The browbeaters

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

rime Minister Ariel Sharon won a very temporary but hard-earned respite from the pressures on him to okay a national referendum on his disengagement plan by yesterday okaying an idea to form a committee of four Likud MKs to ‘examine’ the referendum idea. But the panel was not actually formally established –and apparently won’t be, if at all, until after next week’s vote on the disengagement bill he brings to the Knesset. And after that vote, which he now appears almost certain to win by a relatively significant majority that could range from 63 to as many as 69 votes in favor, Sharon anticipates that much of the wind in the sails of the referendum plan will fade. On the other hand, approval of the disengagement plan could lead to a split in the Likud – Sharon is not imposing ‘coalition discipline’ on his entire Likud faction for the vote, but he is demanding ministers and deputy ministers vote in favor or face being fired. Ministers Uzi Landau, Yisrael Katz and Deputy Minister Michael Ratzon might all find themselves out of work as ministers next week.

A bigger problem for him might be the state budget bill, due for a vote on the day after the U.S. elections, on November 3. There is a rebellion brewing in the ranks of the Likud opponents of disengagement, now vowing they won’t vote for trhe budget because it includes allocations for the disengagement plan. Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu even proposed to Sharon that he pull the disengagement allocations out of the overall 2004 budget and resubmit those allocations in a separate budget. Sharon, ever suspicious of Netanyahu and never one to bow to pressures that come from people he does not respect, refuses. Although Sharon has until March 2005 to pass a budget, the combination of not being able to pass one now, and the demand for a referendum on the disengagement issue could yet turn into him throwing up his hands and calling new elections. But even that might not be an alternative for him -- he’ll need a Knesset vote to set the date and it’s not at all clear there is a majority in the House ready to face the voter.

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

eanwhile, the army is facing a crisis that is either the worst in its history or an over-inflated red herring meant to threaten more than actually have an effect, depending on who is speaking. The crisis is over calls by some leading rabbis of the Right, particularly Rabbi Avraham Shapira, a former chief rabbi and the head of the influential Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, to their students serving in the army to refuse to obey orders to evacuate settlements. There are several thousand combat soldiers who may or may not be affected by the calls – and Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon is planning a major speech today to condemn the ideological calls for refusal to follow orders.

While the brouhaha about refusal provided a lot of chatter on this morning’s radio programs, few recalled that one of the few attempted removals of an illegal outpost in the West Bank, Givat Maon, took place on a Shabbat, and not a single religious soldier sent into that fray refused to take part. Not only did they help take down an outpost, but it was on Shabbat, the day of rest.

The debate over the refusal issue includes as has often been the case in recent years, blaming ‘the Left’ for the problem. After all, liberal Prof. Amnon Rubinstein pointed out this morning on Israel Radio, it was the Left that first legitimized refusal to obey certain orders when it encouraged soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories. But even Rubinstein had to admit that few acknowledged leaders of the Israeli peace camp openly called for mass refusal, nor were there petitions by the secular equivalent of yeshiva heads calling on their students to refuse orders because ‘that’s what the heavens want,’ as Rabbi Shapira said in his recent declaration. And according to Courage to Refuse, the leading organization of ‘Leftist” refuseniks, there are 628 reservists who have so far formally made their refusal known to the army. The ‘hesder yeshivas,’ religious schools that soldiers are allowed to attend during their three years of compulsory service, and the pre-army preparatory yeshivas, quasi-military academies that combine secular, religious and military studies for one to three years before enlistment, turn out nearly five times as many students as that every year. Some estimates say that there could be as many as 5,000 religious-nationalist soldiers who would refuse orders. But that seems to be part of the spin of the disengagement opponent, trying to browbeat the government into calling off the plan to quit Gaza and the northern West Bank.

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