There is a widespread sentiment in the Likud party that history is passing it by.
The feeling certainly crested last week, when the speaker of the Knesset announced the opposition’s defeat in the momentous vote over the government’s landmark peace accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Even before that vote was taken, Likud politicians were calling for the creation of a national unity government with the Labor Party. Those making the appeal doubtless felt it was high time their party came in from the cold.
A feeling of irrelevance has been afflicting Likud politicians both within the Knesset and in key municipal positions.
“The people want peace,” says Giora Lev, the popular mayor of Petach Tikvah. Likud should not be drawn to the extreme right, he says, but must instead be seen in the popular mind as a centrist party.
For Lev, as for another leading Likud mayor, Eli Landau of Herzliya, the party’s alliance with more ideologically rightist factions, such as the National Religious Party and Moledet, has dulled its leaders sense of the public mood.
“You are out of touch,” Knesset member Meir Sheetrit declared last weekend, embracing the entire party leadership in his accusation.
Opinion polls commissioned by the major Israeli newspapers continue to bear out this assessment, showing a solid public majority behind the dramatic peace deal.
An alliance with Labor in a national unity government would, in the view of its advocates, serve to rein in what they regard as the Labor Party’s more exuberant excesses in future peace negotiations.
It would also serve to establish Likud’s image as a middle-of-the-road political movement — and hence as a realistic threat to Labor in the next elections.
In the short term, however, these calls for a unity government are a truer reflection of the internal condition of Likud than they are of practical political reality.
CHALLENGES TO NETANYAHU’S LEADERSHIP
Political pundits here are unanimous in their view that the prospect of the Labor Party opening the Cabinet ranks to include Likud members is negligible at this time. Labor, after all, is still basking in the afterglow of the historic accord signed in Washington and its Knesset victory.
The prospect of a unity government might brighten, however, if Labor fails to reconstitute its presently suspended alliance with the fervently Orthodox Shas party.
Likud, meanwhile, is currently in a state of nearly complete disarray. Benjamin Netanyahu, the party’s recently elected leader, has never been as popular within his party — or indeed within Israel as a whole — as he is among American Jews.
His rivals include not only Ariel Sharon and David Levy, who feel they were passed over for the party’s leadership, but also the second-generation Likud “princes,” like Ze’ev “Benny” Begin, Uzi Landau and Dan Meridor. They all continue to speak disparagingly of Netanyahu’s abilities.
Nothing hurts a politician, of course, more than failure; and Likud’s failure to hold even its own ranks together in the Knesset vote has rankled members within the party.
For this, Netanyahu is responsible, at least in the minds of his many rivals and critics.
Sharon, never one to mince words, has already spoken out in favor of a “collective leadership of experienced men” instead of Netanyahu’s one-man rule. Murmurings against the party leader can be heard from others as well.
In part, the calls for a unity government, along with the charge that the party is out of touch with its own constituency, reflect the general mood of dissatisfaction with Netanyahu.
All this naturally enhances the feeling of collective well-being currently coursing through the Labor Party and its left-wing partner, the Meretz bloc. Voices there can already be heard talking of a new 30-year hegemony of the left.
‘DERI AFFAIR’ STILL A SORE POINT
But Labor’s exultation may yet be short-lived if current difficulties surrounding the Shas party prevent its members form remaining in the governing coalition after Sukkot.
The so-called “Deri Affair,” in which party leader Aryeh Deri faces fraud and bribery charges, took a new turn this week, with Deri’s aides releasing tape recordings in which his police interrogators are heard making derogatory remarks against his wife, Yaffa.
The police officers, who obviously forgot their tape recorder was running, referred to her Moroccan origins in a way that could be construed as racist — giving the ousted interior minister new grounds for his long-standing accusation that the investigation against him is tainted with anti-Sephardic and anti-religious bias.
Shas declared midweek that it would make its participation in the Labor coalition conditional upon the appointment of an official commission of inquiry to look into these charges.
An inquiry could well clash head-on with the ongoing judicial process against Deri.
The Knesset is due to vote on the removal of Deri’s parliamentary immunity in October, after which a trial date will be set. If the Shas demand for an inquiry gathers steam, the trial could be deferred indefinitely.
At any rate, this new complication could upset Yitzhak Rabin’s many plans to reconstitute his government. The coalition broke apart after Deri stepped down from his post, along with Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Raphael Pinhasi, who is also accused of financial misconduct.
Small as these matters may seem in the shadow of the historic developments that Israel is currently going through, they may yet cast an ominous shadow on Rabin’s ability to navigate his ship of state through the coming months of stormy diplomatic negotiations toward peace.
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