Referendum talk

Monday, October 18, 2004

he numbers in the Knesset add up in Sharon’s favor. About 65 MKs in favor of disengagement and about the same number against a referendum, commonly perceived now as the latest ploy by the anti-disengagement forces to torpedo the withdrawal from Gaza.

But numbers are one thing and politics is another. Sharon, who had a difficult 90 minutes last night with his friends from the Yesha Council, people who have followed him for decades as the father of the ‘settlement enterprise’ as they like to refer to it, is heading to the Knesset this afternoon where he will face a Likud faction in which a majority of Likud MKs now seems to favor the referendum idea. Sharon hates the idea and not only because he already lost one referendum among his Likud party’s rank and file. He hates it because it is unpredictable, because it opens the door to referenda on dozens of other issues that divide the public, because it will delay by at least several months any movement on the ground in Gaza to withdraw, and perhaps, he hates it most of all because he hates being told what to do.

Constitutional experts in Israel say that a referendum, particularly because it is being promoted by some of the least democratic forces in Israel, is a prescription for further weakening of the parliamentary democracy that is already straining because of deep rifts between various groups in society – religious and secular, Arab nationalist and Israeli nationalist, and nowadays, settlers and their former leader, Sharon, representing what the polls say is the vast majority of Israelis.

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

he anti-disengagement, pro-referendum (and anti-democratic) forces don’t merely want a referendum. They want a special majority, to make sure the Israeli Arab votes don’t count, and the most radical among them are saying that even if the majority does vote for a disengagement in a referendum that surely won’t influence their opposition because settlements are a divine mission and mere mortals have no right to counter God’s will. Indeeed, former chief rabbi Avraham Shapira said as much this week, calling on religious soldiers who regard him as one of the greatest rabbis of the generation, to refuse to help evacuate settlements, and said Shapira, that is ‘heaven’s will.’

With not atypical sanctimony, the setter leadership promises it will ‘try’ to prevent the protests against the disengagement from turning violent but at the same time, the same leadership openly threatens civil war. For Israelis who know something of their own history, that is indeed a threat, since the last Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel was destroyed when it deteriorated into civil war because one part of the people insisted on warring against the Roman Empire.

And maybe that is precisely what Sharon is trying to avoid, aware that all the American sympathy for his war against terror basically has nothing to do with the American insistence on him taking steps to end the occupation, a term that he, of all people, was the first to use as an Israeli prime minister referring to the possession of the territories.

As of noon today, Sharon was still firmly against a referendum and will probably oppose it even if his faction today holds a straw vote proving it favors such a plebiscite. He is also against elections – but has made clear that if faced with a choice he would prefer elections over a referendum. He met with President Katsav, who has hinted that a referendum might solve some of the tensions resulting from the disengagement but who has also said the Knesset has the authority to decide on withdrawals. And just before noon, Sharon went into a meeting with Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been touting a ‘snap referendum.’ Legal experts say that would be impossible to arrange because of all the issues that would have to be resolved, ranging from who phrases the question to how does the government campaign in favor of a yes vote, especially since the most ironic element in the entire debate is that the settlement leadership uses state money – local authorities coffers – to pay for their campaigning against the disengagement. And it is the Knesset that would have to promulgate a referendum law – but the solid majority in the Knesset favors disengagement and a similar majority apparently opposes a referendum. And October 25 approaches, when Sharon brings disengagement to the Knesset, with the vote on it slated for October 26.

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