Unity in Weakness: Israel Enters a New Era
Morrison, Micah
R o t a t i o n , or rotatzia in the Hebrew derivative, is the new bon mot of Israeli politics. Labor party leader Shimon Peres and Likud chief Yitzhak Shamir will rotate the premiership under...
...On the streets, halfnaked urchins handled much of the distribution of pamphlets and flyers...
...In March, the then-intact Labor Alignment declared its intention to table an early elections motion...
...The Cabinet has been expanded to twenty-five posts in order to accommodate representatives of every important faction in the Likud and Labor and many of their small party allies...
...each party wages its own campaign, as if they were selling their own beer...
...The government plans to achieve these goals by reducing civilian and defense expenditures, curbing private consumption, reaching an agreement on a wage and price freeze with the monolithic Histadrut labor federation, encouraging savings and industrial development, particularly in high-tech fields, and reforming the tax system while at the same time broadening tax collection...
...To satisfy the Likud on the negotiations issue, clause nine of the Basic Policy Guidelines section of the accord states that...
...The names, slogans, and occasionally even the positions of the parties appeared in a seemingly endless stream of mininewspapers, flyers, pamphlets, posters, bumper stickers, stick-on butparties have gone beyond the model...
...The single vote of the man who created the whole mess back in March once again seemed pivotal...
...For voters who couldn't bring themselves to choose any of the above there were a number of individuals running on suitably quixotic platforms, including former Likud finance minister Yigal Hurvitz, who called his p a r t y "Courage to Cure the Economy," and former Likud minister-withoutportfolio Mordechai Ben-Porat, one of the two coalition mavericks who helped bring the government down in March...
...Labor could muster only fifty-six opposition votes...
...There were conflicting reports as to whether the stickers were Likud or Labor...
...Both parties said they wanted to get out of southern Lebanon as soon as possible, but that a quick withdrawal would bring chaos to the area and a return of the PLO to Israel's northern border...
...The sentences crackle...
...Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin (1983), is a fantastic tale that transports readers to a Manhattan of the imagination...
...Election day is a national holiday and many Israelis took advantage of it by voting early in the morning or late in the evening and spending the interim at the beach or picnicking in the park...
...With this in mind, it is best that Israel be allowed the freedom to choose its own course...
...Once again, it seemed that Israel's future was placed in the hands of the diverse and ideologically divided small parties...
...Second, although there was a slight overall shift to the right in the election, the results reflect an increasing polarization in Israeli society, with gaps widening in attitudes toward the Arabs, the West Bank issue, and religious and secular lifestyles...
...It needs American financial backing to help set its economy back on course and to help keep pace with a rapid, mainly Russian-provided arms build-up in the Arab world, and it needs the world's greatest democracy standing firm with one of the world's smallest and most troubled democracies...
...c) renew economic growth while maintaining full employment...
...He absorbed life, and we are the beneficiaries of his amazing absorption...
...On the extreme right, the rabidly racist rabbi from Brooklyn, Meir Kahane, can now be found frothing from a back bench in the Knesset...
...The biggest surprise to me was not the near poetry of the writing but the fact I was whipping through the pages as if it were an airport thriller...
...24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984...
...Where did the pay-off money come from...
...Many economists say the country cannot be put back on a firm footing without increasing unemployment, and indeed the latest forecasts show unemployment rising fast...
...lineteen eighty-four also THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 23 saw the beginning of the political rehabilitation of Ariel Sharon, who, banished to the hinterlands of ministerial responsibility after being found to bear some indirect responsibility for the massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, now holds the influential Industry and Trade portfolio in the Cabinet and is a rising force in the Likud...
...First, the need for electoral reform is pressing...
...The book shows what one man with drive and curiosity can do...
...The first, the now famous Collier and Horowitz book, The Kennedys (Summit Books, $20.95), is for one thing a very good read...
...Gore Vidal shares this astonishment and shows gloriously that in the depths of the Civil War, all we had was his will...
...They recommend books and sell them...
...Another sub-clause states that "the establishment of new settlements will be decided by a majority of the ministers...
...Peres to seek the broadest possible coalition...
...Charles XII (1895...
...The Likud dealt with the economic issue by stressing the improved standard of living, better conditions in the poor neighborhoods and development towns, and increased spending on social welfare...
...Abuhatzeira had made a devastatingly bad move, a move that raised questions about his own political future, and about the efficient functioning of Israeli democracy...
...Every year merits another biography, so full were Sir Richard Burton's experiences in Africa and elsewhere...
...be genuine national unity...
...forces and the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army are patrolling the Lebanese side of the northern border, the Israel Defense Forces may pull back...
...These people were offering citizens a hundred dollars not to vote...
...It is strongly opposed by religious and secular moderates in Israel and by Conservative and Reform Jews throughout the world...
...A veritable feast of factions, sure to give indigestion to even the most seasoned political gourmet: the Likud, Labor, former Likud defense minister Ezer Weizman's Yahad (Together) party, no less than four religious parties, the Communist Democratic Front, a radical Arab-Jewish list, two dovish civil rights groups, the Organization of Disabled Israelis, the National Organization for Tenants' Protection, the Movement for the Abolition of Income Tax, the Independent Indian Immigrants, and the Young People's party...
...22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 unusual arrangements in contemporary politics, Peres and Shamir agreed to rotate the premiership in two twenty-five month cycles...
...The decisions of the inner cabinet, the accord states, "will be binding on the whole government...
...Sharon, together with Finance Minister Moda'i and Deputy Prime Minister Levy, will shape the Likud of the future...
...Abuhatzeira threw the political world into turmoil when he anr~ounced he would vote for Labor on the early elections motion...
...That was the good news...
...A Father's Story" ripples along until-wham--Dubus plants a fist in your stomach...
...Ashkenazim are Jews of East European and Western origin, and generally are the better educated and wealthier members of Israeli society...
...But on July 23 it was time for the grown-ups...
...Tami is the paradigmatic small party in Israeli politics...
...At this time of writing, after three weeks of national unity government and months of debate on economic measures, Prime Minister Peres and his mega-Cabinet have yet to come up with a clear plan to combat Israel's worsening financial plight...
...But something was rotten in the coalition, and by the time Likud realized the bad smell was coming from Mr...
...Abuhatzeira broke from the National Religious party (itself a major broker in the constellation of small party powers), Tami claimed to represent the interests of Israel's Sephardim, Jews of North African and Middle Eastern ancestry...
...The Likud mounted a strong defense of its settlement program and emphasized that increased West Bank settlement "prevents the establishment of a PLO state...
...morally drained by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon and the Likud's policy of increased West Bank settlement...
...Israeli politics may never be the same...
...At a Beduin Arab village, an arrangement was made for two feuding tribes to vote at the area's sole polling station without killing each other...
...After seven years out of power, Labor under Peres now has the opportunity to regain the trust (and votes) of many Israelis who distrusted Labor's drift to the left when it was aligned with Mapam...
...President Reagan's pledge on October 9 to back up Israel's creditrating on the international market, as well as the congressional release of $ 1.2 billion in economic aid in one lump sum, are certainly welcome measures, but they will do little to help reach the economic goals stated in the national unity accord...
...It is a magical argument for faith, a deserved best-seller...
...Economics aside, several conclusions may be drawn from theelections...
...On the West Bank issue, and on security in general, Labor was perceived as the more dovish...
...Public Jewish state is a contradiction in terms," he said at Jerusalem's Beit Agron press center...
...To satisfy Labor, clause ten states that "Israel will call on Jordan to begin peace negotiations, in order to turn over a new leaf in the region . . . . " One clause fits the Likud's view, the other Labor's...
...Some economists are predicting a period of stagflation...
...The myriad small parties which held the balance of power in practically every government for the past thirty-six years have for the time being been rotated out of office...
...WICK ALLISON The Times Are Never So Bad, by Andrd Dubus (1983), contains the most powerful short story I've ever read...
...The amendment, long demanded by the religious parties, would recognize as converts to Judaism only those who converted according to Orthodox Jewish law...
...It expressed a willingness to negotiate a peace treaty with Jordan on the basis of territorial compromise, pledged not to dismantle any West Bank settlements, and not to build any new settlements near Arab urban centers...
...pressure on Israel to make concessions in the West Bank following the American election...
...The conservative Likud has lost some of its right-wing partners, most notably the Tehiya (Renewal) party, which advocates the quick annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip...
...I f there were an Olympics for politics, Israel would be a safe bet to win the gold...
...The picture that comes forth is a country whose politics may be in trouble but whose people are doing better and better...
...Labor's Yitzhak Rabin will hold the Defense portfolio for the entire period...
...The Likud was counting on a coalition with the religious parties, the Tehiya settlement party, and possibly with Yahad...
...How could Hamlet be such a magnificent human being, yet so flawed in judging people--not just Claudius, but particularly himself...
...For in the U.S...
...Tami, which played a key role in bringing down the government in March, was rewarded for its treachery with a two-seat reduction, from three seats to one...
...Lebanon was a frozen issue...
...I sense that the bulk of the people want a strong and stable government," President Herzog said, emphasizing the need for national unity...
...The Arab-Jewish party--the Progressive List for Peace--won two seats...
...The religious factions were at odds with each other, and they were holding out for a better deal: more ministerial posts, a fat slice of power, and an amendment to the controversial "Who is a Jew" law...
...Finally, from an American point of view, the elections demonstrated both the vitality and the fragility of Israel's democratic system...
...Israeli law directs the President, whose office is largely symbolic, to invite the party with the best chance of forming a government to try and do so...
...Abuhatzeira had assured his partners in government that he would stay in the coalition...
...This seemingly awkward bumbler astonished us all...
...The West Bank and the fate of the Palestinians living under Israeli administration is a torturously complicated issue, combining the moral dilemma of the Arab role in a Jewish state with the strategic reality of Israel's vulnerability...
...There were several incidents of angry voters tearing up the polling slips of parties they didn't like, political posters had been ripped down in Mea Sharim, and in a few Arab towns and cities there were reports of Communists intimidating voters, but in general the election process had proceeded smoothly, much to the relief of election officials...
...And many of the parties made use of the little darlings in television ads, where the child stars of tomorrow smiled fetchingly while a voice-over warned of doom if the opposition came to power...
...The Likud insisted that an active policy of West Bank settlement continue, and that negotiations with Jordan be solely on the basis of the Camp David Agreements, which speak of a transitional autonomy period for the Arabs of the area...
...One simply had to deposit one's identity card (ni:cessary for voting) and pick it up the next day...
...Although they have not presented a coherent economic plan, Prime Minister Peres and his economic team have introduced a number of stop-gap measures: The shekel was devalued by nine percent, taxes raised, subsidies on food and fuel cut, a six-month ban on the import of luxury items imposed, foreign currency restrictions increased, and a decision was taken to slash one billion dollars from the budget...
...Yitzhak Moda'i of the Liberal faction of the Likud has stepped into the hottest seat in lsraeli politics, the Finance Ministry...
...By noon, 17 percent of the electorate had voted...
...Micah Morrison is a free-lance writer based in Jerusalem...
...So Prime Minister Shamir and his Lilcud colleagues were not overly perturbed when they heard Labor's declaration to move for early elections...
...Abuhatzeira it was too late...
...Both also hold influential Cabinet portfolios: Navon the Ministry of Education and Culture, Levy the Ministry of Housing and Construction...
...Naipaul...
...Without Tami, the Likud did not have the Knesset muscle necessary to govern, yet Tami's unceasing efforts to feather its own nest with increased budgets had the coalition on the brink of collapse on several occasions...
...Abuhatzeira of Tami played hard-to-get just a littie too long and was left out in the cold...
...We learn a great deal from these two books about the fundamental health and progress of American society, while simultaneously that society is being attacked by an elite which too often does not share in or admire its virtues...
...Israelis realized that--no matter which party or parties came to power after July 23--stringent economic austerity measures would have to come soon...
...Ezer Weizman (three votes) and Yigal Hurvitz (one vote) announced they would not join a Likudled government...
...A masterpiece...
...But for all its sound and fury the 1984 campaign did not come close to the explosive levels of 1981, when eggs and tomatoes were thrown at Labor leader Shimon Peres and near-violent confrontations between Likud and Labor supporters marred many campaign events...
...It is beautifully written, and it tells us about an .area of the world that tends to get lost behind our Eurocentrism and our newfound interest in the Arab world...
...And the ideological godfathers of the two main currents of Zionism-Labor's David Ben-Gurion and the Likud's Vladimir Jabotinsky--are probably rotating in their graves at the spectacle of the two major parties sharing power in a massive twenty-five seat cabinet...
...The Finance Ministry was attempting to slow inflation and trim the foreign debt by reducing ministerial budgets and cutting back on the heavy subsidies on food and fuel...
...By three o'clock 40 percent of the vote was in, by six o'clock 54 percent, and by the time the polls closed at ten o'clock 78.5 percent of the Israeli people had voted...
...Labor argued that the country was being ripped apart by fast-running inflation (some 200 percent in March, more than 400 percent annually by midSeptember), sapped by a $20 billion foreign debt, al...
...The results of the July 23 Knesset (parliament) elections and the lengthy coalition negotiations that followed it have reshaped the political map, The socialist Labor Alignment has split, with its left wing--the Mapam party, the Citizens' Rights Movement, and Labor superdove Yossi Saridmgoing into the opposition...
...Peres pushed ahead with his two-front campaign...
...Given the ministerial parity, it is likely that battles will erupt over the establishment of settlements near Arab urban centers and--if they sense the time is right-one of the major parties may bolt the coalition over the issue...
...And of course every seasoned politician and coalition-juggler is keeping his eye on 1988 and the next election...
...and Sephardi Jews with an ethnic yen could cast their ballot for Tami, or, if they were very religious, they could vote for the ultra-Orthodox Shas (Sephardi Tora Guardian) party...
...The racist vote was represented by the Kach (Thus) party of Israel's Louis Farrakhan, Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocates the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel, laws forbidding sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, and a theocratic state in place of a democratic one...
...Also, the big parties want to maintain good relations with the small parties in case the government falls and a narrow coalition should again be in the cards...
...Peres turned his energies toward the other parties...
...One saw Churchill's flaws in the first five minutes, and then spent a lifetime learning his virtues...
...The agreement also calls for the establishment of ministerial committees on economics and electoral reform...
...Only a few days before, Mr...
...A woman, naked to the waist, with political stickers pasted THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 21 on her breasts, was spotted walking through the Galilee town of Tiberias...
...Local pundits linked the milder tone to the absence of former prime minister Menachem Begin, in seclusion since his retirement in August 1983, and to the reduced role of former defense minister Ariel Sharon...
...To many in Israel at the time it appeared that Mr...
...Two recent books illuminate American politics...
...Why...
...Feeling the budget pinch and calculating he could go into the next Knesset with more power, he used his three votes and those of two other Likud mavericks to bring down the government...
...On the controversial issues of West Bank settlement and peace negotiations with Jordan, the accord has something for everybody...
...From religious Jews in America, came the reply...
...Over the next five weeks, in a series of power-plays and to-the-brink maneuvers, Peres showed himself to be a consummately cunning and patient politician...
...Sixtyone is the magic number in Israeli politics, and both major parties approached the day of decision with wary confidence, insisting that they would be able to put together the sixty-one seats necessary for a Knesset majority...
...b) stabilize the economy by checking inflation...
...Tel Aviv has many, many dogs...
...A final suggestion for history buffs is Lord Kinross's study of the Turkish Empire, called The Ottoman Centuries (1977...
...Politicians went on the stump throughout Israel, and a cry of protest by columnists and editorialists was heard throughout the land, lamenting the "Americanization" of the country's parliamentary campaigns...
...That left Yahad (three votes), the three uncommitted religious factions (ten votes split between three parties), and the single...
...Kenneth L. Adelman is director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency...
...The Cahil...
...Both the Likud and Labor were aiming for voters at Israel's political center...
...Hope for a narrow coalition was almost exhausted, and two options existed: new elections, or national unity...
...Elliott Abrams is Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs...
...Yosef Burg of the National Religious party...
...The other two religious parties, the ultra-Orthodox Aguda Israel and the hawkish Morasha party, each won two seats...
...Labor, playing it safe, did not energetically challenge the Likud about the goals and price of the war...
...Labor's television ads sharply illustrated the effects of inflation by quoting the accelerating prices of staple domestic items throughout the" seven years of Likud rule, reminding viewers of promises made and broken by a series of Likud finance ministers, and presenting angry man-in-the-street interviews with former Likud supporters...
...Voter participation is the highest in the world, running at an average of 80 percent, and political training starts at a very young age...
...a reporter asked...
...Advertising agencies groomed the images of party and candidate and presented them to the public in peppy radio jingles and slickly edited television commercials...
...At civilian hospitals the sick were provided with ambulance transport...
...In southern Lebanon, portable polling facilities were carried t o every army outpost...
...Arabs have many, many babies...
...Our story begins with the Tami (Israeli Heritage) party of Mr...
...the West Bank settlement movement had the Tehiya party...
...The Likud, with Tehiya and Morasha firmly in their camp, had forty-eight votes...
...Speaking a few days after the election, the mad rabbi made his views "clear...
...and in centers for the elderly, buses were hired to take the residents home for a one-day voting vacation...
...Sorry that I can't recommend anything to read in the art field, but very little in the art field is readable...
...Labor, intent on l~eeping the campaign low-key, focused on the economy and pushed its dovish wing out of the spotlight...
...Labor party leader Shimon Peres and Likud chief Yitzhak Shamir will rotate the premiership under the recently concluded agreement for a national unity government...
...Fawn Brodie packs in all this and makes it so enthralling...
...The Communist Democratic Front, the National Religious party, and the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party each won four seats...
...Labor wanted to restrain settlement in certain areas and enter into peace talks with Jordan "without preconditions...
...In the military hospitals, soldiers moved among the wounded with voting boxes...
...This low threshold has resulted in a proliferation of small parties, and small parties can gain a stranglehold on government, as we have seen in the case of the Tami party...
...This time, the major parties kept the gloves on...
...In Israel, the parties respond to each other's ads, establishing a dialogue of inanities...
...Another potentially divisive issue could be a Jordanian or PLO gesture toward Labor's position of territorial compromise on the West Bank, though in light of the current situation in the Arab world this is unlikely...
...KENNETH L. ADELMAN The Devil Drives (1967...
...And in the ultra-Orthodox Mea Sharim neighborhood the issue was not who to vote for, but whether to vote at all...
...He proved a king most royal, who deserved a longer life and better times, but remains at the core both wondrous and mysterious, as Robert Bain heroically portrays...
...Earlier biographies (Morgan, Gilbert) furnish endless enrichment of those virtues...
...plex as parties large and small rushed into consultations, trying to sew up a coalition...
...one tribe voted in the morning, the other in the evening...
...On settlements, the pace of settlement will be slowed in line with general economic austerity measures, but "five to six settlements will be established within a year...
...And having patched over old differences, Labor's Big Three--Peres, Defense Minister Rabin, and Deputy Prime Minister Navon--are moving the party into a new era of shared rule...
...Dangerous extremists like Kahane, or simply unscrupulous characters like Aharon Abuhatzeira, can exercise power far beyond their mandate...
...Then another week...
...The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler...
...Our Shakespeare of 1930s Los Angeles is the single best underrated writer this country has produced...
...Peres, given a maximum of fortytwo days to form a government, launched a two-front effort, wooing the small parties toward a narrowbased coalition on one front while opening negotiations with Prime Minister Shamir and the Likud on the other...
...Abuhatzeira's ethnically based electoral pitch met with some success in 1981, and Tami entered the Likud with three Knesset seats, giving the Likud a slim coalition majority but placing the government at Mr...
...Because the Arabs will have babies and shift the balance of power...
...F i f t e e n parties won seats in the Knesset...
...you end up reading entire paragraphs aloud to savor the similes...
...Although he hoped the "domino effect" would bring the religious parties into his camp on the heels of the Weizman-Hurvitz agreement, this did not come to pass...
...At 2:00 a.m., when most of the results were in, came the bad news: Nobody won...
...Abuhatzeira was capitalizing on a period of social tension between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews...
...Well, really, anything by Chandler...
...In mid-August the LaborLikud national unity talks stalled over disagreements about the West Bank and negotiations with Jordan...
...Israel needs America standing by its side in order to fend off the unremitting hostility of the Arab nations, much of the Third World, the Soviet Union, and their vapid clones at the United Nations...
...As election day drew closer Israelis began to play the numbers game in earnest...
...The unity agreement rotates on an elaborate Labor-Likud formula designed to paper over differences on peace and security issues...
...The Likud, however, could at the time point to a relatively low level of unemplo~,ment, a continuing slow rise in the standard o f living despite inflation, and a healthy degree of public sugport for its West Bank program...
...A forced change in the unity government's carefully charted agreement on the West Bank and Jordan could quickly bring the government down...
...Because the Arabs willhave babies and shift the balance of power...
...Tel Aviv has many, many dogs...
...The budget reductions threatened to bite into Tami's pocketbook, and the three-man faction opposed them...
...ELLIOTT ABRAMS For those seeking to understand the Third World, and who also enjoy marvelous writing, turn immediately to V.S...
...Of these, the West Bank settlement party, Tehiya, did best, winning five seats, up two from 1981...
...The Likud's former finance minister, Yigal "Courage to Cure the Economy" Hurvitz, won one seat and, in the most disturbing result of the election, Rabbi Kahane's xenophobic Kach party slipped into the Knesset with a single seat...
...The situation grew fiendishly comdemands for a national unity government grew stronger...
...Wick Allison is editor in chief and publisher of Art & Antiques...
...Yet even with all their wisdom Ezra and Nehemiah probably never foresaw the rambunctious and factional nature of the democratic process in present-day Israel...
...Israel Radio reported calm and order at most of the country's polling stations...
...Created a month before the 1981 Knesset elections when Mr...
...But there is a good deal less optimism about the national unity government's greatest challenge--the economy...
...The new government has backed down from the demand for a simultaneous withdrawal of Syrian and Israeli forces, and they now speak more positively about a United Nations role in the area...
...On a "victory march" through the Old City of Jerusalem, Kahane and his followers harassed Arab shopkeepers and shouted "Arabs out of Israel...
...Absolutely the best present you could give a true reader is a gift certificate and the Cahills' taste...
...Peres serves as prime minister and Shamir as vice prime minister and foreign minister for the first cycle, and their roles are reversed for the second...
...A peaceful, sensitive, kind man--"a sweet, lovely rose"--who spent his entire reign somehow in the saddle waging bloody war...
...But only books they like...
...By the end of the second week following the elections, with Kahane capturing world headlines, the economy continuing to deteriorate, Israeli soldiers dying in Lebanon, and still no government, President Herzog asked Shimon Peres--as leader of the party that had gained the most votes--to try and form a government...
...Jerusalem is cautiously optimistic about a speedy withdrawal--and on the need to get out of Lebanon, there seems to...
...The powerful camp of religious voters is splintered and in disarray...
...Why...
...The television ads were the particular bane of the editorialists...
...Arabs have many, many babies...
...Many in the Likud, on the other hand, were not badly disappointed...
...On Lebanon, the agreement states that a "withdrawal from Lebanon, within a short period of time, [is] to be fixed by the government," once security agreements for the north are assured...
...In adopting this American art form," chided the Jerusalem Post, "Israel's If there were an Olympics for politics, Israel would be a safe bet to win the gold...
...Likewise for Churchill (The Last Lion, 1983) in the depths of World War II, as William Manchester proves most brilliantly...
...Extremist groups are staking claims further and further out on the fringes of society...
...Meanwhile, as consultations with the religious parties and negotiations between Labo/ and the Likud continued, Tami leader Aharon Abuhatzeira was being energetically courted by Labor...
...With the talks foundering, national unity seemed far away...
...Although modern Israel is only thirty-six years old, its parliament 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1984 takes its name from the "Knesset HaGedolah," the Great Assembly convened by the Jewish sages Ezra and Nehemiah some 2,500 years ago...
...Silence, by Shusako Endo (1979), is a Japanese ~atholic's recounting of the agonies of the first missionaries...
...Lincoln (Random House, $19.95...
...Peres and Shamir, both facing strong challenges within their own parties and not likely to survive the internal battles which would precede a new election, stopped skirmishing and got down to hard bargaining...
...At present a candidate needs only one percent of the vote (in 1984, about 20,000 votes) to qualify for a Knesset seat...
...Rabbi Kahane's antics and the deadlocked situation brought calls for electoral reform...
...Except Art & Antiques, but it's not a book (even though it's prettier and comes ten times a year and only costs $36...
...A few days later, he pulled a rabbit out of his hat...
...Abuhatzeira's mercy...
...they had feared a major defeat in the first election without the leadership of Menachem Begin...
...On the extreme Left, two parties which receive the tacit backing of the PLO gained six seats in the 120-member unicameral parliament...
...Give them to a favorite friend as a matched set...
...Within two weeks a national unity agreement was hammered out, and a new era in Israeli politics began...
...it needed at least five more to pass the motion, and all Likud coalition members seemed firmly in hand...
...Ezer Weizman's Yahad party was disappointed with only a three-seat win...
...An examination of the six-month electoral wrangle that led to the formation of a national unity government may help explain how all of these strange fellows came to share the same political bed, and may help illustrate the nature and pitfalls of Israeli democracy, the life expectancy of the new government, and the problems Israel faces in the immediate future...
...At the outset of the consultations, the Labor Alignment, with its allies in the Shinui party and the Citizens' Rights Movement, could count on fifty votes...
...On the moderate left, Shinui and the Citizens' Rights Moven~ent each won three seats...
...He urged Mr...
...A democratic "A democratic Jewish state is a contradiction in terms," Kahane said...
...Labor, expecting victory, was stunned by the election results...
...In addition to the rotating deputy prime minister's slot, there are two other vice premiers, David Levy of the Likud and popular former president Yitzhak Navon of Labor, both men rising stars in their respective parties...
...The second, Ben Wattenberg's The Good News is the Bad News is Wrong (Simon and Schuster, $17.95), is Wattenberg's analysis of the statistical data which emerge from the 1980 census...
...Several parties were effectively disqualified from playing a major role in coalitionbuilding right away: the radicals on the left--the Democratic Front and the Progressive List--could be counted on to vote against the Likud, but Labor would not enter into a coalition With them because of their support of the PLO and a Palestinian state on the West Bank.-Rabbi Khomeini--er, Kahane--whose disgusting diatribes have repelled the Israeli public for more than a decade, would certainly vote against Labor, but the Likud refused to let him near their attempts at building a coalition...
...I discovered Dubus and Endo through their quarterly catalogue, as well as some Chandlers I hadn't read...
...Labor thought it would win fifty of its own Knesset seats and be able to form a strong government with the two civil rights groups--the Shinui (Change) party and the Citizens' Rights Movement--and with the possible addition of Ezer Weizman's Yahad party...
...In the public's perception, the economic challenge has not been met with clarity and vigor...
...And perhaps one lesson of democracy is that the few free nations of the world should be allowed a freedom of choice without external pressure, especially in matters central to their security...
...The unity guidelines state that "the socio-economic policy will work to a) reduce the country's economic dependence by reducing the balance of payments deficit, increasing exports, and reducing imports...
...Although the Labor-Likud bloc was more than enough to guarantee a Knesset majority, both major parties wanted the government t o have as broad a base as possible...
...Catalogue, by Tom and Susan Cahill (Cahill & Co., Dobbs Ferry, New York...
...If the economic,situation continues to deteriorate ;and Israel's social fabric-stretched thin at times between JewishArab, Ashkenazi-Sephardi, and religious-secular tensions--begins to rip apart, extremist groups such as Kahane's on the right may increase their strength and bring chaos to the land...
...The prices at the candy shop have gone way too high...
...But when the election results came rolling in late in the night of July 23 it was clear that Mr...
...votes of Abuhatzeira and Hurvitz in pivotal positions, if one of the two main parties were to build a narrowbased coalition majority...
...A week passed with no progress...
...If U.N...
...The Likud won forty-one seats, Labor forty-four...
...For the Likud, the 1984 elections proved there is life after Menachem Begin, who exercised complete control over the Herut party (the main component of the Likud) during its twenty-nine years in the political wilderness ~ and its first six years in power...
...Cabinet portfolios have been divided equally between Labor and Likud supporters, the twenty-fifth post going to the uncommitted Dr...
...But neither of the major parties could tell President Chaim Herzog that they had sixty-one votes...
...Both the Likud and Labor were using highly paid comedians to drive home election points, and the gray eminences at the Post ended the editorial with the hope that, after the election, "the remaining men of reason in our major parties [will] review the practice of reducing the challenges facing our nation to a matter of jingles, powder and make-up...
...Ironically, the issue of budget and subsidy cuts were the factors that precipitated Tami's move to bring down the previous government in March...
...Clearly, there are contradictions here...
...Some ultraOrthodox Jews oppose the state of Israel, which they say cannot be formed until the Messiah comes...
...elections...
...New parties are on the scene, new alliances are forming...
...With Tami, it was thought, perhaps the balance would betipped to Labor and one or more of the religious parties would follow Abuhatzeira into a coalition, putting Labor over tihe top...
...Since government by a herd of twenty-five potential prime ministers might prove nearly impossible, the unity accord provides for an "inner cabinet" of ten top ministers, five from Labor and five from the Likud...
...By the end of the week a Peres-Weizman-Hurvitz agreement was signed...
...The man is an artist and his artistry is i n his punch--and the spiritual force behind it...
...This little girl went on to give a fairly accurate estimate of the chances for a Laborled coalition...
...the Government will work to continue the peace process in keeping with the framework for peace in the Middle East that was agreed upon at Camp David, and to resume negotiations and to give full autonomy to the Arab residents" of the West Bank and Gaza...
...Aharon Abuhatzeira...
...In Jerusalem's religious Bayit Vagan neighborhood, residents protested about the election officials' immodest dress and refused to vote until the officials went home and changed...
...Yet rather quickly it became apparent to Labor and Likud leaders that putting together a narrow-based coalition was not going to be easy...
...By early 1984, Tami strategists estimated that the party's strength would soon begin to decline in the face of stiff anti-inflation measures being pushed by the Likud...
...I'm for Labor," said one precocious eight-year-old...
...Of the sixty-five, twenty-six parties gathered the minimum 2,500 signatures of eligible voters and qualified for the July race...
...Yahad, created a few months before the election, was predicted to make a vei'y good small party showing, with five to seven seats forecasted in the early polls...
...Rabbi Kahane declared that he would turn the Knesset into a stage for his views and "drive the country crazy...
...The Central Election Committee paid the bus and plane fares for people who wanted to travel to their home polling stations, the only place an Israeli civilian is allowed to vote...
...In addition to the Cabinet, the inner cabinet, and the ministerial committees, it is rumored that Prime Minister Peres has revived Golda Meir's practice of holding a "kitchen cabinet" meeting of ideological allies on Saturday nights, prior to the regular Cabinet meeting on Sundays...
...For Labor, 1984 saw the break-up of its historic partnership with the leftwing Mapam party...
...d) change the structure of the economy by enlarging and strengthening the export and productive sectors, and reducing the proportion of public and administrative services...
...On March 22, Mr...
...Everywhere one went, people were arguing the relative merits of this or that party, and its chances for forming a coalition...
...Hamlet...
...Dovish groups countered with a march of their own, handing out leaflets saying that Israel wanted to live in peace with the Arabs...
...This small party shift of positions pushed the Likud back into national unity talks--without Weizman, the Likud had no chance of forming a narrow coalition...
...Believe me, after Seeing or reading it annually and teaching it for several years, I find there is a new nugget each time you experience the work...
...Although the new government is for the moment intact, there is some worried speculation in Jerusalem about U.S...
...How did this odd turn of affairs come about...
...Sixty-five organizations requested application forms to run in the 1984 tons, T-shirts, and paper eyeshades to keep away the blinding summer sun...
...Thus, the national unity government includes Labor, the Likud, Weizman's Yahad party, Yigal Hurvitz, the four religious parties, and Shinui...
...The Histadrut has balked at negotiating a wage and price deal, and Treasury officials are now conceding that inflation will speed up in the coming months...
...Beyond the slogans and ads, not a great deal of practical political distance separated the two major parties...
...But by September l Tami and the religious parties were still sitting on the fence, and time was running but for Mr...
...His novel A Bend in the River (1979) is arguably the best thing ever written about development and underdevelopment, and should be required reading for every employee of the Agency for International Development...
...With the election a few weeks away, 1984 was shaping up as a bread and butter campaign...
Vol. 17 • December 1984 • No. 12
