Sharon’s hot winter has begun

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

t was unprecedented. Never before had the Knesset voted against approving a prime minister’s session-opening speech to the Israeli parliament. But it was almost predictable. Almost because up until the last minute, Shimon Peres and Haim Ramon of Labor fought tooth and nail inside the Labor Party faction to approve the Sharon speech. But to no avail. The Labor faction is fed up with Sharon and his maneuvering, fed up with the Likud’s incessant humiliation of the party. If Sharon brings a disengagement bill to the Knesset, they’ll vote in favor. But that’s it. Unless of course, Sharon somehow manages brings them into the coalition, despite opposition inside the Likud.

The entire episode in the Knesset last night was subject to as many interpretations as commentators, or at least political angles. Some said the vote revealed that the 40-member Likud faction really only has about 30 MKs, or even fewer, since at least a dozen Likud MKs have now aligned themselves with the radical Right. And they said Sharon deliberately wanted to prove that to the Likud faction itself, indeed wanted to prove that without Labor’s 19 MKs, the Likud cannot hold onto power. Others said Sharon was as surprised as the Knesset itself by the audacity of the Knesset’s rejection of his speech – a relatively wishy washy speech that reiterated his positions on the road map (he’s in favor, despite what Weisglass said). Disengagement (he’ll bring it to the Knesset in two weeks, for a full debate and then a vote), and the economy (Netanyahu’s reforms are rescuing the economy from disaster). They said he did not expect Uzi Landau, leader of the Likud rebels, to use his ammunition now, but rather to wait until October 25, when Sharon has promised to bring the disengagement plan to the Knesset for debate and vote. And yet others said the entire maneuver ripped the mask off Labor’s face, proving that the Likud cannot count on Labor when push comes to shove.

The goddess loves -- Mixed media on paper, 50x70 cm by Silvia Rosenberg

n any case, this morning began with a flurry of political machinations and leaks meant to indicate Sharon is going ahead with a new coalition. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was dispatched to Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who hates both the unilateralism of the disengagement plan and Binyamin Netanyahu’s Thatcherite economic policies. Mofaz explained how the disengagement would save lives, improve Israel’s economy, save the army money and effort and weaken Hamas. There was no work by mid-day on Ovadia’s reaction, but last night, Channel 10 reported that the voting constituency most opposed to the disengagement is not, as might be expected, the National Religious Party, but rather, it’s Shas, no doubt because of Ovadia’s known opposition to the plan. Ovadia says that unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza is a present to the terrorists.

If Mofaz – and presumably Sharon later on -- is able to persuade Ovadia to allow Shas into the coalition, it will mean a rupture with Shinui, which is why there were leaks this morning about Sharon and Shinui leader Tommy Lapid holding a meeting at the same time that Mofaz was with Ovadia. Lapid has already okayed a coalition agreement with United Torah Judaism, the Ashkenazi counterpart to the Sephardi Haredi party, if Labor joins the coalition – something the Likud central committee has forbade Sharon to do. Lapid told Sharon that the solution is to hold a national referendum on disengagement, on the assumption that the polls are right and about 60 percent of the public favors the disengagement plan. But Sharon turned that down because he is worried that the promulgation of the referendum law would drag on for months, and in effect squash the disengagement plan from implementation. Besides, he knows that the polls showed the Likud rank and file supported the disengagement plan, but when the vote came, only about half the Likud rank and file membership showed up, and it voted 60-40 against after a stunning, emotional campaign conducted by the settler movement. Sharon does not trust polls.

The conundrum is even more complicated since Sharon not only wants to pass the disengagement plan, he must pass a budget this winter – and if he manages to bring Labor (with or without Shas) into the government – it presumably will mean a change in the budget and a reform of the reforms that Netanyahu has been touting as his personal recipe for saving not only Israel’s economy, but Israel itself. Netanyahu is already breathing down Sharon’s neck as a disengagement opponent who couches his opposition to the plan in support for a referendum on it, and at least a quarter of the Likud faction and perhaps as much as half the Likud central committee ready to throw out Sharon and replace him with Netanyahu. Netanyahu is not exactly courageous about his challenge to Sharon. Unlike Sharon he does put his faith in polls, and the polls right now show that despite his popularity inside the Likud, the public is not eager to see him back in the Prime Minister’s Office.

And speaking of people who want to go back to the Prime Minister’s Office, Ehud Barak has not made his formal announcement, but is already on the campaign trail drumming up support inside Labor for his return. Last night, as the Knesset factions wrangled votes, he was wrangling support from Druze politicians able to swing thousands of votes his way in case of primaries in Labor. And little noticed in the press this morning was a comment made by Peres last night – that he now favors Labor Party primaries in January. That’s another sign Israel is heading toward a general election, with the smart money now betting on the vote in the fall, which means the disengagement would be postponed until next winter – if Sharon is reelected. And that raises another problem: Sharon can neither guarantee he would be renominated by the Likud nor guarantee that the Likud nominees for the next Knesset would favor disengagement. Thus, the Israeli political system appears to be heading for a crash.

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