A study carried out by Ido Almakayis, a senior researcher in the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, indicates that there is no basis to the claim that the sectarian parties, including the chareidi parties, are more successful in winning political gains than others. One of the main criticisms of religious parties is that by serving as "kingmakers" they manage to garner benefits for their constituents far out of proportion to their actual numbers.
The study, carried out as part of his Master's thesis and reported in the Israeli financial paper The Marker, examined the hypothesis that relatively small sectorial parties, religious and ultra-religious, managing to garner political advantage out of proportion to their actual numerical strength. It examined to what degree there existed a correlation between the characteristic milieu of the various parties and their interests in the coalition setup, and under which conditions some parties succeed in receiving more of the pie than others. The central point raised by this study is that the different sectorial parties were no better in translating the electoral gains of their representation in the Knesset into actual benefits in terms of desirable appointments and jobs awarded through the coalition dealings.
The examination covered the period from the beginning of the State up to the present. The characteristic features of the parties were analyzed on the basis of size and positions/offices they held thanks to their coalition affiliation: ministers, deputy ministers, substitutes to the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and chairmen of the various Knesset committees. These offices provide access to huge budgets, appointments, status, and also allow expression of the parties' ideologies. The coalitions studied were only those established immediately after elections and not those as they changed in the course of the Knesset term.
In sum, the study compared the number of Knesset seats that the various parties had, against the number of political jobs received within the government coalition. By this criterion, the most successful party was the Mizrachi party in the 2nd Knesset. They had only two Knesset seats but they got a full minister (out of 16) and they got a half-time chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee. The least extortionate party was United Torah Judaism in the 15th Knesset.
The study found that in other countries around the world with similar Parliamentary systems, smaller parties are more "extortionate." That is, in all such systems, smaller parties get more of the coalition spoils per parliamentary seat than large parties. However in Israel the advantage is smaller than elsewhere. "Apparently large political parties in Israel are better than would be expected at ensuring their interests," writes Mr. Almakayis.
"All this is to say," summarizes Mr. Almakayis, "that coalition politics in Israel is less terrible than it seems to us."
The study came out against the backdrop of a report by the Reform Judaism-sponsored Chidush organization that claimed that "Haredim received over NIS 1 billion in extra funding in 2010-11" and that "In 2010, NIS 328 million ($88 million) was added onto the budget for "coalition use," "Gafni coalition use" and "United Torah Judaism coalition use." The implication is that Rabbi Gafni as head of the Knesset Finance Committee, used his influence improperly.
In responding to the article in The Marker, Rabbi Gafni said, "There is an agreed-upon lie that we are extortionists. The really big money goes to all kinds of positions that people get, including in the senior civil service levels, and in the directorates of companies and in [serving on] various committees where the financial compensation is extraordinary. The chareidi community never went there in all the years of the State, and that is where the big money is.
"Even in periods when we are in the coalition, we do not take ministerial jobs. This research just reinforces what I have always said: We are the most discriminated against. From time to time there are honest people in the secular community who represent the facts correctly. I want to note that even in the years when we got funds, when it was all tallied up we were still discriminated against. This is the true picture. The chareidi community is discriminated against even in its best years.
"Ideologically, we also do not take full funding. They wanted to fund us fully in the Begin period, and Maran HaRav Shach zt"l insisted that we not accept. So inherently we do not take everything that we deserve. And when you count it all up we hardly exist in the senior ranks of government jobs."
After the public attack on him, Rabbi Gafni received support from all across the political spectrum for his performance as head of the Knesset Finance Committee. Some callers said that throughout his career he had helped them, even though they were not from the chareidi community. For example, Eren Melamed, head of the Yedid organization, the Association for Community Empowerment, said that he could not believe that Rabbi Gafni was accused of narrow interests. He said that Rabbi Gafni had helped his organization for many years.
Rabbi Gafni also remarked that there was nothing new about the attacks of the Reform Jews on the chareidi politicians, and he noticed that it had become more intense after he asked the Speaker of the Knesset to investigate the exorbitant salaries received by Shachar Ilan and Uri Regev for their work for Chidush.
