Amir Peretz, head of the Histadrut, is now also head of the
Labor Party. As a Moroccan and as an experienced champion of
the working classes, Peretz breathes new hope into the Labor
Party and sets it up as a genuine alternative to the rule of
Sharon and the Likud, especially as it has been for the past
few years under former Finance Minister Netanyahu. We welcome
this development as important to Israeli democracy in
ensuring that there will be a strong opposition party to the
ruling power. In a democracy, the weak — for example
the chareidim — always suffer when power is
concentrated in one party.
Prime Minister Sharon has been running things as if he has no
worries about his political future with the electorate. He
was very happy to have Shimon Peres and the Labor party at
his side, realizing that under Peres the Labor party
basically follows Sharon's lead. There are no major
differences at the ideological level between the Labor Party
of Shimon Peres and the Likud of Sharon. Even though Peres
got almost as many votes as Peretz from within Labor in the
party elections, it was pretty clear to most outside
observers that if Labor continued along the path that it was
following under Peres, it could easily have declined into an
irrelevant dotage along with its 82-year-old leader.
So far Sharon has allowed his former and current Finance
Ministers to take from the weak and give to the rich under
the premise that it is good for the overall economy. Sharon
has repeatedly shown the capacity to act ruthlessly when he
believes his approach to be the correct one. In the
Disengagement as well as in his approach to the social needs
of the people in Eretz Yisroel, Sharon has almost flaunted
his lack of compassion and understanding for those who have
to pay the costs.
Even if the Disengagement was in the eventual best interests
of everyone in Israel, a leader with even a shred of a
battered Jewish heart could not have done it in a way that
caused so much suffering.
And even if all the world's economists say that starving the
poor and fattening the rich is in the best interest of the
Israeli economy in the long run, a leader with even a shred
of a battered Jewish heart would have found a way that may
have been less-than-best economically but would be far, far
better morally.
The Shinui-Likud promised an economic and social revolution,
and they delivered it. The pennies that have been restored
since UTJ entered the government — almost every one
after an individual effort — are nothing compared to
the hundreds of millions that were previously cut from the
bread and milk of the Torah community.
Even if Sharon does not understand compassion, he does
understand politics — and how! If he had to worry that
a credible opposition would be able to call him to task for
this approach, we can presume that he would have acted with
greater restraint. A party in power that had an active
opposition that specializes in social issues would have no
doubt kept the Treasury bureaucrats on a tighter leash. Once
the Likud of Menachem Begin spoke for the down-and-out masses
against the Mapai juggernaut. Now it seems that the gauntlet
is being picked up by the Mapai successor: the current Labor
party.
Although Amir Peretz will be a more effective opposition to
Sharon and the Likud than the previous leadership, let no one
think that we expect him to right the wrongs that were
perpetrated against the chareidi community by the Sharon-
Netanyahu-Lapid government. If the chareidi community does
not have influential representatives of its own, no Israeli
government will worry even about our most basic needs. We
hope that the chareidi politicians prepare well for the
elections that will be held no later than a year from now
and, from all appearances, much sooner.
