Eulogizing former Meretz leader and Minister Yossi Sarid, who passed away Dec. 4, is not simply bidding farewell to a gifted and fascinating politician, a man for all seasons with a finely honed pen, a proud leftist. A eulogy of Yossi Sarid is taking leave of a vanishing turn of phrase, of a dying form of discourse and of a sinking political culture. The new speak that has in recent years taken root in every corner of Israel’s public sphere was a foreign tongue to the shrinking camp of which Sarid was one of the most articulate and courageous spokespeople. From conversations I had with him and from assiduous reading of his articles, I came away with the impression that Sarid sensed his words of wisdom were blowing in the wind. He spoke the leftist language of democracy, Judaism and morality to a state that was turning in front of his very eyes increasingly zealous, ultra-Orthodox, nationalistic, right wing and colonial. The political language so familiar to him had become irrelevant in the new Israeli existence.
Sarid’s death is an additional nail in the coffin of rational political discourse based on facts and on an educated analysis of changing realities in Israel, the Middle East and the world. He spoke the language of rationalism to a society and leadership that speak messianics. Sarid held up a mirror to Israeli society, excelled at preaching to the converted, but for others was a pesky fly slamming over and over into a glass window. Recent years saw the political culture based on a tradition of serious debate, universal values and mutual interests replaced by loud arguments steeped in hatred and vulgarity.
