When rumors of this deal first surfaced last Thursday, MKs Zevulun Orlev and Shaul Yahalom rushed to the airwaves to denounce Eitam and Levy. They bemoaned "the latest split on the right" and reminded all who cared to listen of past disasters when ideology got in the way of political opportunism.
Today, when the agreement was signed, Orlev and Yahalom again trashed Eitam and Levy, with Yahalom claiming the agreement is "not worth a garlic peel".
This split has been brewing for some time. When Ariel Sharon brought the disengagement plan to the cabinet for approval in June, he fired the two National Union ministers rather than run the risk of having the plan defeated. When the plan was approved, Eitam and Levy resigned their government positions as well. Zevulun Orlev remained in the cabinet for another 5 months, hoping to "change government policy from within."
This was the same mantra that Shaul Yahalom used when Binyamin Netanyahu tried to get the Wye River Accord passed by his cabinet in 1998. Even when the Likud moved to dissolve the Knesset, Yahalom was one of only a handful of MKs to continue supporting the government. The result was a split in the NRP with MKs Hanan Porat and Tzvi Hendel leaving to help form the National Union. The 1999 election saw the NRP lose four seats, primarily due to the disengagement from Zionist ideology that had infested people like Shaul Yahalom and Zevulun Orlev, who was then running in his first Knesset election as a rising star in the party. And the National Union won 4 seats in that election.
In the 2003 elections, the NRP ran Effi Eitam as its leader. Eitam is well-known as a person firmly rooted in religious-Zionist ideology, and his ideas, as well as his powerful personality, helped the NRP gain a seat in the Knesset.
But since those elections, Eitam has been all but marginalized in the party. The ideology he represents, and to which most religious Zionists adhere, has been all but forgotten by Orlev and Yahalom. It even went so far that signs began appearing in Jerusalem stating that Orlev was a full partner in the Disengagement Plan, due to his choice to remain in the government beyond June. Even the NRP's own website ran a poll, which found that 73% of respondents wanted the party to leave the government immediately when the Disengagement Plan passed the cabinet, while only 14% felt Orlev and Yahalom were correct.
The National Religious Party is in serious, if not mortal, danger. Under Orlev's leadership, and with Yahalom's support, the party is moving so far from its founding ideology that it will not maintain enough support to surpass the electoral minimum threshold for entry into the next Knesset. Orlev and Yahalom may scream now about another division on the right, but the National Union will only be strengthened by the unification of the right that Eitam and Levy's move represents.
In the past, there has been tremendous splintering on the right. The creation of the National Union in 1999 from three disparate parties was meant to stop that trend. It has largely succeeded, serving to strengthen and unite the right wing of Israeli politics around the banner of territorial nationalism, economic and social progress, and retention of Zionist values. Eitam and Levy are certainly welcome additions to this unification. Their ideology and firm values are a perfect fit for the National Union, both in the party's founding purpose and in its current policies.
Orlev and Yahalom have tremendous audacity complaining about a "split on the right". What Levy and Eitam have done is further unite the right wing. At the same time, Orlev and Yahalom have proved once again that they are not right-wing at all, but belong to the same political center as Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Netanyahu.
Orlev and Yahalom have not achieved anything in education or in the preservation of the Land of Israel – two of the main pillars of the party's ideology. The country's education system is in serious need of a complete overhaul, and thankfully, we have the Dovrat Commission to look forward to after decades of educational neglect under successive NRP Education ministers. And the settlement enterprise in Israel has been so completely abandoned by the NRP that Orlev could even consider remaining in the current government with the Disengagement Plan as adopted government policy. They have disappointed tens of thousands of religious Zionist voters, and have abandoned the primary base of their support – the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
If there is any split on the right, it is that Orlev and Yahalom still call themselves right-wingers and still pretend to uphold right-wing ideas. The sooner they and the remnants of the NRP leave the political scene, the better off Israel will be.
Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission of the author only.
