The Backdrop to Israel's Elections

...But the Chairman of the Legislative Committee—also a Likud stalwart—used an obscure procedural technicality to withdraw the amendment from the floor before the vote...

...It has gotten to a point where young people from poor families, especially Sephardim and Arabs, have to drop out of university because they cannot afford to attend," the chairman of the Student Union at Hebrew University in Jerusalem recently complained...

...Explains Hebrew University political scientist Yitzchak Galnoor: "The delegitimization is due to the peace process, in which government leaders charge the opposition with joining the enemy camp...

...The Attorney General refused to defend actions by the Ministry of Housing...

...Not surprisingly, in the past five years alone the number of yeshiva students has shot up 65 per cent, while enrollment at universities has risen only 12 per cent...

...Commented Ha'aretz, Israel's leading daily, recently: "Israel is the only country that invests enormous human and financial resources to create artificial conditions for endless demographic conflicts in the future...

...Simultaneously, Likud launched an unprecedented campaign to delegitimize the opposition...

...How long it will continue to do so may—or may not—be decided on June 23...

...The first clash between the Knesset and the Supreme Court occurred in mid-December, after Attorney General Joseph Harish ruled that allocations of "special funds" to the several small ultra-Orthodox parties on whom Shamir's majority depended were illegal...

...There is no denying, though, that the Six Day War fired a desire to reclaim "the complete land of Israel...

...When the tape recording of the roll call was checked, it was found that an ultra-Orthodox member's vote against had been counted twice, so there actually was a majority of one in favor...

...In the past, the government tried to convince the public that it could pursue its agenda without losing America's political and financial support...

...After 36 hours of widespread condemnations and threats to go to the Supreme Court for the fourth time in a fortnight, the Speaker finally agreed to correct the tally...

...The decision came at a time when the disgust of most Israelis with the political blackmail of the ultra-Orthodox had reached new heights...

...The Mayor of Jerusalem felt compelled to join demonstrations against government-supported Jewish fanatics taking over houses in Arab neighborhoods...

...In either case, the costs to Israel in internal political conflict, economic waste and loss of international prestige are escalating...

...It would end the practice of accepting the leader of the strongest Knesset faction as the Prime Minister-designate...

...Again, the opposition appealed to the Supreme Court...

...The former chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee (whose replacement by an extreme Orthodox representative was, incidentally, one of the conditions accepted by Likud in exchange for his party's backing) Eliahu Salpeter, a regutar NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...The Supreme Court had to order the Speaker of the Knesset, a Likud faithful, to keep his word to the opposition...

...Former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, for example, rates higher in opinion polls than Shamir, Foreign Minister David Levi or Defense Minister Moshe Arens...

...During the subsequent balloting, the Speaker declared that a voice vote on a crucial paragraph had produced an even division, and a majority was necessary...

...In a precedent-setting decision, however, the Supreme Court ruled that although it could not tell the Knesset what or how to legislate, it could oblige the Knesset and its Speaker to keep a promise made to the Court, just as it could so oblige ordinary citizens...

...Today, it is trying to convince Israel that amid growing Right-wing violence at home and hostility abroad, the country can prosper and absorb hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants without the hoped-for $ 10 billion loan guarantee from Washington...

...They have already forced the government to impose additional public transportation and public entertainment restrictions on the Sabbath...

...Labor figured that it could offer more attractive candidates than Likud...

...When a filibuster to prevent adoption of the amendment prompted the opposition to appeal to the Supreme Court, Knesset Speaker Dov Shilansky told the Court the required vote would be taken...

...Then, in the late 1970s and early '80s, they discovered that participating in politics on the nationalist side quite literally pays...

...Nevertheless, the bill was ultimately sent back to committee and is not expected to emerge before the national elections...

...That sent the opposition back to the Court, where the government contended that any ruling by the judiciary would be a violation of the separation of powers...

...What angers so many Israelis about the disproportionate clout of the ultra-Orthodox is that traditionally they have been non-Zionist or even anti-Zionist...

...In time Shamir, who had publicly praised the electoral change, became convinced that it would lead to Likud's defeat...

...unemployment is growing...

...This put Likud members in a very awkward position, yet almost all of them followed their leader's switch and began a range of maneuvers to prevent the bill's adoption...

...The moderate National Religious Party (NRP) joined the Labor-led opposition in sponsoring an amendment to alter the 1992 budget bill accordingly...

...by journalists.' Shamir's notorious indifference to unpleasant facts—hailed by his supporters as a "refusal to be diverted from his goals"—has become more pronounced lately...

...They tended to be dovish on security matters and largely disdained any involvement in secular affairs...

...Under Israel's proportional representation electoral system, no single party has ever obtained a Knesset majority...

...After 1967, the young generation of the NRP moved to the Right on national and territorial issues...

...Initially, support for the measure cut across party lines, although most members of the small parties understandably opposed it, while most members of the two big parties approved of it...

...Likud figured that the party's popularity would ensure victory for its standard bearer, who would then have a much firmer hold on power...

...Security considerations have become subordinate to ideological fixations...

...In appraising his determination to "prevent the loss of Judea, Samaria and Gaza," it is irrelevant whether Likud is holding on to power to expand the settlements, or the settlement drive is being used by Likud to stay in power...

...Following up on a virulent diatribe by Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Shamir told the party Central Committee: "Our 'peace fighters' do not cease cooperating with the Arabs...

...But it is the financial extortion that has become the last straw...

...Resentment of the growing Orthodox ability to exploit the Labor-Likud competition strengthened the attractiveness of another hotly debated new bill...

...More irritatingly, they have been grossly misusing the deferment of their rabbinical students from military service, so that the number benefiting has grown from several hundred to over 20,000...

...When Menachem Begin came to power, the NRP switched its alliance from Labor to his Herat Party (and later Likud...

...has published figures showing that the government spends over three times more on aid to a rabbinical student than to a humanities student at a university...

...the growing gap between imports and exports is being neglected...

...Now they insist that all hotels serve only kosher food, and pay for having religious supervisors on the premises...

...The proposed bill also would not require Parliamentary approval of the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister could not be deposed by less than 60 per cent of the MPs...

...A LOW POINT IN PUBLIC ETHICS The Backdrop to Israel's Elections BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv In the month before two tiny far Right parties unhappy with the Mideast peace process quit Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir's Likud coalition, and thus precipitated the elections now scheduled to be held June 23, public ethics in Israel reached alow point...

...new housing and infrastructure in pre-1967 Israel are being cut back in favor of construction in the West Bank and Gaza...

...His colleague Ehud Sprinzak adds: "The people about whom I worry most are those on the margin of society, perhaps a loner, who interprets on his own what 'people from above' are saying—like the attacker who threw a live hand grenade at a Peace Now rally several years ago.' But when Prime Minister Shamir was interviewed about the depths to which both the political debate and the legislative process have sunk, he replied blandly, "All these things [shown live on national television] are only gossip spread...

...Prior to that victory, the strongly Zionist, moderate NRP saw eye-to-eye with the Labor Party on political matters and was its solid coalition partner...

...They cooperate with the most radical of our enemies who scheme to steal Jerusalem from us, who approve of terror against Israel...

...Taxpayers' money was being openly spent in a vain effort to assure the continued support of the minor coalition partners...

...Instead, the post would be filled by direct popular election, eliminating the problem of the head of government being at the mercy of the minor parties...