The National Religious Party and HaIchud HaLeumi initiated a
joint no-confidence motion in the government on the issue of
religion last week presented by none other than Zevulun
Orlev, who stood on the Knesset podium speaking passionately
about the holiness of Shabbos and the shameful opening of
Haifa's Grand Canyon Mall on Shabbos.
This was the very same Orlev who had been stuck to his
ministerial seat with superglue until his own knitted-
yarmulke colleagues applied pressure on him to
resign—not over a religious issue of course, but over
the disengagement plan. Otherwise he would still be sitting
there to this day. Such hypocrisy is rare, even in the dark
realms of politics.
The NRP and Ichud HaLeumi, it must be recalled, joined forces
with Sharon and Lapid two years ago to set up perhaps the
most anti-religious government of the last 30 years. A
government that destroyed religious services, the yeshiva and
Torah world and the status quo on religious observance. The
agreement signed by the Likud, Shinui and the NRP included
changes in existing laws on enlisting yeshiva students, the
introduction of civil marriage and the closure of the
Religious Affairs Ministry. Though it claimed that it entered
the government to safeguard religious interests, the NRP knew
well that the new government would lead to reductions in
religious services.
United Torah Jewry resigned from the Barak government because
of Shabbos desecration — an incident in which an
enormous transformer for an electrical plant was transported
on Shabbos despite vociferous objections. Had the NRP
remained in the coalition to this day, can anybody imagine it
resigning because the Grand Canyon opened for business on
Shabbos? Laughable. Not only would such a thought never enter
their heads, but it would not even flit by. Yet last week
they suddenly remembered the Shabbos.
Among the faithful members of the partnership with Shinui was
Nisan Slomiansky, a settler who showed his real stripes when
coalition enticements came his way. During the plenum debate
on the no-confidence motion his party submitted, he tried to
explain the connection between the government and the
chilul Shabbos at the Grand Canyon, for after all the
government dispatched inspectors to fine stores that opened
on Shabbos in violation of the law.
Had the government wanted to take real action, he said, it
could done more. "We have seen how this government and this
prime minister have turned all the laws around. Rotated
everything when there's something it wants. Nothing stands in
its way. So here, too, had it really wanted, no mall or
commercial area would have opened. If it opened this is a
sign of eye-winking and therefore we have submitted this no-
confidence motion."
It had to be heard to be believed. The epitome of hypocrisy.
What Sharon and Lapid did on every religious and Jewish issue
in the State of Israel with the backing of the NRP, which was
a full partner and loyal to the government for two years, was
not eye-winking. No, no. Nothing wrong here. The government
deserved full confidence. For back then Orlev was stretched
out in his ministerial seat, sitting snugly in his Volvo and
living his lifelong dream: to be both a minister and to boot
rival party Shas into the opposition.
But now that the NRP is in the opposition suddenly they have
discovered something called "Shabbos." Suddenly they are
experts on eye-winking, and nobody will be surprised if they
make more discoveries in the future. And of course the
devastated religious councils, the bruised rabbinate and
dayanim system, the paralyzed religious services and the
yeshivas that are at the brink of financial collapse all have
the NRP to thank.
Rabbi Meir Porush, speaking for UTJ during the Knesset
debate, articulated this terrible hypocrisy nicely. "I would
like to bless the members of the NRP who discovered the
Shabbat," he said in a mocking, cynical tone. "For nearly two
years they sat in a government that trampled the Shabbat
underfoot brusquely, yet they did not open their mouths to
breathe a word. Suddenly, once they've moved to the
opposition benches, they have discovered the Shabbat and even
trouble themselves to submit a no-confidence motion."
