Opinion & Comment
Politica: Kadima's Dangerous Plan

Among the reasons why Shinui, the party that won a whopping 15 mandates based on a platform consisting almost exclusively of chareidi hatred, now has slim chances of even making the minimum cutoff is that many of the party's constituents feel they have found a new home in Kadima.

Kadima is no Shinui but the two parties do share a number of similarities and Kadima appears to be reaching out to former Shinui voters, including non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

In its heyday one of Shinui's banner issues was civil marriage, based on claims hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish immigrants considered pisulei chitun have no way to get married in Israel. The party was obviously taking advantage of the situation to create a breach that would eventually draw kosher Jews to opt for civil marriage rather than marrying kedas Moshe veYisroel. And this in turn would drastically alter the Jewish character of the State of Israel, undermine the Jewish home and bring the plague of assimilation — which has assumed frightful proportions in the Diaspora and today is among the main reasons for the decrease in the Jewish population worldwide — to Eretz Yisroel as well.

Although bechasdei Hashem Shinui made no progress toward passing civil marriage legislation, the party did manage to draw a considerable number of votes by waving the banner of civil marriage, and now Kadima seems to be adopting the issue as part of its election campaign.

Kadima, the Likud and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu are battling hard for the Russian vote and Labor will also try to draw some of the 15-20 mandates this sector represents. The Likud placed two Russian-speakers, Natan Sharansky and Yuli Edelstein, high on its Knesset list and Kadima placed Russian immigrants in respectable spots on its list as well.

The Likud is trying to win their support with hard-line, nationalistic slogans like "Chazak Mul HaHamas" ("Strong Against Hamas").

On issues of national security, as a staunch right-wing figure Lieberman already enjoys the Russians' confidence and now he is trying to win them over in civil matters, announcing he intends to promote public transportation on Shabbos.

Yet unlike Kadima, whether it wins five mandates or even eight as some surveys predict, Yisrael Beiteinu will not become the ruling party, therefore its plans and proclamations carry much less weight than those of Kadima.

The Perils of the Constitution

If Kadima succeeds in setting up the next government with Ehud Olmert at its head, civil marriage legislation is not all we have in store. During a special meeting of the Constitution Committee convened during the election recess Olmert announced plans to present a drafting of the proposed constitution to the next Knesset.

A constitution has the potential to undo all of the achievements religious MKs have made in the Knesset in matters like Shabbos, marriage and divorce since the founding of the State. The main problem is that any disputes over how to interpret the constitution would be decided by the High Court.

In her speech before the committee, Justice Minister Tzippi Livni said the real obstacle in legislating a constitution is finding a precise definition for the State of Israel as "a Jewish, democratic nation." What exactly is Jewish? What is democratic? And what happens when these two values clash?

The chareidi sector, she said, "wonders whether it will wake up one morning to find only one side of the equation, the democratic side . . . and the devoutly secular sector may worry it will wake up one morning to a halacha nation that will impose the laws of halacha and religion upon us. And therefore there is a distinct need to legislate the constitution."

Here lies the great danger of a constitution: without a shadow of a doubt democratic values would take precedence over Jewish values, and in the name of democracy the Jewish state would lose all of its Jewish assets, chas vesholom.

The Likud backs the constitution, but it has almost no chance of winning the elections and setting up a government without religious parties. The constitution would remain what it has long been — a fairly innocuous committee. Kadima, one the other hand, does have the potential to set up a government without any of the religious parties, and in such a case the constitution could definitely take shape.

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