Democratic Palestine : 38 (ص 15)
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- Democratic Palestine : 38 (ص 15)
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«peace» efforts, the US will maintain
its usual protective silence about Israel
creating «facts» on the ground(via the
settling of the new immigrants), which
undermine the search for a just peace.
Religious influence?
The influence of the religious par-
ties was already strongly felt in the
1988 elections when they gained more
Knesset seats, holding the balance bet-
ween the two big blocs, and also put-
ting forth a series of controversial
demands, especially concerning the
question of «who is a Jew.» If any-
thing, the religious forces are even
more prominent in the current gov-
ernmental crisis, but their role has
taken on a slightly different tone. The
nascent tendency among some of these
parties to realize that Jewish security
and well-being may not be compatible
with territorial expansionism has
become more pronounced. This ten-
dency was most clearly represented by
Rabbi Yosef of Shas, the largest
ultraorthodox party, and composed of
Sephardic Jews, which held the immig-
ration and interior ministeries in the
Shamir government. In _ technical
terms, it was Shas that toppled the
government when five of its six MK’s
abstained after Shamir balked at Rabbi
Yosef’s compromise. The rabbi went
on record as saying that Shamir’s pol-
icy «invited bloodshed and war upon
Israel.» In the ensuing political consul-
tations, Shas Rabbi Arieh Deri said
that the party was not asking for spe-
cial demands, but wanted to «do
everything we can to advance the
peace process»(International Herald
Tribune, March 17-18th). A poll pub-
lished by Maariv in late March showed
that 53.1% of the Israeli public sup-
ported Rabbi Yosef’s principle that
peace must be the deciding factor in
forming a new government.
However, there was also a
backlash among the religious forces.
Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz resigned as head
of the Shas Knesset group, protesting
his party fellows’ abstention that
caused Shamir’s downfall. Rabbi Yosef
was sharply criticized by both of
Israel’s chief rabbis(Sephardi and
Ashkenazi) for his statement against
Shamir’s policy. Rabbi Schach, Shas’s
other spiritual mentor, worked to stop
Democratic Palestine, March-April 1990
on April 7th, the biggest demonstration in Israel
since the protest against the Sabra-Shatila
massacre.
the party’s drift toward Labor. His
March 26th speech, a key event in the
congress of another ultraorthodox
party, Degel Hatorah (Torah Flag),
directly attacked Labor and the kibbut-
zim for having distanced themselves
from Judaism. However, he also noted
that «territory doesn’t guarantee exis-
tence.»
In the _ political consultations
aimed at forming a new government,
both Likud and Labor are, as usual,
trying to woo the religious parties to
their side. In the midst of the political
crisis, the Knesset approved the budget
for the fiscal year 1990-91. Of the total
$31.2 billion budget adopted, $100
million was approved for settlement-
building, while $110 million was allo-
cated to religious institutions - a point
on which both Likud and Labor MK’s
concurred. This gives the religious
institutions over two times the budget
allocations they received last year, and
again raises the questions of whether
the orthodox parties hold dispropor-
tional power when compared to the
fact that the great majority of Israelis
are non-religious.
One should not overlook, how-
ever, that the influence of the religious
parties is built into the Israeli political
structure. Zionism needs Judaism, for
without it Israel stands naked as the
colonial state it is. Thus, making a pre-
tense of deferring to the religious
forces is necessary for garnering sup-
port domestically and internationally.
It is no accident that the role of the
religious forces becomes even more
prominent when the society is in crisis.
So far, the intifada has deepened the
polarization in Israeli society, but with-
out yet inducing a clear consensus in
either direction, though the movement
towards right-wing extremism appears
stronger than left-leaning tendencies.
Generally, the Israeli public is split 50-
50 on crucial issues concerning the
occupied territories like withdrawal,
annexation, mass expulsion of Palesti-
nians, etc. In this paralysis of the set-
tler state, the religious forces may very
well hold the balance, with a myriad of
secondary questions distracting Israel
from the existential questions it is
loath to face up to.
The happy caretaker
More basic than the distractions
offered by the religious forces is the.
chance for Israeli leaders of all factions
to use the current political crisis to dis-
tract the international community’s
attention from the peace process and
Israeli efforts to block this. On the
domestic scene, the crisis serves to
deflect criticism from the left and the
right of the government’s failures,
including its failure to quell the Pales-
tinian intifada. One might even argue
that Shamir and the Likud generally
are delighted with their role as a
caretaker government. The US is treat-
ing Israel with kid gloves, and a series
of questions are postponed until the
formation of a new government.
Likud is certainly taking advan-
tage of the breathing spell. Within two
weeks of his government’s fall,
caretaker Shamir who is doubling as
defense minister after Rabin’s resigna-
tion, has set in motion plans for
quickly starting five more settlements
in the 1967 occupied territories. These
five settlements were among the eight
decided on by the coalition govern-
ment in 1988, but reportedly post-
poned by Rabin in his capacity as
defense minister due to US protests.
The other three of the original eight
have already been opened: Ofarim and
Tsoref in the West Bank and Kfar
Darom in the Gaza Strip(AP, April
1st). Clearly, as long as the govern-
ment crisis persists, Shamir and _ his
deputies will be working according to
the watchwords: Buy time - and col-
onize!
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