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Israel's election winners
weren't all top vote-getters
BY IRVING GREENBERG
Special to The Jewish News
Dial Down
with a
•
The Israeli election was a vir-
tual standoff. Within the overall
balance, however, there have
been significant winners and los-
ers.
In the latter category are the
Labor Alignment, Agudath Is-
rael, Ariel Sharon, the Tami
Party and the Moderates.
For the second straight elec-
tion, Labor chose to play it safe. It
opted to keep Shimon Peres as its
number one rather than risk an
internal fight for leadership. Yit-
zhak Navon did get the number
two spot. Navon is Sephardi —
barely —; he is identified with
Ben-Gurion and the old estab-
lishment. Aside from Peres' own
weaknesses as a popular politi-
cian, the list's symbolism was: the
unreconstructed Alignment. This
image summons up Sephardic
voters' cumulative decades-long
resentment and brings them back
to Likud. Nor did Labor offer any
fresh economic initiatives.
After reaching a peak of influ-
ence as swing vote, having stolen
National Religious Party's thun-
der in the religious community,
with unprecedented millions fun-
neled to its institutions, Agudath
Israel's leadership got greedy. Its
Ashkenazic MKs refused to honor
an agreement to rotate out of Par-
liament to make room for Sephar-
dim and new Hasidic representa-
tives. The result was an ugly al-
tercation in which Gerer Hasidim
beat up Agudath's MK,
Menachem Porush and formation
of an Agudah-type Sephardic
party, Guardians of Torah
(Shass).
Had Likud lost, Sharon would
have been a major contender to
pick up the pieces. Now Shamir,
Arens, and David Levy can focus
on blocking Sharon. The cam-
paign revealed widespread disil-
lusion with the Lebanon war's re-
sults. Sharon has been the lightn-
ing rod for those resentments.
Sharon can be used to rally the
faithful but he so angers the oppo-
sition that he cannot be up front in
many areas. Sharon is politically
boxed in.
Meanwhile, the Tami. Party
shrank to one seat. The future of
its primary figure, Aharon Abu
Hatzeira, remains clouded with
his conviction for mishandling
funds. In the absence of sharp pol-
icy distinctions between itself and
Sephardic lists and NRP, the
party appears to have no future.
Among the moderates,
Chadash — the Communist Party
— held its Arab vote and obtained
four seats despite the availability
of Progressive List (integrating
Arabs and Jews) and Yahad and
Labor campaigning for Arab
votes.
Ezer Weizmann's Yahad party
was unable to garner more than
two seats despite Weizmann's
popularity and visibility in Israeli
public life. Not enough voters cast
their ballots to bridge polariza-
tion. Weizmann will have to hang
in there and hope for future ripen-
ing of public opinion.
Meanwhile, election winners
were Alter- right-wing territorial
parties i& religious parties in-
cluding the NRP and Meir
Kahane.
Smaller doctrinnaire parties
committed to holding on to the
West Bank gained in this election.
Lebanon and the absence of peace
initiatives have strengthened the
minorities who are convinced that
holding the land is a religious or
national calling or that you can
never trust the Arabs.
Despite fierce internacine war-
fare in Agudah and the National
Religious Party, the religious vote
itself remains stable. The
breakaways (Morasha from NRP
to fight for territorial annexation;
Shass from Agudah) added to
total religious voting.
NRP was drifting in the wake of
Agudah, religiously, and of the
territorial parties, politically.
Facing possible total breakup,
NRP fought back by reasserting
Kahane's gain is
Israel's loss. Peace
with the Arabs and
justice for minorities
are set back.
its classic and most successful role
as the bridge between labor and
middle class, between secular and
religious, between those who put
land first. NRP did stop the ero-
sion. The big question is: can the
party stick to its renewed tone of
moderation?
Meir Kahane has had a particu-
lar attraction for those alienated,
with less democratic values (com-
parable to George Wallace's ap-
peal to rednecks and hardhats in
the 1960s). He gains support from
Russian olim who credit JDL with
opening up the Russian Jewry
issue and who find his nationalist,
religious, and hardline anti-
Communist line appealing. The
removal of Menachem Begin's
competing but more responsible
appeal freed up enough voters to
get Kahane the one percent of the
total national vote which is the
minimum to get a seat. This will
give him a financial base, and re-
spectability which has eluded him
for the past decade.
Kahane's gain is Israel's loss.
Peace with the Arabs and justice
for minorities are set back.
Kahane, with his incitement to
violence and calls to expel the
Arabs, received 20,000 votes in all
of Israel. Were he running in elec-
toral districts American style, he
could win nowhere. But in Israel's
national proportional representa-
tion system, he gets a seat and a
platform. Kahane will furnish
wonderful copy for all the Arab
propagandists and Israel-haters
as well as give the color of legiti-
macy to the charge that Israel is
turning chauvinist, fascist, etc.
Consider Kahane's seat the price
of being a democracy; but the cost
in public relations will be as-
tronomical.
In general, the election results
will yield a black eye for Israel in
public relations. The conven-
tional wisdom made Likud the
source of all the expansionism and
Labor the fount of liberalism,
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socialism, and modesty in foreign
policy. In short, Labor is por-
trayed as Abba Eban — a gross
simplification and exaggeration.
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American Jews will have to
stay alert to challenge the carica-
tures; the truth is in the nuances.
Hopefully, the bedrock of Ameri-
can support will withstand these
new pressures as well. With
Ronald Reagan's popularity still
strong, American conservatives
and hardliners may even find
Likud more appealing.
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This is a transition election. A
national unity government is a
distinct possibility. The long-term
- indexes of inter-communal rela-
tions continue to improve -- al-
though not enough to have
changed the outcome of this elec-
tion. American Jews need not
agree with all Likud policies but
they should learn to appreciate
Likud's role as the expression of
the poor and neglected coming to
power.
Copyright 1984, the National Jewish
Resource Center.
NEWS
NBA teams beaten
by Israeli champs
in exhibition
Tel Aviv (JTA) — For the sec-
ond time in a decade, Maccabi Tel
Aviv's basketball club defeated
two National Basketball Associa-
tion (NBA) teams in a four-team
tournament.
In the final contest, the locals
romped over the Phoenix Suns
113-98. Maccabi Tel Aviv beat the
New Jersey Nets in the tourney
opener, 104-97.
Tel Aviv Hapoel lost both its
contests to the American squads
in the two-day affair witnessed by
a total of 14,000 Israeli basketball
fans.
In the mid-1970s, the year the
Washington Bullets captured the
NBA title, they too visited Israel
for a series of contests against the
Maccabi team and lost one game
against the perennial Israeli Na-
tional League champions.
Brought here by Sport Tours In-
ternational, the Suns were odds-
on favorites to win the four-club
tourney held to commemorate the
75th anniversary of the founding
of Tel Aviv.
Begin hospitalized
Jerusalem (JTA) — Former
Premier Menachem Begin was
admitted to the Shaare Zedek
Hospital in Jerusalem, suffering
from what was described by the
hospital as a urological problem.
Begin, 71, was undergoing tests
and was reported as being in
satisfctory condition, feeling com-
fortable and reading newspapers.
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