeat

The night George McGovern got trounced by Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential race, Barry Goldwater, whom Lyndon Johnson had clobbered eight years earlier, called to commiserate. "George," said Goldwater, "if you have to lose, lose big."

Ehud Barak can take some comfort in Goldwater’s wisdom. Unlike Al Gore, who will likely be wondering for some time how he could have put just a little more English on fate, Barak’s overwhelming defeat to Ariel Sharon leaves little room for second-guessing. He got whumped. And if you had to find one overarching reason why, it is, ironically, the fact that Barak is not a man given to second-guessing.

His campaign slogan in 1999 was "Israel Wants a Change," but from the moment he entered office, it may as well have been "Barak Knows Better." He shunned coalitions and refused to reach out to allies, adversaries and, worst of all, his fellow citizens.

But Barak was not without a singular, brave accomplishment. The issues that define the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will not go away no matter who rules Israel, because the Palestinians will not go away. Barak gave Yasser Arafat an opportunity to show the world that the greatest obstacle to peace is not Israel, but Arafat. Unfortunately, Barak was singularly bad at communicating such issues to his nation and building a consensus around them. Like Binyamin Netanyahu, Barak proved a case study in how great intellect alone does not translate into great political leadership.

As Steven Spiegel points out (p. 6), Israelis did not vote against peace — polls showed the dovish Shimon Peres would have done better than Barak. They were voting for security and against Arafat. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but Sharon may surprise detractors and upset admirers by using that truth as a starting point for reaching some accord with the Palestinians. "Israel will never depart from the path of peace," writes Consul General Yuval Rotem (p. 11). We can all hope that Sharon’s election may not even be so much as a detour.