Similar challenges stare at Israel’s Labour Party & India’s Congress party

The politics of Israel and India demands a study in resemblance. But perhaps the most pronounced similarity in these two countries is in the domination of Labour Party and Congress in the first three decades of their respective existence and then the subsequent rise of rightist parties like Likud––for a brief period even breakaway Kadima and BJP.

Seven decades later both Labour and Congress are facing identical challenges. While Labour––under a different nomenclature till 1968––ruled Israel from 1948 to 1977, the Congress ruled between 1947 and 1977. Though both the parties have made enormous contributions in the initial decades––be it the victory in Six-Day War in 1967 in case of Israel or liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 by India––yet today the rightist opponents in power accuse them of making compromises with Palestine and Pakistan. While Labour is out of power since 2001 and last time it won any election was in 1999, in India the Congress suffered its worst defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha election. They both have now new leaders who are trying to adopt a different approach.

Forty-seven year old Rahul Gandhi took over as the president of Congress on December 16, the day Indian army won the greatest victory 46 years ago Avi Gabbay took over as the leader of Labour Party on July 10, 2017. Labour could not retain its ground after the assassination of the then serving prime minister Yitzhak Rabin not by any Palestinian militant but by an ultra-nationalist Jew, Yigal Amir on November 4, 1995 in protest against the signing of Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Similarly, the Congress could not actually retain its hold after the assassinations of its two leaders–– serving prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991. Now both Labour and Congress under the new leaders are planning to beat the rightist forces in power in their respective countries in their own game. While Gabbay is adopting the concept of new Labour as was enunciated by Tony Blair in Britain, the campaign recently undertaken by Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat in the recent Assembly election was a significant departure from the past. But both Gabbay and Rahul Gandhi are facing a challenge very much different from Britain where Blair just dropped the commitment to nationalising industry.

Both Likud and BJP–– now in power––are ready to exploit the emotive issue of Ayodhya as well as Jerusalem respectively. So, when Rahul adopted a different poll strategy recently, Gabbay welcomed President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, yet he backed the twonation solution.

Gabbay told Israel Radio: “We have to announce an end to settlement-building outside the [major settlement] blocs, to transfer Palestinian villages and neighborhoods in [Israeli-controlled areas of] the West Bank to civil Palestinian control. There is no realistic solution other than two states for two peoples.” Mind it Rabin was assassinated on the night of November 4, 1995 when he was leading a peace rally. He had shared Nobel Peace Prize with his own foreign minister Shimon Peres and PLO leader Yasser Arafat after the Accords. If Indira Gandhi led India to the famous victory of 1971 Rabin, as the Chief of General Staff of Israeli Defence Force between 1964 and 1968, was the hero of Israel’s equally memorable victory in the 1967 War. Today with 19 MPs in the Knesset of 120 Labour is almost as weak as the Congress which has 44 seats in the House of 543. Yet both the new leaders are putting their fingers crossed that their right-to-centre approach may yield result in the world which is largely tilting right-ward––barring of course Nepal.