Sharon Sticks With the Right
The unity government has been running smoothly so far, but
clearly it was only a matter of time before the wheels began
to squeak, and last week the first time came. Some expected
this to happen earlier, others predicted Sharon would keep
the peace longer, but no one expected him to remain
completely silent through the end of his term in office. In
the complex, chaotic world of Israeli politics one thing is
certain: peace and harmony will not last for long.
With Peres and the labor doves on one side and the hawks
from Ichud Leumi-Yisrael Beiteinu (Rachav'am Ze'evi, Avigdor
Lieberman, Benny Alon and Tzvi Handel) on the other side,
Sharon's ability to keep the peace for several months so far
was miraculous in and of itself.
Last week Labor figures threatened to resign from the
government if Sharon did not agree to the Mitchell Plan,
including freezing settlement construction. Meanwhile
figures from the Right announced that if Sharon accepts the
Mitchell Plan and freezes settlement construction, they
would resign from the government and from the coalition, and
would attack him from the right.
Sharon knows that his political stronghold--where he calls
home and the place that offers him the best chances of
survival--is the Right. As long as he can continue juggling
the coalition, to have his cake and eat it too, he will do
so, but when decision time comes he will stick with the
Right, and the Labor Party will find itself out of the loop.
Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is waiting
patiently outside the ring, and Sharon knows that he is his
most dangerous political rival at present.
Last week's Knesset reminded observers of events that took
place over ten years ago when the unity government headed by
Yitzhak Shamir fell over "the Baker question." Baker, who
was serving as U.S. secretary of state, submitted a policy
plan to Israel. Peres, who was Shamir's deputy, demanded
that Baker's plan be accepted and Shamir refused. Eventually
the unity government disbanded, Peres and his camp made an
ultimatum, their scheme failed and Shamir set up a narrow
coalition government.
Time will tell whether the current "Mitchell question"
resembles the "Baker question" and whether the results will
be similar. What is certain is that the players in the game
have changed very little. Peres has remained, and although
Sharon has now replaced Shamir, ten years ago he was also in
the picture as one of the top Likud ministers in the
government.
"Deliberately Misleading"
Knesset member Eliezer Cohen (Yisrael Beiteinu), who
initiated legislation to set up a constitutional court, is
furious over the campaign being waged by High Court
President Aharon Barak against his bill, which has already
passed a preliminary reading. Cohen is so incensed that this
week he issued a press statement launching an unprecedented
attack against Barak and accusing him of being "deliberately
misleading."
One of Barak's main contentions is that a constitutional
court would strike a serious blow to the High Court, bring
politicization into the court system, and mortally wounding
the Israeli judicial system.
Meanwhile Cohen maintains that Barak "forgot" to mention
that according to the bill approved by the Knesset, the
judges who would sit on the constitutional court would be
recommended by the High Court. In his statement Cohen says
"the public is being misled into thinking the constitutional
court will be a political body and will be appointed by
politicians. This is deliberately misleading."
He further claims that according to the proposal 11 judges
would sit on the constitutional court: three judges from the
High Court and recommended by the High Court, two
dayanim recommended by the Rabbinical High Court, one
kadi (Moslem religious judge) recommended by the Muslim
religious court, one new immigrant recommended by the Jewish
Agency and four academicians and intellectuals recommended
by the Council for Higher Education.
In order to demonstrate the justice of his cause, Cohen
attached his bill to the press release, allowing readers to
see for themselves that there is no trace of politicization.
Politicians and the Knesset are totally uninvolved in the
selection of judges to serve on the constitutional court and
will not be legally authorized to do so.
What Cohen failed to mention in his press release is that
not only will the High Court not be harmed, but in fact, the
three High Court representatives will have veto power over
every decision made by the constitutional court. Since
according to the bill every decision must have a majority of
nine judges to pass, they will be able to torpedo any
decision or ruling that is inconsistent with their mindset
or worldview.
So what is it that Barak wants? The answer is clear: he does
not want veto power and he does not want to be three out of
eleven. He wants it all. He would like the High Court to be
the constitutional court as well.
Tired of Corruption
Last week the government decided to slash its budget in
order to boost the security budget during this period of
increasing terror and war.
One of the items slated to be cut is the children's
allowance, which was increased six months ago, starting with
the fourth child, through a bill proposed by Rabbi Shmuel
Halpert and passed in the Knesset in three readings.
As is well known, Shinui has been waging a battle in the
Knesset against the chareidi public, chareidi
representatives and against providing benefits for families
with many children. Party members headed the opposition
against the bill, but even their prolonged filibuster failed
to block the bill.
Last week Avraham Poraz once again tried his luck when he
brought a bill before the Knesset plenum designed to harm
large families by canceling the increased children's
allowances. His efforts failed and the bill was not
approved, but the discussion included a number of degrading
remarks aimed at the chareidi sector and its
representatives, who strongly opposed every attempt to cut
children's allowances.
Rabbi Moshe Gafni, speaking on an entirely different topic
immediately following the discussion of the Poraz proposal,
took advantage of the opportunity to remind Poraz and those
present of a number of points that had been forgotten, and
to teach them a lesson in Knesset history: "I would like to
remind the Knesset and Knesset member Ofir Pines that the
Rabin government passed a law together with Meretz to grant
an increased allowance starting with the fourth child only,
to those who did not serve in the army. We were in the
opposition then. Meretz and Ofir Pines, who are making such
a racket now, were the ones who passed the law."
Thus it was in fact the Rabin government, which relied
heavily on votes from Arab MKs, that passed a law that made
the Arab sector equal to the Jewish sector in terms of
children's allowances and completely eliminated the
distinctions between those who served in the army and those
who did not.
Rabbi Gafni said that he is in favor of equalizing
children's allowances among all segments of the population
since the allowance is not dependant on any other criteria,
adding, "But there are certain people sitting in this wing
who have been making remarks about corruption. Do they think
the public has forgotten? They passed this law. I was there.
Perhaps others weren't there. Now along comes Ofir Pines and
declares the law is corrupt. His party was in power together
with Meretz. I think that Meretz demanded it, granting
increased children's allowances starting with the fourth
child. Not with the first, second or third child, and only
for those who did not serve in the military. This was
Meretz' doing.
"Knesset member Zahava Galon was not in the Knesset back
then, but according to her worldview, if she had been in the
Knesset then she probably would have supported this law
wholeheartedly--granting increased children's allowances
starting with the fourth child. Not the first or the second
or the third, and just to those who did not serve in the
military. Now you talk about corruption?"
Let the Flour Mills Decide
Last week a short report that was both astonishing and
stupendous appeared in the media. According to this story
Minister of Agriculture Shalom Simchon asked Finance
Minister Silvan Shalom to compensate the flour mills for the
losses they incurred during the shmittah year.
Simchon told Shalom that the majority of the flour mills in
the State of Israel refused to take in locally produced
wheat due to the requirements imposed by the committees for
kashrus lemahedrin that grant a hechsher to
these flour mills. The Minister of Agriculture said 90% of
locally produced wheat is used for animal feed--an
astonishing figure indeed.
He demanded that the Finance Minister provide farmers no
less than NIS 30 million in compensation payments. According
to Minister Simchon this is the amount of monetary losses at
flour mills due to the shmittah year.
These figures are astonishing, but the report certainly is
unusual.
In the year 5761 the number of farmers keeping
shmittah increased so significantly that most of the
flour mills refused to accept locally produced flour. Since
these flour mills are profit based and operate according to
supply and demand and market needs, if there had not been
such great demand for non-shmittah flour, in all
likelihood flour mills would have accepted locally produced
flour.
This demonstrates conclusively that the furor by left-wing
politicians at the beginning of the shmittah year, as
if this is a case of a minority imposing itself on the
majority, was pure hypocrisy. The number of people in Israel
keeping shmittah according to halacha is
growing, and today there are many more consumers for non-
shmittah products.
This also contains an important message to wheat farmers.
What is the point of growing wheat for fodder and animal
food at a loss? Instead farmers can keep shmittah
like the thousands of farmers who do so, and earn a profit
in the eighth year according to HaKodosh Boruch Hu's
promise.
