Former Knesset Chairman Avraham Burg resigned from the
Knesset this week and is taking a break from political life
until the next elections, now scheduled for three years from
now. A staunch opponent of bringing Labor into the
government, Burg predicts the party will eventually join
Sharon in the government and under such circumstances he does
not want to have anything to do with the Knesset.
Burg is not the only one who believes Labor is bound to join
Sharon's government, but until this takes place a real war is
being waged between the two sides, a war of nerves.
Recently the Labor Party realized the Prime Minister is
simply making a laughing stock of them. He takes advantage of
the safety net they have spread for him, but offers nothing
in return.
When they grasped what was happening they decided to cast no-
confidence votes on Sharon's social policy and even submitted
a no confidence motion of their own to send a clear message
to Sharon and the coalition heads: no more free votes.
The war of nerves between Sharon and Labor is an embodiment
of the political game currently being played out. Sharon
wants to receive goods at bargain prices and Labor wants to
hand over the goods for as much as they can get. Sharon would
like to talk Peres and his fellow party members into dropping
their demands for the Foreign or Finance Ministry portfolio
in order to avoid problems with the Likud, and to talk them
down from seven highly-regarded portfolios, like Education
and Trade and Industry, to five or six portfolios.
Meanwhile Sharon wants Labor to yield on economic policy and
join the government based on the current economic/social
policy. Otherwise he will run into trouble with Netanyahu and
Lapid, the fathers of Thatcher-Reagan type capitalism.
In this war of nerves anything goes. The chareidi parties,
especially UTJ, are being brandished to scare Labor into
joining at a bargain price -- or else a suitable alternative
will be found.
UTJ representatives have been holding talks with ranking
Likud officials including the Prime Minister, the Finance
Minister and most of all the Prime Minister's son, MK Omry
Sharon and Coalition Chairman MK Gidon Saar. The idea of
bringing UTJ into the coalition has come up on more than one
occasion during the course of these talks, but both sides are
well aware that as long as Shinui is in it would not be
realistic, both from Shinui's perspective and UTJ's
perspective.
Therefore the talks have focused on outside support for
various votes in the Knesset in exchange for lessening the
decrees imposed on the chareidi sector over the past year and
a half.
The Flying Opposition Chairman
MK Roni Bar-On, who has long become the Likud's top speaker,
delivered a knockout speech in the Knesset plenum last week
on the topic of bringing Labor into the coalition.
Upset over Shimon Peres' recent remarks against Finance
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu due to the latter's staunch
opposition against bringing Labor into the government, Bar-On
quipped that Peres said what he said because he suffers from
old age or jet lag. "He doesn't know whether he's here or
there, whether he's in America or at this wedding or that
funeral of some president or Bush's birthday party. He comes
and goes, a flying opposition chairman. The man doesn't know
where he is. He has simply cast off the reins. I'm telling
you straight out," he said, turning toward Labor MKs, "you
are not going to join the government."
After continuing to bash Peres, Bar-On explained why Labor
was not destined to join the coalition. "When I speak about
expanding the government, no matter in which direction, it's
like bringing a strategic partner into a business. In the
business world when you bring in a partner, the partner
brings money. In politics, when you bring in a partner you
have to pay him money. So now, if it has been decreed upon us
to replace a partner since it has already been decreed we
will have to pay money. If you ask me I would rather pay a
bit of money that will go toward worthy causes and people in
need and the Torah world than to pay them [Labor] billions
for the destruction of the economic program, for the
Bolshevik economy you will reinstate here, for an economy of
committees, an economy of monopolies. You would cost us many
times more than our real, original partners would. Therefore
if you ask me, from an economic standpoint, give me a break
from [matters of] style, give me a break from jet lag, give
me a break from the flying opposition chairman."
