The success or failure of Shimon Peres’ efforts to form a Labor-led coalition government may be determined long before his 21-day mandate expires, by the speech an aged rabbi from Bnei Brak will deliver at a political rally in Tel Aviv on Monday night.
Rabbi Eliezer Schach, founder and spiritual guide of the ultra-Orthodox, non-Hasidic Degel HaTorah (Torah Flag) Party, will address some 10,000 delegates at its first national convention, to be held in a local basketball arena.
His speech, which the Lithuanian-born rabbi will deliver in Yiddish, could signal Degel’s continued backing of the hard-line Likud party headed by interim Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Or it could lean toward Labor, giving Peres the slim margin he needs to establish a narrowly based coalition partnership of the ultra-Orthodox or "haredi" parties with the vigorously secular left-wing factions.
Degel controls only two of the Knesset’s 120 seats. But a change of its support from Likud to Labor is all Peres needs to tip the parliamentary balance, which is now divided 60-60 between the two major parties.
The direction in which Schach steers Degel HaTorah is also bound to influence the rest of the haredi bloc, notably Shas, which currently holds five Knesset seats.
Shas was also founded by Schach, differing from Degel in that its constituency is largely Sephardic, while the smaller party is an enclave of Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern European origin.
While Shas advised President Chaim Herzog to assign Likud the task of forming the next government, it is split and looks for guidance to another spiritual mentor, Israel’s former Sephardic chief rabbi, Ovadia Yosef.
Yosef has made clear his preference for the flexible peace policies of the Labor Party. He is, in fact, credited with toppling the Shamir government, of which Shas was a part, by ordering its Knesset members to abstain from the crucial vote on a Labor no-confidence motion on March 15.
The issue was Shamir’s rigid refusal to accept U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s formula for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
The 70-year-old Yosef, and Schach, whose age has been variously reported from 92 to 96, are both religious pacifists. Their beliefs stem from the halachic injunction that saving lives is paramount.
The two rabbis are prepared, therefore, to trade territory for peace, which is in line with Labor’s policy but not Likud’s.
Schach, however, refused to support Peres for the office of prime minister, and his position is uncertain.
While the Israeli and world news media prepared to cover Schach’s speech, the venerable rabbi, who heads the Ponevezh Yeshiva, was literally besieged over the weekend by delegations from Likud and Labor, who hoped to win his favor.
Some haredi insiders said that if Schach delivers a tough anti-Labor speech, it could boomerang to split Shas. Such a rupture seems to rest on Rabbi Yosef who, it is said, does not want to break with the older sage but will not back away from his position on peace talks.
Labor, meanwhile, continued its negotiations on Sunday with another Orthodox party, Agudat Yisrael, with no appreciable progress reported. The Agudah is furious with Shamir for allegedly reneging on promises he made to induce them into his coalition in December 1988.
Its Council of Sages voted 6-2 in favor of Labor and instructed its politicians to advise Herzog to nominate Peres. But there are hardliners in the party who do not subscribe to the land-for-peace formula.
Labor is trying to entice the Agudah with promises of an additional $100 million for its religious school system.
Likud is fighting back. Local newspapers reported Sunday that Herut hawk Ariel Sharon flew to New York to try to persuade the Lubavitcher rebbe to intervene with Agudah on behalf of Likud.
The Lubavitch Hasidim have increasingly wielded power in the Agudat Yisrael party — one reason why the disciples of Rabbi Schach broke away to form Degel HaTorah just before the last elections. A Chabad spokesman in Israel insisted that the Brooklyn-based rebbe is determined not to intervene.
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