So far the Israeli election campaign has been quiet and
boring in the sense that there have been no significant
campaign developments. Nonetheless, perhaps in the Adar
spirit, the pundits have managed to suggest some quite lively
scenarios for the morning after the elections.
There has been a lot of recent talk about the unreliability
of political opinion polls in Israel either because some
people (including chareidim) do not cooperate with the
pollsters, and/or the documented fact that pollsters who are
pressured into filling quotas of answered questionnaires
simply fill out the forms on their own. We will assume that
the polls are correct. If they are in error, it is almost
certainly in the direction that will make these speculations
more likely, not less likely.
Even if we assume that Kadima is by far the largest party the
day after with 38 seats, that leaves 82 others — more
than two-thirds of the Knesset. The pundits note that the law
says that the president asks the leader with the best chance
of forming a government to make an official attempt, and this
may not necessarily be the leader of the largest party.
It should be recalled that in forming Kadima, Prime Minister
Sharon managed to antagonize just about everyone else on the
Israeli political scene. Acting Prime Minister Olmert does
not have the leadership ability, or charisma, or political
skill to make people forget the recent past or overlook
it.
Of course the Likud was furious at Sharon and Kadima for
ignoring its party machinery and striking out on their own,
turning their backs on the Likud and taking along many senior
politicians. Labor is still smarting from the departure of
its senior members, Peres, Itzik and Ramon. Sharon announced
each senior politician to join him with undisguised relish,
and there can be no doubt that both Labor and Likud would
enjoy seeing the failure of Kadima. The new party itself is
seen as an opportunistic collection of politicians from
hostile backgrounds held together mainly by their desire to
win at any cost.
The numbers add fuel to the speculation. The only MKs who are
considered categorically unwilling to join an alternative
government are the Arabs and Meretz, who together have 13
according to the latest polls. That leaves 69 — more
than enough, by the numbers, to form a government without
Kadima.
Who is among the 69? Labor and Likud are expected to have no
less than 35 together. In the past 20 years they have been in
several governments together, and know how to get along. The
other half is composed of Shas with 10, National Union-NRP
and Yisrael Beiteinu with 18 together, and UTJ with 6.
Although there are differences among these various parties
they are certainly no greater than the differences that exist
within the Kadima party itself. Fear and loathing of Kadima
and what it may do if given power may be more than enough to
pull them together enough to form a bloc that could prevent
Kadima from forming a majority, and even allow them to form a
government themselves.
This calculation is known in Israeli politics, and Silvan
Shalom has even spoken about it publicly. Anonymous Likud and
Labor politicians have also spoken about the chances of their
leader becoming prime minister. Of course, before the
elections no one will suggest that his party leader would
even consider a rotation for prime minister, but it is clear
to everyone that some arrangement could be worked out. Much
depends on the exact final numbers that are announced the day
after the election.
We should note that the position of UTJ is always assumed in
these calculations to be in the opposition, but our
repetition of this speculation should not be taken as an
endorsement of it or even a suggestion of its likelihood. The
path of UTJ has been and will be charted by maranan verabonon
gedolei Yisroel shlita, who examine each question as
it is finally presented to them with their pure perception of
daas Torah that has no relationship to the political
calculations proposed by the pundits, even if they sometimes
coincide with what politics suggests.
In the meantime, let us enjoy Purim and hope that the light
and simchoh and sossone and yekor will
begin then and overwhelm all of the modern elements that do
not fit in.
