This Wee
.01 . 1 47,'S
Conscience Of The Left
Deal to give money to Shas leaves Meretz Par
twisting in the winds of peace.
RNS photo by Joanna Pinnco
LARRY DERFNER
Special to the Jewish News
Jerusalem
sa Kasher, a professor of ethics at Tel Aviv
University and one of the leading thinkers
on the Israeli left, called it a "true dilem-
ma."
"On the one hand, there has to be as much sup-
port for the peace process as possible. On the other
hand, this violation of the basic standards of good
government is hard to accept. Therefore, Meretz has
good reasons to say, 'Stop, we want to get off"'
Kasher was talking about the moral predicament
in which Meretz, the flagship political party of the
secular left, now finds itself. Meretz has pledged to
quit the government if Prime Minister Ehud Barak
goes ahead with his apparent intention to give an
additional $2.5-12.5 million — estimates vary — to
the debt-and-corruption ridden school system run
by Shas, the powerful Sephardi Orthodox party.
Shas and Meretz are the uneasiest of partners in
Barak's ruling coalition.
If Barak hands over the money and Meretz makes
good on its vow, it will surrender three cabinet posts
— which also means three cabinet votes for the
peace process — including the influential Education
Ministry. As a result, Shas would be enormously
strengthened in the government.
Likud, which opposes all of Barak's peace moves,
might well be brought in to take Meretz's place. The
center of gravity in this "peace government" would
shift to the religious right.
Yet the reward for quitting is that Meretz, which
prides itself on integrity, would spare itself getting mixed
up in what the party — as well as the chief accountants
of the finance and education ministries — consider a
patently illegitimate deal with Shas. And Yossi Sarid, the
Meretz leader and minister of education, could still, as
he has said, "look at myself in the mirror."
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The shoe is expected to drop any day. Barak, whose
officials defend the legitimacy of the plan, is waiting to
hear from Shas if it will back him in the peace process,
especially in his current plan to transfer three Palestinian
villages near Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat's rule.
In the meantime, Barak hasn't made up his mind
whether to give Shas the money, said a prime minis-
terial spokesman. However, all indications are that if
he has to choose between keeping Shas, which holds
17 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or keeping
Meretz, which has 10 seats, he will pick the former.
Among Meretz officials, the party line is that their
decision is final. All 10 Knesset members support it.
Among Meretz members, though, and among
some of the party's most prominent supporters,
"Shas will know that all it has to do is hold out
for its demands, and the left will quit the govern-
ment," said Weintraub. "I'm afraid that other [anti-
left] parties will take Shas' cue."
Sharon Kramer, a special education student, made
a similar point. "By quitting, Meretz will be march-
ing to Shas' tune," she noted.
The college's head of instruction is Dr. Nimrod
Aloni, a Meretz supporter and son of Meretz matri-
arch Shulamit Aloni. His movement, Hama
(Network for the Advancement of Humanistic
Education in Israel), has been repeatedly endorsed by
Sarid, and this has made it much easier for Hama to
get its programs into the schools.
As minister of education, Aloni continued, Sarid
has upgraded the teaching of science, democracy and
pluralistic Judaism; poured funds into the long-
neglected schools attended by Israeli Arabs and poor
Jews in the country's periphery; broken taboos by
exposing pupils to Palestinian nationalist literature;
and gone a considerable way towards curbing the
waste and corruption in the Shas schools.
Nevertheless, Aloni said that if the deal with Shas
goes through as it's now being presented, he would
want Meretz to give up the Education Ministry and
quit the government.
Aloni made another key point — that accommodat-
ing Shas will not be a one-time affair. "With Shas, the
demands for concessions never end," he noted.
Faked Crisis?
Young boy studies at an Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem.
there is considerable opposition.
This is, after all, a dilemma that pits Meretz's
integrity against its power to move Israel towards
peace and liberalism, both of which are of the
utmost importance to the party. faithful.
Consequently, the left is split.
Kasher said that on balance, he endorsed Meretz's
position, but with a proviso: "They would first have
to convince me that they could remain an effective
force for peace outside the government."
Meretz says it will vote for peace in the Knesset
even if it leaves the government, but since no bill
can get to the Knesset before winning a majority in
the cabinet, the loss of Meretz's three cabinet votes
would make it much harder for Barak to push the
peace process forward.
Meretz's hardline stance recalls last year's coalition
negotiations, when Sarid made his abortive "read
my lips" pledge not to sit in the same government
with Shas.
Then, after Barak clipped Shas' wings somewhat in
the coalition agreement, and after it became clear that
the only alternative to Shas was Likud, with hawkish
Likud leader Ariel Sharon holding a veto over the peace
process, Sarid changed his mind and signed up.
Noted novelist Sami Michael, an honorary mem-
ber of Meretz's Central Committee, took a cynical
view of the party leadership's current ultimatum.
He said he's "100 percent convinced" that Sarid
and his lieutenants invented this whole crisis, with-
out having any intention of making good on their
threat to quit, for the sole purpose of fending off the
competition of Tommy Lapid's outspokenly secular
Shinui party. Lapid, who refused to join the coalition
because of Shas' inclusion, constantly accuses Meretz
of selling out to the Sephardi Orthodox party.
Lapid, however, took the Meretz threat seriously,
and even urged his rivals to follow through on it. "I'll
be happy if Meretz quits the government. I'll even con-
gratulate them — although I'll also tell them, 'I told
you so,' even if this is not such a nice thing to say."
Any decision by the Meretz leadership to quit the
government would first have to be approved by the
party council, which numbers nearly 1,000 members.
Said and his lieutenants would probably get their
way in the council, but probably not without a little
war or two on the convention floor.
The hope on the left is that disaster can be avert-
ed — that an "honorable compromise," as Nimrod
Aloni put it, will be found that allows Meretz to
hold onto power. ❑
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Grass-Roots Wilt
As much as any other corner of Israel, the Kibbutzim
College of Education in liberal, wealthy north Tel
Aviv is the Meretz "street." One afternoon this week,
the modern-looking campus' lawns and pathways
were filled with talkative students on lunch break.
Eran Weintraub, a physical education student,
said that while he appreciated Meretz's effort to
stand by its promise not to tolerate any Shas
shenanigans, he feared that leaving the government
would create a dangerous precedent.