The American Jewish Committee

At the end of the day—or rather, almost at the break of dawn on Sunday, after some of the papers had already gone to press—it was personalities, not issues, that shaped the political identity of the emerging coalition government in Israel:

·        For Amram Mitzna, who is intent now on leading a reluctant Labor Party into the wilderness (for the time being), the problem was not that Sharon did not say many of the things that Labor wanted to hear, regarding the future of the peace process. The prime minister actually hinted at real efforts to work within the so-called Bush vision of June 24, 2002, and wrote a reference to his speech at the (AJC-cosponsored) Herzliya Conference in December into the government’s guidelines. In that speech, he had outlined possible progress toward a provisional—but viable— Palestinian state. Mitzna’s difficulty was that he simply does not trust Sharon at all, and he therefore demanded a written commitment (an implied insult, to which Sharon responded by looking out the window and praising the weather). The Labor negotiators then added to the hurt by demanding categorically that the National Religious Party—“the settlers’ party,” as many on the left regard it—should be kept out of the coalition. (Again, Peres has voiced open criticism of this attempt to delegitimize a movement that has historical been an ally of Labor over the years.)

·        For Sharon, who genuinely wanted Labor (and Peres personally) as his partners, Mitzna’s demand crossed the line; as one of Sharon’s key startegists explained to me, he wanted Likud placed at the ideological center, not at the far-right wing, of the emerging coalition. Sharon therefore responded by making the NRP the first to sign the coalition agreement. (Natan Sharansky signed even earlier, but that was a merger into Likud, not an agreement between two parties.) The enabling factor was a set of agreements achieved earlier, in fascinating talks between the NRP and Shinui leader Tommy Lapid. One must bear in mind that the latter’s “anti-Orthodox” ire was directed mostly at the non-Zionist, Ultra-Orthodox parties, whose young voters often do not serve in the IDF, and whose members are perceived as being reluctant to work or pay taxes. A strongly Zionist party such as NRP, with an ideology of service and hard work, is a different matter. Hence what Shas and United Torah Judaism politicians who found themselves outside the coalition now nastily call “the New Alliance” (Ha’Brith ha’Hadasha) between Tommy (Lapid) and Effie (Eitam), using a term also used to denote the New Testament.

`           The NRP-Shinui accords gave Sharon sixty-one seats in the Knesset (forty Likud MKs, with Sharansky’s two; fifteen from Shinui; six from NRP), which will become sixty-eight when the far-right National Union joins in. This is an almost unassailable position: Under the new Basic Law, functioning as a makeshift Constitution, it would require a “constructive” vote of no confidence, meaning that everyone opposing the government would not only unite to bring it down, but would also suggest another (agreed upon) prime minister. Such an agreement—between Shas and the Arab parties, for example—is next to impossible. Meanwhile, even if the far-right National Union Party joins, Sharon would try to leave the door slightly ajar for Labor to rethink its position. One way or the other, this coalition will last.

            What will it do? With dramatic events, changes, and choices lying right ahead, it is somewhat idle to speculate. Still, it is possible to focus on a number of key issues:

·        The Palestinians: In many respects, the NRP is to the right even of Avigdor Lieberman’s National Union as regards the outline of any future negotiations; and yet they tend to focus more on practical aspects—mainly the fate of the settlements—than on the overall rejection of any Palestinian state. (Eitam, the NRP leader, a hawkish former brigadier general who will serve as the minister of housing, has actually proposed that the Egyptians make room for a Palestinian state in Sinai.) This has enabled Sharon to remain committed to the Bush outline and to his own Herzliya text, without alienating the NRP, whereas for the National Union these issues proved to be a difficult issue which delayed the agreement. Ultimately, in the head count of leading voices in the new government, the nay-sayers— Netanyahu (although he has now redefined his objection to a Palestinian “state” as a question of “semantics”), Eitam, even Lieberman—will be outweighed by pragmatic hawks who uphold the Bush outline, such as Sharon himself, Mofaz at Defense, Lapid, and Ehud Olmert, whose pragmatism is probably the reason why Sharon wants him in the inner circle. (He has now resigned his position as the mayor of Jerusalem, after nine years, and has been replaced by a remarkable Haredi politician, Uri Lupoliansky, a cheerful and surprisingly open-minded man, who prior to his stint as deputy mayor had been the founder and director of Yad Sarah, an important charity which provides wheelchairs, walking supports, and similar equipment to the needy.)

·        The Economy (stupid…) is widely recognized now as one of the most important fronts in our long war on Palestinian terrorism. If national resilience is to be the ultimate test, it largely depends on reversing the course of economic decline and social dislocation upon which we have been set since 2001,  with the collapse of the global high-tech and telecommunications market as a major contributing factor. Israel is still a land of opportunity that could once again draw investments in cutting-edge industries, from genetics to nano-technologies, but this is unlikely  without a restabilization of the financial environment, and a “shot in the arm” in the form of U.S. aid and loan guarantees. The prerequisite for both is a quick end to the ballooning budget deficit, through spending cuts rather than through higher taxes: one more reason for Sharon to keep Shas, UTJ, and the Trade Union Party “Am Echad” (One People) out of the coalition. Each would put on the table costly demands for social services and cash transfers, which the country can no longer afford.

·        Social Issues: Sharon’s problem is that the elitist, well-heeled, and almost exclusively Ashkenazi composition of his cabinet will open his flank to charges of social neglect and of shortchanging the needs of the poor—in which Shas might join hands even with the far left to protest cuts in child allowances, and the effects of “downsizing” in the public sector might spill into the streets. On the more immediate level, such tensions could cost Likud mayors dearly in the municipal elections this year.

·        Religious Affairs: The main points of the Lapid-Eitam accords are not earth-shattering from a radical secularist, or a non-Orthodox denominational, point of view. Thus, for example, “Who is a Jew” (i.e., what is a valid conversion?) will continue to be managed through the Ne’eman Commission. Still, they agreed:

1.      To abolish the recent law on military service, which favored Haredi young men who do not serve. They instead agreed to establish a commission to study solutions that would encourage enlistment;

2.      To abolish the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the local religious councils;

3.      To establish a commission to find a solution to all cases in which the existing personal status laws ban people from marrying each other. (This falls well short of Shinui’s original promise to permit civil marriages for all who want them.)

4.      To add Sunday as a second day of rest.

Ultimately, implementation, as usual, will depend less on the formal language of agreements and much more on the interpersonal dynamics of this highly unusual, almost revolutionary government. All three partners have an interest in reducing Haredi power in Israeli politics: Likud, because most of the Shas vote came at their expense since the late 1980s; Shinui, because their amazing rise represents the yearning of Israelis—young people, the urban middle class, the traditional backbone of Israeli society—for a more equitable burden-sharing; and the NRP, because for too long the Ultra-Orthodox, feeding on state subsidies for their stricter institutions, ate away at the religious legitimacy of Modern Orthodoxy (and pushed it to redefine itself in the wilder landscapes of messianic nationalism).

            The great winners are Shinui, who ended up with no fewer than five ministers and six portfolios (to the obvious dismay of hungry Likud politicos—but then Sharon’s bid was to secure Shinui’s long-term loyalty, and that he did). In addition to Lapid at Justice, an appointment which the far right and the Haredi parties see as enhancing an already pronounced tendency toward a proactive Supreme Court, Earl Warren-style, Avraham Poraz at Interior is likely to have a noticeable impact on citizenship and identity issues, which for most of the ‘90s were in the hands of Shas. Moreover, the Communications portfolio will also be assigned to his ministry, as part of a cost-cutting program. Infrastructure (which will go to a radical secularist activist, Yossi Paritzky); Environment (Yehudit Naot) and Science (Modi Zandberg) are second-tier but influential ministries, not so much in terms of the jobs they can fix— not Shinui’s style, anyway—but rather in their potential impact on Israel’s dealing with the outside world.