But every once in a while, my concern is abated a bit. Such happened this week, as I witnessed Ehud Barak, the once military man who is now convinced he knows how to deliver peace. Ehud Barak, the leader of Israel’s Labour party, has succeeded over the past six months to alienate just about every political lobby in Israel.
First, Barak made a big show of apologizing to the ultra-Orthodox for the past iniquities committed agains them by the Labour Party. This was meant to be a public relations move, but became instead a disaster when most observers started asking what exactly he was apologizing for. It seemed that no one could remember any such serious iniquities, but if Barak said so, there must have been some mistreatment of religious Jews by Labour.
Then, Barak decided that he would table a bill in the Knesset calling for the abolition of the draft deferment for yeshiva students. He said that he was calling for a ceiling of seven hundred such deferments every year. With close to 50,000 students in yeshivas in Israel, such a ceiling is more insulting to the Orthodox than having no ceiling at all.
What came to be known as the “Barak Bill” did not come about of its own volition, though. The campaign heated up early this year when advertisements appeared on billboards and signs all over the country calling for “one nation, one conversion”. This campaign was in support of the Ne’eman Committee’s recommendations for a central conversion institute under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. After about a week of this campaign, most of the advertisements were vandalized and defaced, so that a strip was torn off in one area. The slogans now read, “one nation, one induction”. This same slogan later became the name of a lobby group set up to support the Barak Bill.
I strongly doubt that Barak himself was behind the large-scale vandalism of public property, but his adoption of the slogan does not lend itself to widespread public support.
This week, the Barak Bill came up for a preliminary vote in the Knesset. Here, Barak’s centrifuge gathered speed. Within the space of about 36 hours, and through the presentation of just one bill, Barak likely succeeded in alienating most political groupings in the country.
The Orthodox parties in the Knesset, obviously, voted against Barak. The Likud, in an effort to keep the governing coalition united, voted against Barak as well. But the interesting footnote here is that the Arab parties also voted against Barak. They did so out of fear that Arabs would now be subject to the draft as well. This shows a number of interesting developments.
The Orthodox claim that by learning in yeshiva, these students guard the spiritual integrity of Israel, on par with the physical protection provided by the Israel Defense Forces. The Arabs, by voting with the Orthodox, cast their votes in support of Torah education in Israel -- something that many of the Jewish left and centre could not bring themselves to support in this vote, or dare I say, in most others.
So here, as a public service, is a comprehensive list of those political groupings that Ehud Barak succeeded in alienating by presenting the Barak Bill for debate:
- The Orthodox, who now can plainly see once again that their beliefs are not taken into account by Barak, and are not given the smallest iota of respect by the leader of Israel’s largest party.
- The Arabs, who now see that Barak is likely to call for their inclusion in the draft as well.
- The traditional centre, who still respect religion. These can see that Barak has no respect for the religious values of Judaism. It is indeed a sad state of affairs when non-Jews, and even those hostile to Judaism, do more to protect Jewish values and Jewish religious practice than the leadership of the ivory tower establishment in the Jewish State.
- The Israeli extreme left. They can now see that what Barak really wants is Arab integration into Israeli society, through the army, and not the creation of their own state in Israel. Besides, given that the Israeli extreme left supports no position other than that put forth by the Arabs, it is indeed likely that they would oppose Barak’s Bill on the grounds, simply, that the Arabs oppose it.
So who remains? The anti-religious centre and left in Israel. Those who, like Barak, see no value in the Jewish religion, and who can attribute only one purpose to the State of Israel. It is the country they happen to live in. These are the people who reject any outward form of religion, and who have, incidentally, created an IDF where Orthodox people find it difficult if not impossible to serve without compromising or abandoning outright their religious beliefs. These are the only people who continue to support Barak after his Bill on the draft. Incidentally, it is no surprise that Barak himself is a product of this very same IDF, where, under his leadership, religious Jews were banned from distributing Chanuka donuts to the soldiers, and where, under his leadership, the requirement that all food served on IDF property must be kosher was allowed to lapse into disuse.
Prime Minister Netanyahu now has sufficient ammunition in his belt to approach all of these political groupings and tell them that he will look out for their interests better than Barak. Even the Arabs can rest assured that under Netanyahu, they will not be asked to serve in the Israeli Army. Once they are appeased, it would soon follow that the extreme left would enter Netanyahu’s camp as well.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Copyright 1998. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
